Expert Software's Ultimate Game Collection from 1998

[@ShadyNine]

You know you’ve made a good software catalog when it convinces Clint to buy a pack of word art fonts nearly 20 year later

[@smaerd]

1998 was 22 years ago

[@override7486]

@@smaerd That hurts...

[@mikeymaiku]

@@smaerd 2 years +/- is still nearly 20 years

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@smaerd oh no

[@TeaAndFloppyDisks]

We are seriously lacking good word art these days. I am very disappointed of my options on Ms Office 2016. I can't create arched rainbow text that pops out of the page anymore. Don't even get me started on the clipart. Clint is right to buy that pack! :)

[@zorochii]

Oh my God LGR thank you so much, this disk is an irreplaceable part of my childhood. A friend had it, and he lent it to "me" (me and my brothers). I've been looking for it for ages but I didn't know what it was called, however as soon as I saw that expert logo and that rhyno my mind remembered.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Haha, excellent. Enjoy the download too, should you choose to revisit it hands-on!

[@zorochii]

@@LGRBlerbs I actually will. Gonna check it out just after work! I'm glad you (and others) archive all the good stuff man.

[@trevorpomroy550]

I relate to this so well. I'm still trying to find the purple and yellow one I had from Radio Shack. Spent many hours using my cdr-1100

[@crylune]

Oh my god me too!

[@loam6740]

I was vibing to your techno mix - pure talent!

[@LGRBlerbs]

🤘

[@mrN3CR0]

the hell does this "vibing" mean? do people just not listen to music anymore

[@loam6740]

@@mrN3CR0 Yeah! this is the first music song I’ve listened to in years I’m loving it

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@loam6740 I've been laughing at "music song" for like ten minutes, please send help, I don't even know why it's tickling me so much

[@TeaAndFloppyDisks]

Coming up at the next techno show: Dj LGR! But instead of a laptop, he will play his tunes on an old Win 95 machine with a CRT. Live sound bites will be floppy disk drive squeaks and dot matrix printer squeals! After the show he will give each of his fans an autographed print of FARTS written in multiple word art styles.

[@--BiZ--]

"people getting married, they got everything!" lmao loving this one.

[@CaveyMoth]

Not males stripping, though.

[@Charlesb88]

You should try it’s sequel, Bitter Couples Getting Divorced, the game Irreconcilable differences where there are no Winners.😁.

[@Dark2Reaper]

As a kid, I grew up on these bundles. In my mind, it was either pay $20 for 1 game, or pay the same amount for 250 games. The answer was a no-brainer at the time. I remember buying Expert Software's 250 Best Arcade Games, and although there were a lot of stinkers, there were a lot of games that stuck out and still remember to this day. Great memories.

[@MinoTheShow]

Love how quickly you misremembered “Shaggymane” as “Weedguy”

[@kaitlyn__L]

weed.. shrooms.. basically the same amirite

[@Dungyfan007]

We need another long video of this whole collection with you and roses. This is so awful and wonderful

[@Christopher-N]

I remember those episodes from *PushingUpRoses,* _Let's Play Some Obscure DOS Games! (ft. Lazy Game Reviews)_ and _EVEN MORE._ I don't remember if there was a third episode.

[@ndm13]

I remember the Barbie Detective one... *CLINT!*

[@juango500]

Blursed is the word?

[@riotxxx]

I would love a return of the two digging into some dos oddities, Roses mostly covers obscure 90s TV now though

[@abunchofjunk4598]

"There's not enough male stripping" -LGR

[@artchic528]

I admit that game was not what I was expecting. Quite honestly, I don’t think it’s what anyone would be expecting.

[@Christopher-N]

Well, that's KZbin-it's run by a bunch of assholes (presumably from _Spaceballs_ ), and they've been cracking down unnecessarily heavy on ASMR that audibly is even slightly lewd. Buncha jerks.

[@Quesbe]

@@Christopher-N ???

[@Christopher-N]

@@Quesbe: You know what ASMR, or _Spaceballs_ is, right? The asshole reference is from the 1987 film _Spaceballs._ ASMR is autonomous sensory meridian response, audio that's intended to induce a sensation, like having somebody massage your ears even though you're just listening with headphones/earbuds. As one might imagine, lewd ASMR variants exist... but lately it seems that KZbin is having no truck with even slight lewdness (hence why I comically called the people who run KZbin a bunch of assholes).

[@patrick6350]

@@Christopher-N alright, mate

[@ViktorGodofDualies]

1) seeing a Packard-Bell PC just hit me with every level of Nostalgia. 2) this collection reminds me of these old Show & Go shareware disks with similar layouts and random collection of games.

[@andrewsegers7942]

This is some of my favorite content just exploring these old software compilations

[@BaconMob1]

Clint, I love and respect you on a whole new level(and that’s saying something) this video helped me find a collection of shareware that I had as a kid and have been searching for the better part of 20 years. I downloaded it off the internet archive and I’ve been enjoying showing my 8 year old stepdaughter the DOS games from my childhood more than I have anything in quite a while ❤️

[@stringstorm]

Oh wow! Crystal Calibrun! I remember that one so well! Had a really nice BGM too!

[@CFootprints]

The ticking of that PC, the ding of the mouse click, the extreme 90s aesthetic of that install wizard, three nostalgia is insane! I used to have this cd called "bits for kids" or something like that. Didn't speak a word of English back then but somehow I fandangled my way through most of the menu and games. Seeing this makes me realise that we probably had more of these collection cds and that that's where I need to start searching for games I vaguely remember from my childhood. Finally a new rabbit hole to jump into.

[@bf0189]

Very 90s techno loops on that techno DAW generator thing! I love it. I suspect the drums were dubiously sampled from other tracks as well! The 303 definitely had to be samples as ReBirth the original 303 VST wasn't out IIRC! I would love to see the full thing in action since I'm a 90s techno nerd hahaha

[@Frankomatic]

Oh man, seeing Hodj'N'Podj in that catalog brings back some memories. Old buddy of mine and I used to play the crap out of that against each other. Actually a pretty good time back in the day.

[@arvinrunstein5707]

That late night lighting is great. You should it more often

[@LordJazzly]

3:30 Holy shit, that brings back some memories! So, back in the day, where I was growing up, we only had dial-up internet - which was metered according to data used but you _also_ had to pay the phone company for the phone call to the ISP. So internet access was an expensive commodity. But computers were still this exciting new thing that everyone was talking about (again, where I lived; can't say about other places - rural life is what it is) and I wanted to learn more about them. So - I actually bought those magazines with the articles about 'how to reformat to XYZ file system', 'installing linux for the first time', 'automating scheduled backups' and rubbish like that. Not because I wanted to know how to do half the stuff in them, just because they were such an insight into what a computer was and what it could do. And I read a lot more of them than I ever bought, because this being physical print media I was able to swap them with friends. I think all my old copies of these ended up with a cousin who was really into computers, or an IT department at a school a relative taught at. But they were actually really decent interesting things to have, if going online to find the information would have cost several dollars anyway and been over a 56kbps line.

[@manicware96]

I have two big boxes from Expert - one is the Slam Tilt Pinball (one of the best of the genre EVER) and the other is Fantasy Illustrations, which is just a clip-art collection that's super rare today. And yeah, they were just shovelware publisher for the most part, but the packing they sticked to had certain charm.

[@alexgarbe1971]

I remember that Hounds and Jackals game, especially the sounds. I think I never really figured out how it worked. But I tried quite a few times. Enough times to basically sear those sounds into my memory.

[@MrClawt]

LGR, making key-gen music since 2020.

[@erebus015]

lol. I used to love keygen music

[@ndm13]

Underrated comment

[@Allovimo]

I think the "test drive" in Hangman Jr. was trying to get an idea of how well you spell before picking words for you to spell. I've seen edutainment do that before. It helps them set a level to start at so the game isn't too frustrating for kids.

[@appalachianexploration5714]

These things were my early childhood, my first experience with windows was playing a weird mixed game pack

[@MontieMongoose]

500 Games of Non-Stop fun! Press X to doubt.

[@herbiehusker1889]

X

[@joshramisch1510]

I have been looking for this software forever! I have been watching your videos for so long, and did not realize that you did a video on this! This was bought for us grandkids to play on the old work computer my grandparents had for their business. Male strip show was the one piece of software that I have been searching for for so long, I remembered it as aliens and a very avant garde art style. Thank you for what you do man, you always make my day!

[@MrEightThreeOne]

That ominous cut away to you picking up that font creator on eBay simply because you found something that moderately intrigued you in the product catalog is such a relatable aesthetic ...well, it is to me anyway.

[@DewdropAF]

Standing by for another Blerb where Clint mixes a song from Beat 2000. Love to hear a masterpiece :)

[@DeviousMalcontent2]

Heck, I remember 40 Games for windows from Expert Software, kept me well entertained as a youngin.

[@TerrisLP]

Going through the catalog is low key asmr for me

[@Vartazian]

I actually played that Hounds and Jackals game when I was a kid. I distinctly remember the dogs barking at the start.

[@souperman72]

I interested in that " Do it yourself lawyer" pack. I wonder how well that would work.

[@TwistOfTransistor]

Amazing!!! I had the CD when I was a child. Damn, I want this now in 2023!!!

[@dragom3417]

Expert Is like a 1998 version of Humble Bundle.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

I was thinking only the other day about a CD collection of these sorts of games that my aunt and uncle got me for a present years ago. I got rid of it but now I'm on my nostalgia trip, wish that I'd kept it. Thanks for uploading the disc image, I think I'll grab it and fill my boots with that!

[@Aboveup]

Man, those old collection discs were rad back in the day. I had a few that I think were pretty much just bootleg compilation discs that had all sorts of random games on them. A lot of them shovelware, but sometimes there was a real game in there between them. Knowing nothing about PC games at the time, it often took me a while to realize that some of the better games that I really liked from them were actually hugely beloved titles. Biggest one that comes to mind being the original Fallout. I actually didn't realize Fallout was a real beloved franchise for the longest time because even when I did find a Fallout game in stores and bought it, it turned out to be Tactics. So for a while I just assumed my memories of liking that one game from that one compilation disc was just wrong.

[@adamweb]

Holy shit I almost forgot about Expert Software! They always had those 100-in-1 game discs at Babbage's/GameStop back in the late 90's and I fell for the trap and bought them every damn time like candy at the grocery store check out!

[@holydado]

Thank You so so much for trying that Male Strip Show game, you had me laughing more than i have in a long time. Wow was that funny.

[@dmacpher]

Every time I see a video pop up - I now see my cat going “blerb” in my head. Like a derpier version of “mlem”

[@joshuagibson2520]

Shaggy manes are delicious mushrooms. I saw mushrooms also on the name text. Mycology is wonderful.

[@ristopoho824]

Oh thank you thank you thank you for your struggle with the dll thing. I never found out what to do when that pops up in those shovelware cds and now i can try all the games i couldn't when i was a kid. I have been meaning to browse through the collections for a while now and it's a good time to see what to do to atleast get a change to see them work.

[@spidermcgavenport8767]

@16:18 sounds your kitchen utensils make! Thank you Sir! fun to see these software collections.

[@strudelninja]

"Male Strip Show" sounds like a fun adventure game

[@SharewareWizard]

the blue to black gradient, with the white times new roman with a shadow.. fills me with excitement and nostalgia. as does that embossed packard bell logo wallpaper! haha wow.

[@Akselmoi]

Vinesauce Joel used that Beat 2000 thing to create.. Uh, beautiful things. Lol.

[@lightspeedmurphy7546]

Complete: Global..........lactation

[@CatDogJoe]

ITS TIME TO COME

[@pokehybridtrainer]

Chriiiiis.

[@tiagomarques7149]

I see another man of culture

[@cericat]

For the time it was a good option that was assessible. Not parting with my copy though, sorry Clint.

[@drsPascalsArchive]

Seeing Helious for the first time in 25 years brings back some repressed memories. Such a weird and frustrating game to play.

[@DukeNukem2417]

My uncle had a multiple-year subscription to Smart Computing in Plain English.....he recently gave all of the issues he had to me. Nice stuff.

[@iluvatar003]

Just seeing the Packard Bell monitor brings back a lot of memories.

[@davidromeroblaya7920]

I bought one of this kind of CDs when I had my first computer. It had a lot of showelware games but some jewels like Warcraft, A-Train, 1865 and Abuse.

[@yopachi]

This is a top shelf blerb! I remember digging through broken shovelware as a teen. Good times!

[@CptJistuce]

OH SHIT! I had a shovelware disk I loved that I lent to a friend ages ago and never got back. I've never been able to remember what it was called, so couldn't begin to replace it. It wasn't this one. BUT I suddenly remembered it because of the "500 games best value" thing on the back. I was like "Shit, I had one that claimed it had over a thousand games on it" and the light went off in my head. Now patrolling eBay for an ugly green "1001 Games and More" disk. Thank you LGR, you've saved my youthful memories.

[@Stythis]

THE PACKARD BELL NAVIGATOR! Oh man, i loved that house

[@Pixelmusement]

We have indeed seen that Hangman Jr. game show up on Shovelware Diggers! ;)

[@LGRBlerbs]

I knew it! I recall my bemusement at the way it showed pictures of the words before the player enters them.

[@amadeus484]

Expert Software was one of the better shovelware companies, and I miss them dearly. Tons of memories. Remember Spin Doctor? Fun game, that.

[@AdamHKatona]

I loved Beat2000 Demo when I was a kid. Spent many many hours to create a cool track but since it was a demo I wasn't able to save it, so I recorded it on tape :D

[@kaitlyn__L]

the best part is, recording it onto tape is a more legit music production experience (it's what you'd've had to do with any drum machines etc, and it's what they did in studios too)

[@J3unG]

I had that same damn Packard Bell monitor with the side speakers in 1997!! Wow. I'm glad I don't have it anymore.

[@hiredgun7186]

I had a subscription to Smart Computing and a couple others in the 90's, seems it was an easy christmas gift for me for several years in the 90's

[@64jimboy]

Cool, at first I thought you'd had a few drinks before making the video but then realised the playback speed was at 0.5. Still a great experience anyway, thanks.

[@trex70]

I think every gamer had one of this game collection once in his lifetime.

[@silkwesir1444]

a disc similar to this was basically my Internet long before I got actual Internet ;)

[@battlepants5818]

This was a wonderful video!

[@Coletanm]

thanks for the comfy video clint

[@dionelr]

I had that same Packard Bell monitor. I gave it away after college, but I kept the Pentium 200MHz machine for use as a router. those built in speakers were convenient.

[@crowbarviking3890]

Ohhh I saw Exile 3 in the adventure games list. Played it a lot back then. (1-3 actually) The dev., Spiderweb, is still around and they made remakes of their games, called Avernum now. (Was the name of the world in Exile 1-3). Even the remakes are still very close to the original feeling.

[@alicesavage69420]

PeanutButterGamer did a video on those Expert McDonaldLand games

[@bamboebahr2470]

Yeah, saw that as well, I think he missed 1 or 2 though?

[@Mark__]

whoa. I'm pretty sure I bought exactly this from a computer store when I was a young kid. That jewel case seems so familiar

[@riotxxx]

I'm trying to figure out why the expert logo is seared into my brain, but this isn't the collection I remember. Who knows what I had but one day maybe I'll stumble across it

[@ReginaTrans_]

I was also curious for the Ronald McDonald game and laughed at the catalogue but when you played it I had instant memories that I played it non stop somewhere I don’t remember lol, I wonder where was it

[@ReginaTrans_]

I mean when you showed the pages , u never played it lol

[@Karmy.]

Seems like not even early Windows was safe from these weird "500-in-1" game packs

[@Dream0Asylum]

Honestly, early Windows was where it all seemed to start and it only got worse from there.

[@ReginaTrans_]

If this was released in 1996, all the programs are from the early to mid 90’s

[@awwrelic]

I have a few I bought from when I first started getting into Windows around 1996-97...even have one called Shareware Overload Trio designed for DOS (with a few programs for Windows and OS/2!). Pretty much everything the makers could scrounge up on BBS, dumped onto three CD-ROMs....

[@rcmero]

Joel from Vinesauce has a series called Shareware Madness where he takes a look at shareware compilations like these live on stream and, because he's Joel, proceeds to destroy all of the games as much as possible. I took a look at some highlight clips and yeah, exactly what you expect out of Joel.

[@stevesstuff1450]

Yeah, a disc with a bunch of demos/shareware/shovel-ware shareware crap that no-one wanted anyway.... Thankfully magazines later curated the better games into decent cover-discs! I remember seeing these packs of crap game demos being sold and wondering why anyone would want to buy that rubbish.... you got nothing but frustrating demos that often didn’t even work, so you paid some random company that put out these discs for demos that often the main software developers put out for free anyway!

[@MyMyMicah32]

The weirdest thing just happened, as soon the Ebay image popped up, my phone notified me that my Ebay order of civ 2 is expect by Nov 19

[@Ash0512]

Good call! Civ 2 is fun!

[@MyMyMicah32]

@@Ash0512 I'm glad to hear people remember the game fondly. Sadly it seems civ 2 doesn't get as much love compared to the other entries, a boxed copy was way cheaper than it should be (I'm not complaining though)

[@KyurekiHana]

@@MyMyMicah32 have never played Civ 2, but I have played a lot of FreeCiv, which from what I understand is basically Civ 2.5. It's one of my favorite time wasters when I find myself on Linux.

[@OriginalPiMan]

@@KyurekiHana While FreeCiv was based on Civ2, the game I think of as Civ 2.5 is Civ 2: Test of Time. A standalone expansion that adds a whole bunch of stuff never seen in any other Civ game; I couldn't do it all justice in a single KZbin comment.

[@MyMyMicah32]

@@OriginalPiMan yeah I kept seeing it pop up. They released it around the time as Alpha Centauri right? I'll try and find a digital copy to give it a go, my partner may not approve of finding another big box PC game magically appear just yet.

[@bludragyn2340]

Dust: A Tale of the Wired West was a fun little point-and-click game, very reminiscent of Myst or Shivers. I actually had it when it originally came out. It was put out Cyberflix. I've been trying to find a copy of it again, just because it was so fun.

[@Aeduo]

Oh god, this was from a Joel Shareware Madness. Haha.

[@Aeduo]

Also why is one of those games CBT? haha

[@user-tm3fz7qx3s]

@@Aeduo I noticed. Get the ISO and find out.

[@GeneralVanRyberg]

"Tarot: Unlock Life's Mysteries Through The World Of Tarot"... That CD-ROM title in the catalog looks quite interesting!

[@rcmero]

"That's a book that came with a shareware disk." Oh man, I have a book just like that. Picked it up over ten years ago, it was part of a book transfer project thing, focused on Windows 95. Of course, when I picked it up I didn't realize it was written in German.

[@owllymannstein7113]

I have the expert releases of both Cannon Fodder and Dust, bought at a long gone Pharmhouse store in the mid-late 90's. If you've never played Dust I highly recommend it, its a very unique adventure game.

[@SimonQuigley]

I have PTSD from that windows error noise. Also, the frustration of hitting the windows key while you were in a fullscreen dos game, and having it get windowed, or usually, then immediately crashing, such as with Duke 3D, and of course when you were playing Dukematch, and winning.. Is why I ended up with a bunch of keyboards with the 3 windows keys popped off, because I could never find a way to disable them..

[@metalagent47]

When I was a 4 year old in the 90s, I had that Mcdonaldland create and paint. I had the weirdest flashback seeing that screenshot in that catalog

[@youcann]

I like that the fLiPeD oUt installer uses a warning dialog to let you know it finished successfully.

[@thejackal007]

The fond memories of that monitor/speaker combo...

[@RobertLewis85]

I remember getting a Mr. Pibb video game from McDonald's as a kid, I think on a floppy disk, and it was actually a really good first person shooter-type adventure game.

[@MazeMouse]

I quickly saw Skunny Kart scroll by on the screen. Worth it for that alone.

[@nslouka90]

I picked up one of those home design “games” new in box at goodwill not too long ago, I’m not surprised it’s basically like The Sims without people and more Home Depot.

[@ThomasGorgolione]

I remember this disc. There's a lot of cool stuff in there. Wipeout 2097 was fun, and you could mess with the texture files. Beat2000, H.U.R.L, and Skunny Kart was fun too.

[@kathrynradonich3982]

Expert typing tutor on win 3.11 is what taught me how to type. I thank my grandma everyday for forcing that onto me now that I’m older

[@adamdotpng]

I remember Gubble! I was able to get both Gubble and Gubble 2 at an Ocean State Job Lot when I was in middle school; hooray for CD bargain bins. Didn't get that far into the first one compared to the second, the difficulty was surprising for a kids game. I had a hunch and went to check Steam; turns out the developer released an updated version this year on June 9th for $10, same price as the CD back then. Welp, time to go rack my brain again.

[@travistaylor3186]

As a kid msdos shareware compilations were some of my favorite things to go through. Now years later they’re probably the only msdos games I still play.

[@jenkins80526]

The enthusiasm here has me white knuckling my mouse and keyboard.

[@crescentfreshsongs]

Oh man, this is exciting, I never looked into Expert's shareware compilations since I figured they wouldn't have anything that, say, a Game Empire or Galaxy of Games doesn't already have. As a shareware compilation junkie, I need a copy of this now. I see a number of titles that I've never seen on one of these before (and like you said, that menu is beautifully ugly, haha)

[@ReginaTrans_]

This is where it all started and I’m proud to say I remember those mid 90s days...... you can even see those architectural programs Will Wright said got inspired from, I love this ❤️

[@TheFieryWind99]

15:47 I'd listen to more techno stuff from Clint like this.

[@WmAHughes]

"I'd love to find that" follwed by ominous music

[@Mech4]

Huh, The Palace of Deceit? I was just reading about that. I'm much more familiar with the similar in style later game "Dare to Dream". Now that was a strange game. Surprisingly gory in parts too.

[@kfhewui152]

Looking forward to that Font Blerb. Expert Software also re-released my favorite PC game, The Dark Eye. It is a point-and-click adventure game that is based upon the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and all the characters are clay puppets. It also has a great cast William S. Boroughs, Jennifer Hale, and Tom Kane. One of the unique points of the game is how each tale is played from the perspective of victim and murderer. It is an extremely underrated game.

[@DarDarBinks1986]

I had one of those game compilation packs for Windows 95 as a kid. It wasn't the same one reviewed here but it had a fat stack of games on it.

[@Merjia]

Used to love these, we would get them from swap meets all the time, my personal favourite was "World's Largest Collection for Windows" I wonder where the people who made these things are now?

[@unknownsomebody3039]

I got my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday and im feeling really awful, but LGR always manages to cheer me up👍🏻

[@Xs2...]

I've "15.000 Games and variants" from Easy Computing. I don't have the box anymore. But I do have the 8 (!) CD-ROM's it came with. Some of the games I actually 'liked'. But most of it's use is now on my mothers Acer Desktop with Vista. For like-this-other-game game: Tetris, Mahjongg, Bejeweled. I picked it up during it's Windows XP-era release.

[@corbinh.8283]

Smart computing was/is a magazine geared towards older and less experienced computer users. I worked in tech support for the publishing company that printed it about 10 years ago. They had a "free tech support" line that you could call into. At one point they had about 30 techs with a call queue in the 100s all day every day with no revenue to show for it. The bulk of the calls were from octogenarians. Remoting into a PC and seeing a sliver of web browser content under 30 tool bars was the norm, not the exception.

[@rich1051414]

People may not understand now, but before high speed internet, shovelware/shareware disks were amazing. It was the equivalent of 'flash games' for an earlier generation.

[@noroboli]

I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark here and presume before watching that this doesn't quite actually have 500 games on it.

[@Karmy.]

500 copy pasted games just reskinned

[@LGRBlerbs]

It actually has more than that

[@grauekatze]

Better than the shareware collection i used to borrow from a friend.. 1000 games and only numbered folders on the disc. once the companion booklet was lost it became a nightmare. But it had demos to warcraft2 and batle arena so we were happy.

[@StefanoNoffke]

I saw Exile 3: Ruined World in the game list. I really enjoyed that one... so many memories...

[@KzintiCV]

That’s one of my all time favorites too

[@arcadely]

Man, I remember Beat 2000, but I too only had the demo version: very cool and fun program though.

[@IchRockeInDerDisco]

I have great memories of DUST a great fps/adventure title :)