The GAMER's Guide to 1990 Almanac of PC Role Playing Games

[@Toon_Pirate]

I love this series of yours, Janosik. I'm getting to see all these games I never knew about

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Thanks! That's the idea, really. There were tons of RPGs released on PC, and yet we usually tak about the same dozen or two, leaving majority of them forgotten.

[@akojulius3777]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames And some guys where afraid of what they will play if the entire gaming industry turns into on-line only videogames. From retro to modern games we have tens of thousands of games to choose from all the genres on so many platforms.

[@dekat7656]

Ah a great selection when games where still mesmerizing what about Bloodwych Dungeon master and Eye of the Beholder

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

On PC BW and EOTB released in 1991, and DM was very late, and dropped in 1992. :)

[@nicholsliwilson]

Sorcerian is new to me. It looks like a cross between Final Fantasy & Zelda 2? Hard Nova has an interesting mix of game play & is well worth a look. B.A.T is fantastic! It looks incredible for the time & does a great job of pulling you in to it’s world. Highly recommended! Zeliard looks frantic with the cycles turned up like that & it actually adds something to the game. 😄 You forget that 1990 was still an era when sound chips/cards were not a common thing & most PC’s still only had the square wave blips & blops of the PC speaker. I have a Covox Speech Thing, well a modern reproduction one, to use with my 386 laptop because even in 1990 laptops rarely had a sound chip & if they did they were very expensive. That’s obviously why a lot of the games here are largely silent between sound… “effects” & it would be a couple of years before that really changed on PC. In spite of that all the home micros & consoles were battling for the best MIDI/sound chip, which makes it even more surprising. Even the ZX Spectrum had a rudimentary MIDI chip by 1990. Great video. It’s important to catalogue these old games for people as there’s a lot there to take an interest in, thanks.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

I agree, I feel that BAT tends to be overlooked. Oh, and yeah, will get a bit more sounds and music from 1991 onwards. It's interesting though, how much faster graphics progressed as compared to music and sounds, isn't it?

[@aerouge4492]

I love the SSI games of this year. Buck Rogers and Champions of Krynn are games I still play ocassionally.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

They may not be the easiest titles to get into, but they're worth the effort.

[@dekat7656]

Finding the crystals too Each tower bloodwych it was an adventure times 3

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Ha, ha, ha :)

[@roguerifter9724]

Such a great year for scifi RPGs. Circut's Edge, Hard Nova, Buck Rogers, and Megatraveller fun. Plus a good year for Goldbox and the release of my favorite Bard's Tale game. Rocket Jock is the Buck Rogers RPG setting's slang for a space pilot so named because atomic powered rockets are the standard space drive of the setting... Also RAM is based on Mars not Mercury. Mercury is actually a separate nation though RAM is the primary superpower of the setting.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

It wasga great year indeed! :) And thanks for correcting me. Errors find their way in when you're rushing, and I obviously was trying to have these videos ready before my trip to Japan. Sorry.

[@corvaxblackfeather6529]

Hissssa ... a nice throwback to Dungeonmaster ^^

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Dungeon Master is actually a 1992 game on PC. I know, late. ;)

[@Mr._Anderpson]

The race & class thing in Sorcerian is a throwback to oldschool D&D. In the old D&D rules, dwarf, elf, & hobbit or halfling were each their own distinct class. It wasn't until AD&D that you could differentiate and have a dwarven cleric or an elven ranger. Thanks for including the sci-fi/cyberpunk games like BAT & Hard Nova. They look like fun ones to try for a break from the spell & sword games. Just got a new PC & have been getting it set up for some games during the downtime this winter. Wouldn't you know it? The SSI Dragonlance games are due for a revisit.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Thanks for clearing things up. :) Also, I am aiming to cover all (well, most, if "all" fails) PC RPGs up until today. Obviously excluding some of these shovel-ware games that we get in thousands on Steam these days.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

The Bard's Tale update is pretty good, though I remember playing this on a c64!

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

C64's port was so good! Provided you had a disk drive that is.

[@TeaAndFloppyDisks]

Just me here? Echo! :) Aww, the characters in Sorcerian move just like the little critters in Happyland. :) I ran into B.A.T. while looking up bat images (you'll find out why later) and it seemed really intriguing, so I added it to the list. It looks a bit like a comic book with animations, doesn't it? I'd take a parser to play some adventure RPG mix like Quest for Glory, but I've heard that 2 has a maze... So parser is ok, maze not so much. XD Oh, and what is beeped out in Circuit's Edge? I'm curious. :D A rocket jock would be Pirx the pilot, of course. XD

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

BAT is an often overlooked title. It's really atmospheric and definitely worth experiencing. :)

[@TeaAndFloppyDisks]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames I definitely will. I find out about new awesome games every video, it seems. :)

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

@@TeaAndFloppyDisks I bet that list of yours keeps growing and growing :)

[@TeaAndFloppyDisks]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames It does indeed and I like exploring them for my random videos. I even added the bad games, just for laughs. :D

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

@@TeaAndFloppyDisks Oh my... You've done yourself a stinky. These bad games are REALLY bad. xD

[@galloe8933]

About 23 years ago, little me owned a copy of Sorcerian, I think the box was a black purple set up, and opened like a board game. I don't think it ran at the correct speed on my computer, I may have used "MoSlow" but something didn't work. I think it's an old PC port of a "Dragon Slayer" game. I just remember wanting to like/play it.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Judging from what you said, you never did though, did you?

[@galloe8933]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames The Anime game? Yeah, and if opened like when you would open a puzzle or board game box. I played it on a Pentium 1, that ran it too fast, used MoSlow and the timing would change with the zone I was in, and I didn't want to keep messing with MoSlow to play a game that looked vaguely like Faxanadu. I'm just happy you brought it up, I don't think I had ever heard anyone talk about it unless in passing.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

@@galloe8933 Fair point, and, well, you're welcome, I suppose. ;)

[@RakkothX]

Hold on, did all of these really release in 1990? Got dang, what a marvelous year for RPGs.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Yep, PC gamers had hundreds of RPGs available throughout the years. And yet, we usually talk about the same dozen or two of them only.

[@RakkothX]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames No doubt, but clearly the fog of age has clouded that all these bangers came out in just ONE YEAR. Phew!

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

@@RakkothX 1991 is coming soon, and perhaps 1992 too, cause I still haven't decided if I'll release them together or separately.

[@hubertmitura2587]

Wizardy bane of cosmic forge was my first assigment as GoG Qa. But not most difficult at least.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

What was the most difficult one then?

[@hubertmitura2587]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames Thunderscape- I've stuck in one moment and couldn't go on.

[@KDis0815]

Imagine Larian making a new Ultima. 😮

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Think Garriott would go for that?

[@KDis0815]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames Who would be a better Candidate? I know it's not Larians first choice, but Vincke is old enough to have played the Ultima Series first Hand. So, i would call it unlikely, but not impossible. Question is, who holds the rights to the Series? If it's EA, then good luck...

[@Fallout2Forever]

Do all of these games really not have a soundtrack playing most of the time?

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

Yup, if it's not present, it's not there. Don't worry though, from 1991 onwards most if not all games should have both sounds and music. :)

[@Fallout2Forever]

@@OldAndNewVideoGames Thank you so much for saying this. I really really wanna hear about some story rich stuff with great dialogue from compelling characters, but I need good audio too.

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

@@Fallout2Forever It's there, just not in these here yet :)

[@EvilStreaks]

Dunno if it's just me but the audio is messed up for half of this video..

[@nicholsliwilson]

There’s not much sound in many of the games shown because sound cards for PC were extremely expensive at the time & not that common, so a lot of games were just setup for the square wave blips & blops of the PC speaker. It would be a couple of years before sound cards were common in PC’s & games would be created to use them. This series is meant to be an archive to show the better & more interesting games & your host doesn’t want to talk over the game’s sounds, or lack there of.

[@EvilStreaks]

@@nicholsliwilson I'm not talking about the game sounds. When I played this the sound was garbled in parts. I made DOS games in the 90s. I know about PC speakers, dude. And "your host" probably doesn't want people other people speaking for him about what he wants.

[@nicholsliwilson]

@@EvilStreaks LOL! OK gatekeeper. 😄

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

What do you mean? If you been that there's only narration for more or less half of the time that the game is running, it's by design. I've mentioned it in the first episode. I give each game a minute exactly, and only highlight the most important thing about it, leaving the rest of the running time for sounds and music. Which is kinda ironic in these two first episodes, as most of these either didn't use any, or only utilised a PC Speaker. If it's something else, let me know.

[@EvilStreaks]

​@OldAndNewVideoGames Its fine now. First time I played it your voice kept cutting in and out and there was loud crackling and buzzing. Dunno if it was a youtube thing or if it was on my side. Other browser tabs seemed fine so I dunno what happened.

[@AntipaladinPedigri]

5:12 Why does the ship look like a u terus?

[@OldAndNewVideoGames]

:)

[@MikhaelHausgeist]

5:07 Even there russians with thier parkan where copycats... Noice.