We here at Heart Internet love old games. We take a trip down memory lane to look at the some of the best pre-2000 games available now on GoG that are just as fun to play today as they were over 16 years ago.

These are our first five favourite games – in no particular order:

Sim City 2000

Maxis’ city-building simulation series was, and is, an utterly consuming sandbox allowing you to live out your wildest megalomaniacal fantasies as you build a thriving (or in my case: poor, underpowered, and utterly depressive) metropolis of your own design. Watch out for natural disasters, particularly the UFO that has a tendency to appear downtown and wreak havoc…

Doom

The game that truly refined the pleasures of shooting hellspawn in the face. What better way to celebrate this year’s triumphant reboot then by diving into id software’s blistering original – big monsters, bigger weapons, gloriously labyrinthian level-design, and a legacy that has made an impact on every shooter since.

Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

Exactly what it says on the tin. Go back to a time where Fallout games were sprawling isometric time-sinks with a greater focus on characterisation, choice, and pitch-black humour in a broken world of muddled allegiances and moral ambiguities.

Dungeon Keeper Gold

It’s good to be bad! Bullfrog continued their sterling management sim run with Dungeon Keeper. Tunnel the earth with your imps and kit out your dungeon lair to attract the darkest and nastiest creatures as you prepare for invasion from the sickeningly goody-two-shoes heroes from above the surface! Like all classic Bullfrog games, it balances accessibility, humour, and deep strategy to mesmerising effect. Did I mention you can build a torture chamber to torture your would-be invaders? Yes, you can. Enjoy your Bullfrog games with less malevolence? Go for the equally delightful Theme Hospital.

Zork

Graphics? Imagery? What are we? Dead-eyed soulless husks whose days of imagination and childlike daydreams are but ash floating through the colourless concrete corridors of the existential dissolution of modern life?

NO. Play Zork, it’s a text adventure, it’s meant to be very good, and Kate likes it (since she can’t get The Oregon Trail).

 

That’s our first five games – we’ll be back next week with another five great games that we think will get you in the retro gaming mood.