My 10 Favourite DOS Games of 1996

I love these videos, but this comment is more of a warning.
My PC is by no means the best, but it is only a year old, Stormforce Onyx i5 4069Ti 16GB 1TB.
Everything i throw at it, it plays like a dream... Tarkov, Incursion Red River, the new Delta Force, BF 20242, Starfield.... You name it, runs fine.
All my drivers are updated, everything is how it should be.
But i must have purchased 20 games in total, from Steam and GOG, old games that this channel recommends, and about 3 work.
The rest either crash on start up, need programs too run, which when you download, still makes no difference and the games won't start.
I looked on FB and Reddit and the sheer number of people that can't play these older games on newer hardware is staggering.
Why do Steam and GOG still sell these OLD games, when so many people with newer PC's have no chance of playing them.
Such a shame as these games look fantastic.

Great video sir.

back then I thought too that my favourite FPS is Duke Nukem 3D, but now I play Doom and it's mods. Doom has stood the test of time and Duke Nukem is just a nostalgia

HoMM2 is the prettiest episode of the old entries of the series. It's got beautiful pixel art unlike 3 & 4 that uses pre-renders graphics and 5's rudimentary 3D.

Oh boy, we played all of those to death. Heroes of Might and Magic III was the more popular around me, but we always played II back in the day. And Need for Speed beat Screamer 2 eventually.

Even Settlers 1 had hotseat multiplayer, it was quite the revelation. It was much easier to have multiple mice in DOS than on Windows. I remember we never quite figured out how the combat is designed to work as kids; we just built our little kingdoms (note, they were only Medieval-ish in Settlers 1; in 2, they were Romans) and eventually got crushed by the AI. For some reason, we never quite put together that your military strength comes from having a strong military industry . And that was at a time when we were able to actually win UFO: Enemy Unknown! :D

Duke Nukem 3D was the first game we bought on a CD, and ridiculously expensive at that - in today's money, it'd be about $200-300 (post-communist country, yay). Most of the games we played back then were either demos or pirated (we didn't even know that's what was going on, mind - it never felt weird that the same floppy had games from 5 different developers and publishers because we never even saw a non-pirated game :D ). And it was a great game, but what really got me hooked was the fact that it was made to be expanded, with all the engine tools and documentation included (thanks, Ken Silverman! You're the best.). I spent hundreds of hours making new art, levels (especially quirky ones exploiting the incredible flexibility of the engine) and working with the rather limited "scripting" system, despite the fact that the game itself did not have documentation, so figuring out things like how to make a door was an exercise in reverse engineering. I even made my own level compiler to make levels that the engine could handle, but the level editor couldn't.

Another of my favourites from 1996 was Archimedean Dynasty (Schleichfahrt), an absolute pearl from Blue Byte. The feeling and immersion in the game was amazing, and I always had a soft spot for games where you can customize your equipment :P

Jagged Alliance scratched the same itch, while also feeling very much like X-COM - awesome. My only problem with it was that the strategic layer was less involved than X-COM's. I always loved management games.

Tomb Raider was so very different from anything else we played. It was one of the early games where you could really feel the 3D actually added to the gameplay, and it was nice that while combat was there, it wasn't really the focus. It was the first 3D platformer that really felt like an upgrade over 2D.

And instead of soccer manager, I'd pick a formula 1 management game myself. It had all the tiny details of a complex management simulation, and I was a lot more interested in technology than in soccer.

The first Quake never quite got to me. It was such an unfinished game, more like a tech demo than a game. Mind, we were still enamoured with the tech (despite the ugly brown art style, and the general "gothic" style we really didn't care about) and played quite a bit, but... It wasn't until Quake 3 that we really got into it (and that took a while - Unreal and Unreal Tournament got our grabbed while we didn't even have the computers to run Quake 3 :D ). Both Doom and Duke Nukem 3D were much better games... and while Quake was technically much more extensible than Duke Nukem, with its full-blown C-style scripting, it was ultimately quite ugly and unfriendly. I loved Duke's hand-designed portals and sectors too; making games for Duke felt a lot more like doing art than Quake did. I wouldn't really get into "true 3D" map editing until the amazing System Shock 2. Thankfully, Quake's modding community really exploded and brought us actual good games on the engine :D And Half-Life, which also inherited its modding potential, of course.

Oh, Elder Scrolls. I loved Bethesda's ambitions back in the day, and could easily excuse the issues because they tried at something really big and crazy. I remember playing Arena and really struggling to get out of the starting "dungeon"... and then getting killed in the first inn (without saving, gah) because I had my sword out, and turns out people don't like when you point a sword at them! Other games didn't prepare me for that :P Terminator was also great, especially with multiplayer.

Death Rally was a great pick up game for a quick game now and then. And of course, it had upgrading, so that's always a plus :P And now that made me think of Quarantine...

Oh yes! 1996... What a good year was! Lots of good games in `96. For me the #1 games was Red Alert and Warcraft II maybe. And what a good and interesting years come after.

Heroes of Might and Magic II was the first game in the series I finished a campagin in. I was a longtime fan of the core Might and Magic series and my first girlfriend bought me Heroes I as a birthday present shortly before dumping me via answering machine while I was out of state for my grandfather's funeral. I didn't play Heroes I on PC again for more then twenty years.

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games was my introduction to one of my favorite game franchises and I'm still annoyed how many of my favorite characters got killed off or kicked out of AIM (The Merc Recruiting agency you use) between Deadly Games and 2. I used to set the procedurally generated missions mode to an endless campagin and I'm sure some of those campaigns ran well past the hunderd missions mark.

And your list includes two of my favorite 90s FPS games with two of my favorite 90s FPS starting weapons. Duke Nukem 3D has my favorite 90s FPS Pistol while Quake I has my favorite 90s FPS starting gun

really like the cartoon like graphics of homm 2, never seen it being played before. Might buy it if I see it cheap on gog. Never really got into homm 3 no matter what ppl say just can't handle the graphics. Didn't pc game between 1999 and 2004 and by the time I checked out homm 3 graphics were dated

It seems we have the similar tast by gaming. As always great video! Greetings from Austria 🇦🇹

Screamer 2 was good looking and fast paced game for back in the day

96,97 was amazing but 98 was GOD TEIR ONCE IN A LIFETIME FOR GAMERS.FROM HALF-LIFE UNREAL TOURNAMENT,TO METAL GEAR SOLID,FF7,OCARINA OF TIME JUST TO NAME A FEW FROM VARIOUS CONSOLES AND PC

I was 12 when duke 3d came out and as a preteen hormones starting to rage,i enjoyed way more than i should have only game i enjoyed playing one handed lol

Also tomb raider fans should try openlara a source port its better than the remaster imo you can first person and for some reason the remaster has no audio for me Ive tried everything to fix it and its the only game that has the issue even the patches didnt fix it.

ohhh what a year, remember playing Heroes 2 against 5 of my friends on my pc. Every day for months .... what a addictive game :)))

Ah, Settlers II. A great shame it didn't reach the Amiga...

I remember putting in hundreds of hours on heroes of might and magic 2. Taking turns with my family on the computer having them leave the room so they could do their turn And then share a seat when you battle each other. It was the best

Good video. I liked it.

Duke nukem 3d is definitely my favorite game of 1996. I played that game to death, then made a lot of levels, then started on the mods.

I still play it today, but not as much as I did in 1996.

What a great video, thank you for making it!

DEATH RALLY 💪🏿

Czy pamiętasz specyfikację Twojego pierwszego PC?

Awesome video once again! I love hearing the stories. :) Of course there's a bacon like in there. 🥓 Expect it for all the videos in the series. :)
I'm sure glad my pants aren't on fire. I did play some Heroes back in the day and in the recent years too. :) I must get that Gyros map for all those thousands of troops. :D
And Duke Nukem is a great game for me because it has personality and humour. :) I didn't play it back then though. I didn't feel like I was teenage boy enough. XD You do a good Duke voice. :D
I can totally relate to playing a game even with low graphics and still enjoying it a lot. I still play almost everything in windowed mode. Although I up the resolution to 640*480 in DOSBox by default. :D

1992 to 1998 was the best gaming period ever. Starting with Dune 2 and Wolfenstein, and ending with Half Life and Starcraft. Sure there have been absolute classics before and after that but man, it was a wild time!

Screamer 2 looks like Sega Rally...

Oh yes, Death Rally was the game every Finn had to have in their computer, or they were concidered Russian. Two years later it was Max Payne by the same company,

Heroes ! Now that was a game

Great year in live and in Gaming

Friends ? Who am I kidding it just me and my cat here “ 😂

Loved that one

Duke Nukem 3D definitley of it's time but great fun. Still play this occasionally

At least you have a friend in a cat

My last cat died in my bed in a horrible way hartattack

Still can not get a New
Stil have bad dreams about the cat

Loved the cat

"100 genies perish." lol

I hoped you mention something about Tomb raider controls. Most dated thing here

Here is my list:
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Death Rally
Descent 2
Duke Nukem 3D
Earthworm Jim 2
Quake
Stargunner
Super Street Fighter 2
The Settlers II
Tomb Raider

Lots of two's in my list.

Screamer 2 was incredible. The first Screamer was very impressive considering it looked like an Arcade title with it's art direction and sheer speed - but it ran terribly on anything but a top end rig (especially in SVGA mode but hey at least it had support for VESA modes...) and it was a little glitchy. But the second game was AMAZING. Milestone were super talented ... Screamer 2 put SEGA Rally and other console / arcade racers TO SHAME! The 3D Accelerated versions were supersonic but even the original software EXE's were jaw dropping, and that soundtrack .... wow.

Screamer 2 was the only racer game I took seriously. My friend back then was a more talented gamer than I was (outside of FPS games) and dominated me on everything every weekend when I took my PC to his parents house to serial link. Big Red Racing, Fatal Racing, you name it he whooped me on it. But I loved S2 so much I bought a copy and played the crap out it - even more than I played GP500 a few years later. And I could CRUSH Kristian on Screamer 2! He eventually stopped playing me cos it made him so angry! XD

Carmageddon was another legendary game from 1996. The demo that came on the cover CD of PC Zone was insane - nobody saw that coming. The blood, the carnage, the physics, the open world, the Fear Factory soundtrack! It was superbly ambitious. PC Zone also released the "Blood Patch" on their Cover CD after Carmageddon was censored in Europe (green blood and zombies) - which they recieved a pretty hefty fine for! But I salute them for doing it. I remember having my friends Dad (who owned and ran a signwriting company) apply Carmageddon + Fear Factory decals to my skateboards back then.

Screamer Rally was also brilliant - just more of the same a slight visual upgrade from Screamer 2. I had a VooDoo 2 card by then and my Playstation owning friends would come over and see me playing SRally on my 19" Samsung Dynaflat and just be like "How is that possible? Looks better than ARCADES!". Many of those guys migrated from consoles to PC's after seeing what a gaming PC could do with the right developers.

Death Rally was also a great linkup game that my friend and me played the crap out of. And of course Quake ... changed my life. I pretty much exclusively played Quake 1 and Quake III OSP for almost a decade from 1996-2005, got to the number 20 ranking spot in my country at Q3 OSP 1v1 rankings. Quake was an enigma back in '96.

My list would be very similiar actually, although I would have to switch out Jagged Alliance, Screamer 2 and Soccer Manager for C&C Red Alert, Discworld 2 and Toonstruck ;)

'Death Rally' one of my all time favorite games. Still play it regularly to this day