1. Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering the card game pits two players, as powerful wizards, against each other in a magical duel, where each wizard can cast spells, summon monsters, and invoke various enchantments or curses. The game is turn-based, with each turn comprising several phases. The rules are too intricate to go into detail here. Suffice it to say that there are 5 colors, i.e. disciplines of magic, each with its own characteristic appropriate to that element. Blue, for example, is water, which prefers illusions and guile. Therefore, there are many blue illusion spells, and 99% of all blue monsters you can summon can swim. Green, on the other hand, represents Earth. You will therefore find many regeneration cards and forest creatures in this discipline. There are many types of cards: enchantment (which typically lasts infinitely, as long as it's maintained and not destroyed), creatures (which you summon), instant (spells that can be cast only once; the card must be discarded after use), land (gives our mana), artifacts, and more.
Not content with giving the players just a card game rendition, MicroProse wraps the entire card-game mechanics around an epic fantasy storyline, set in the world of Shandalar. As a novice but noble wizard, your goal is to defeat the powerful evil wizards who are wrecking havoc on the land. After creating your character, you start with a random deck, which include very standard (i.e. not very powerful) cards, most of the color of your choice. You amass more powerful cards by winning duels with wandering monsters, or taking on quests in the various villages.
Download:
2. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
At its core, Daggerfall is a well-written adventure game with solid role-playing systems plopped into what is basically an action engine. Players design their character using a creation routine that is second to none, choosing from one of 18 classes that includes knight, warrior, healer, assassin, and sorcerer, or design their own with a specialized sub-creation system. Those who aren't into RPG statistics can let the computer make the choice by answering a moral quiz (à la Ultima IV) that selects the class most appropriate to the player's personality. Once that's finished, players take control of their alter-ego through a first-person interface that in many ways resembles the Ultima Underworld series. From here, as if actually transported to another realm, players are free to do whatever they wish, with computer response mirroring that of the real world.
Download:
3. Shannara
Having been a fan of Terry Brooks novels, I was thrilled to find out that someone had used the “Shannara” universe as the setting for a computer adventure game. Combining crisp, realistic graphics and a sparse but powerful soundtrack, Legend has created an atmosphere-filled adventure that is surprisingly evocative considering its medium. Into this already impressive framework is set a storyline strong enough to provoke genuine emotional response to the various characters in the game.
Your exploration of Shannara is simplified by the game's basic interface. All major game functions can be handled with a quick click or two on the mouse button.
The real soul of Shannara lies in its puzzles. As you might expect, you spend most of your time in this game finding various items and trying to figure out where to use them. Even so, the puzzles are fresh and well-implemented—though a bit basic for adventure game veterans.
Download:
4. Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition
Dungeon Keeper Gold (an amalgam of earlier editions Dungeon Keeper and The Deeper Dungeons) explores the other side. As the all-powerful (and quite evil) dungeon keeper, you are responsible for creating those wonderful underground mazes and traps that the "good guys" attempt to get past. Those meddling do-gooders will try to get to the heart of your dungeon, banish your dark forces from their realm and preserve their peace-loving ways. So you're just going to have to kill them. Simple enough, right? Wrong. Managing a dungeon is pretty complex: You have limited resources and space management issues. You've got to deal with the comfort level of your creatures (Hey, ogres are high-maintenance), not to mention finding the time to research your own library of spells.
Download:
5. Carmageddon
Carmageddon touches that particular collective nerve that fuses the wholesome popularity of the All-American Racing Game with the homicidal singularity of the 70s cult film into an onscreen experience that can only be compared to the kind of automotive mayhem that a five-year-old American male wreaks with his Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.
The object: Win the race. The motive: Greed. The Rules: None whatsoever. Clear all the specified race checkpoints, destroy all the opposing racecars, or vehicularly murder every last pedestrian bystander within a three-mile radius. It doesn't matter; nobody cares... with the possible minor exception of the pedestrians.
Download:
6. Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
This is the best-selling, revolutionary game that defined 3D combat simulation as you know it. Based on FASA's Battletech universe, MechWarrior 2 brings the brutal world of futuristic, robotic combat to life. Battling from within the cockpit of a 70-story walking war machine, the BattleMech, you'll live the drama of civil war between two rival Clans whose survival depends upon your combat skills and faith in the honor of the Clan.
Download:
7. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
It's not the most innovative game, but with its solid gameplay and alternate-reality Cold War storyline, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is the best 2D real-time strategy game since Starcraft.
The original Command & Conquer practically invented the RTS genre when it was released and has since spawned a whole series of games, including the hugely popular Red Alert with its story involving Russians, Albert Einstein, time travel, and a Cold War that never ended. Now, Westwood Studios takes us back to that universe with Red Alert 2, which manages to recreate the intense story, easy control, and addictive gameplay of the original.
Download:
8. Mass Destruction
MASS DESTRUCTION is a mission-based tank shooting game. Jump into one of three tanks each with its own strengths and weaknesses and take on 24 different missions, each with its own set of objectives. You must complete all the primary and secondary objectives and make your way to the extraction area for a mission to end successfully. During the course of the game, you can pick up tons of different weapons and destroy anything in your path. You'll encounter a seemingly endless array of tanks, helicopters, infantry, flamethrowers, buildings, bunkers, and gun turrets. Nearly every object on the screen can be blown up, so Shooter fans will be in destruction heaven.
Download:
9. Quake
With no compromises, no excuses, and no bull, Quake delivers an edge-of-the-seat adrenaline rush that begins the moment you set foot in its darkened halls.Quake is a masterpiece on every level, with its ominous atmosphere, silky-smooth animation, incredibly well-balanced gameplay and level design, and unparalleled soundtrack. Once again, the team at id Software has created a no-apologies, ultra-violent gorefest sure to be the new battleground of choice for single and multi-player combatants worldwide. This copy includes the original dos version as well as Quake95, WinQuake, GlQuake and mission packs 1 and 2.
Download:
10. SimCity 3000
The city simulation that put Maxis on the map ranks with Pac-Man and Tetris as one of the greatest games of all time, so certainly the Electronic Arts-acquired developer had big shoes to fill, not to mention a big publisher breathing down its back, while working on the second sequel. Now that the dust has settled, either against all odds or to no great surprise, SimCity 3000 is fun, thoughtful, and satisfying, not to mention pristine and pleasant to the core. Soft, bright colors, an attractive and intuitive interface, and stylized comic characters all fit together with an easy-listening soundtrack to make SimCity 3000 a comfortable, relaxing place to be. Your city exists in an eternal springtime; no matter how bad things get for your upstart town, at least it won't rain.
The graphics not only look good, but they tell you everything you'd want to know: You can see how well a developed area is doing at a glance, as buildings that look expensive probably are, and those that are ramshackle and sparse are probably worth a lot less. The graphics are much more detailed than SimCity 2000's, but only along the same lines - that is, you can zoom in closer than ever before, down where you can see individual pedestrians and automobiles, and everything looks real.
Download:
11. Doom 2
If a game is successful, it gets a sequel. The basic rule for making a sequel can also be applied to skirts and essays: Keep it long enough to cover the important parts yet short enough to keep it interesting. Doom II doesn't stray far from the established mantra of sequels offering minor improvements in gameplay, more challenging levels, new monsters and more of what made the original a great game.
Download:
12. Star Trek: Judgment Rites
After publishing the marvellous Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Interplay did not take long to chuck out a sequel. If you ask me, they made a good move!
Star Trek - Judgment Rites looks, plays and sounds almost the same as 25th Anniversary - in fact, the music and graphics are exactly the same stuff you've gotten used to in the previous game - but that's not a bad thing. Afterall "if it aint broke, don't fix it", and this way Interplay's crew could concentrate on coming up with new scenarios to use in the game.
Differently then 25th, Judgment Rites offers you an option to change the difficulty of starship combat - apart from the standard difficulty, they can also be completely disabled (useful if you find them too difficult to manage) or, conversely, fought on an increased difficulty setting.
I've included .bmp image of the below star chart that you will need to find the right planet for each mission.
Download:
Magic: The Gathering the card game pits two players, as powerful wizards, against each other in a magical duel, where each wizard can cast spells, summon monsters, and invoke various enchantments or curses. The game is turn-based, with each turn comprising several phases. The rules are too intricate to go into detail here. Suffice it to say that there are 5 colors, i.e. disciplines of magic, each with its own characteristic appropriate to that element. Blue, for example, is water, which prefers illusions and guile. Therefore, there are many blue illusion spells, and 99% of all blue monsters you can summon can swim. Green, on the other hand, represents Earth. You will therefore find many regeneration cards and forest creatures in this discipline. There are many types of cards: enchantment (which typically lasts infinitely, as long as it's maintained and not destroyed), creatures (which you summon), instant (spells that can be cast only once; the card must be discarded after use), land (gives our mana), artifacts, and more.
Not content with giving the players just a card game rendition, MicroProse wraps the entire card-game mechanics around an epic fantasy storyline, set in the world of Shandalar. As a novice but noble wizard, your goal is to defeat the powerful evil wizards who are wrecking havoc on the land. After creating your character, you start with a random deck, which include very standard (i.e. not very powerful) cards, most of the color of your choice. You amass more powerful cards by winning duels with wandering monsters, or taking on quests in the various villages.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZDMKR850
At its core, Daggerfall is a well-written adventure game with solid role-playing systems plopped into what is basically an action engine. Players design their character using a creation routine that is second to none, choosing from one of 18 classes that includes knight, warrior, healer, assassin, and sorcerer, or design their own with a specialized sub-creation system. Those who aren't into RPG statistics can let the computer make the choice by answering a moral quiz (à la Ultima IV) that selects the class most appropriate to the player's personality. Once that's finished, players take control of their alter-ego through a first-person interface that in many ways resembles the Ultima Underworld series. From here, as if actually transported to another realm, players are free to do whatever they wish, with computer response mirroring that of the real world.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N603479G
Having been a fan of Terry Brooks novels, I was thrilled to find out that someone had used the “Shannara” universe as the setting for a computer adventure game. Combining crisp, realistic graphics and a sparse but powerful soundtrack, Legend has created an atmosphere-filled adventure that is surprisingly evocative considering its medium. Into this already impressive framework is set a storyline strong enough to provoke genuine emotional response to the various characters in the game.
Your exploration of Shannara is simplified by the game's basic interface. All major game functions can be handled with a quick click or two on the mouse button.
The real soul of Shannara lies in its puzzles. As you might expect, you spend most of your time in this game finding various items and trying to figure out where to use them. Even so, the puzzles are fresh and well-implemented—though a bit basic for adventure game veterans.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RJR9NF57
Dungeon Keeper Gold (an amalgam of earlier editions Dungeon Keeper and The Deeper Dungeons) explores the other side. As the all-powerful (and quite evil) dungeon keeper, you are responsible for creating those wonderful underground mazes and traps that the "good guys" attempt to get past. Those meddling do-gooders will try to get to the heart of your dungeon, banish your dark forces from their realm and preserve their peace-loving ways. So you're just going to have to kill them. Simple enough, right? Wrong. Managing a dungeon is pretty complex: You have limited resources and space management issues. You've got to deal with the comfort level of your creatures (Hey, ogres are high-maintenance), not to mention finding the time to research your own library of spells.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/27359338/c2b46c7a/dungeonkeep.html
Carmageddon touches that particular collective nerve that fuses the wholesome popularity of the All-American Racing Game with the homicidal singularity of the 70s cult film into an onscreen experience that can only be compared to the kind of automotive mayhem that a five-year-old American male wreaks with his Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.
The object: Win the race. The motive: Greed. The Rules: None whatsoever. Clear all the specified race checkpoints, destroy all the opposing racecars, or vehicularly murder every last pedestrian bystander within a three-mile radius. It doesn't matter; nobody cares... with the possible minor exception of the pedestrians.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/24641060/2aaf2425/Carmageddon.html
This is the best-selling, revolutionary game that defined 3D combat simulation as you know it. Based on FASA's Battletech universe, MechWarrior 2 brings the brutal world of futuristic, robotic combat to life. Battling from within the cockpit of a 70-story walking war machine, the BattleMech, you'll live the drama of civil war between two rival Clans whose survival depends upon your combat skills and faith in the honor of the Clan.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D56UE07M
It's not the most innovative game, but with its solid gameplay and alternate-reality Cold War storyline, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is the best 2D real-time strategy game since Starcraft.
The original Command & Conquer practically invented the RTS genre when it was released and has since spawned a whole series of games, including the hugely popular Red Alert with its story involving Russians, Albert Einstein, time travel, and a Cold War that never ended. Now, Westwood Studios takes us back to that universe with Red Alert 2, which manages to recreate the intense story, easy control, and addictive gameplay of the original.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0NMLIBGU
MASS DESTRUCTION is a mission-based tank shooting game. Jump into one of three tanks each with its own strengths and weaknesses and take on 24 different missions, each with its own set of objectives. You must complete all the primary and secondary objectives and make your way to the extraction area for a mission to end successfully. During the course of the game, you can pick up tons of different weapons and destroy anything in your path. You'll encounter a seemingly endless array of tanks, helicopters, infantry, flamethrowers, buildings, bunkers, and gun turrets. Nearly every object on the screen can be blown up, so Shooter fans will be in destruction heaven.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/24146822/2e0cd9b4/Mass_Destruction.html
With no compromises, no excuses, and no bull, Quake delivers an edge-of-the-seat adrenaline rush that begins the moment you set foot in its darkened halls.Quake is a masterpiece on every level, with its ominous atmosphere, silky-smooth animation, incredibly well-balanced gameplay and level design, and unparalleled soundtrack. Once again, the team at id Software has created a no-apologies, ultra-violent gorefest sure to be the new battleground of choice for single and multi-player combatants worldwide. This copy includes the original dos version as well as Quake95, WinQuake, GlQuake and mission packs 1 and 2.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/30326245/11c81e61/quake.html
The city simulation that put Maxis on the map ranks with Pac-Man and Tetris as one of the greatest games of all time, so certainly the Electronic Arts-acquired developer had big shoes to fill, not to mention a big publisher breathing down its back, while working on the second sequel. Now that the dust has settled, either against all odds or to no great surprise, SimCity 3000 is fun, thoughtful, and satisfying, not to mention pristine and pleasant to the core. Soft, bright colors, an attractive and intuitive interface, and stylized comic characters all fit together with an easy-listening soundtrack to make SimCity 3000 a comfortable, relaxing place to be. Your city exists in an eternal springtime; no matter how bad things get for your upstart town, at least it won't rain.
The graphics not only look good, but they tell you everything you'd want to know: You can see how well a developed area is doing at a glance, as buildings that look expensive probably are, and those that are ramshackle and sparse are probably worth a lot less. The graphics are much more detailed than SimCity 2000's, but only along the same lines - that is, you can zoom in closer than ever before, down where you can see individual pedestrians and automobiles, and everything looks real.
Download:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7V0W7NUW
If a game is successful, it gets a sequel. The basic rule for making a sequel can also be applied to skirts and essays: Keep it long enough to cover the important parts yet short enough to keep it interesting. Doom II doesn't stray far from the established mantra of sequels offering minor improvements in gameplay, more challenging levels, new monsters and more of what made the original a great game.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/41233501/1ad60173/Doom_II.html
After publishing the marvellous Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Interplay did not take long to chuck out a sequel. If you ask me, they made a good move!
Star Trek - Judgment Rites looks, plays and sounds almost the same as 25th Anniversary - in fact, the music and graphics are exactly the same stuff you've gotten used to in the previous game - but that's not a bad thing. Afterall "if it aint broke, don't fix it", and this way Interplay's crew could concentrate on coming up with new scenarios to use in the game.
Differently then 25th, Judgment Rites offers you an option to change the difficulty of starship combat - apart from the standard difficulty, they can also be completely disabled (useful if you find them too difficult to manage) or, conversely, fought on an increased difficulty setting.
I've included .bmp image of the below star chart that you will need to find the right planet for each mission.
Download:
Code:
http://www.4shared.com/file/16159034/ac743354/Star_Trek_-_Judgment_Rites.html