Sango Fighter (1993): Taiwan’s Free Take on the Street Fighter Formula
The early ’90s fighting game boom was overwhelmingly a Japanese and American conversation. Sango Fighter is a reminder that other […]
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Scorched Earth (1991): The Free Shareware Artillery Game That Started It All
If you’ve ever played Worms, or one of the hundred browser-based tank artillery clones that followed it, you’ve already played
ZZT (1991): The Free Game That Turned Players Into Developers
Ask where Epic Games really began and most people will point to Unreal or Gears of War. The honest answer
Kingdom of Kroz (1987): The Free ASCII Dungeon That Built Apogee
Long before Apogee’s name was synonymous with Duke Nukem and Commander Keen, the company was a scrappy shareware outfit selling
Ken’s Labyrinth (1993): The Free FPS That Came Before the Build Engine
Every genre has a footnote game that history remembers mainly for who made it rather than what it was. Ken’s
God of Thunder (1993): Thor’s Puzzle-Box Norse Adventure
By 1993 the DOS action shelf was packed with corridors full of imps and Nazis to shoot, so a Norse-mythology
Prehistorik 2 (1993): A Caveman Platformer That Doesn’t Want to Hurt You
Not every DOS platformer needs to be Rayman-level brutal to be worth remembering. Prehistorik 2, Titus Interactive’s 1993 sequel to
Mortal Kombat 3 (1995) on DOS: The Arcade Brawler Comes Home
By 1995, Mortal Kombat wasn’t just a game anymore, it was a cultural flashpoint — famous as much for its
Earthworm Jim (1995): Shiny Entertainment’s Case for Weird Platformers
An ordinary earthworm named Jim finds a super-powered robotic suit and ends up fighting bizarre villains across an equally bizarre
Disney’s Aladdin (1994) for DOS: A Licensed Platformer That Actually Delivered
Movie tie-in games earned their bad reputation honestly in the early ’90s, which makes it worth pointing out when one
The Lion King (1994): The Disney Platformer With That Stampede Level
Say “The Lion King video game” to anyone who owned a DOS machine in the mid-90s and there’s a decent
Grand Prix 2 (1995): Geoff Crammond’s Formula One Sim Gets Serious
Geoff Crammond had already proven he could make a convincing Formula One simulation with 1991’s Formula One Grand Prix. Four