The thread of cool random old PC compilations

[noiseredux]

an email exchange with Ack got me thinking about this subject... back in the 90's and early 2000's it was very common for small publishers to compile various compilations of PC freeware and shareware and sell them under lame banners like 100 MEGA AWESOME GAMES DELUXE VOL. 5!!!! and so on. And back then, I played many of those. So when I see them now, I can't pass them up. I thought it would be cool to post up about ones we find and what's on them...

Here's some from my collection.


486 Game Pak



Ok, this isn't as shady or random as the description above, but I love the title. This is a Sierra collection that includes

3D Ultra Pinball
Hoyle Classic Games
Trophy Bass
You Don't Know Jack

It's in a double CD case stretched over 3 discs and includes individual manuals for each.


Top 50 Blazing Games



They're not all listed on the case, so I booted it up:

Adjacent See
Arcade Poker
Backgammon
Black Box Chess
Brain Bones
Bulldozer
Bulldozer II
Bulldozer Builder
Card Match
Checker Connector
Cheesy Pursuit
Chess Cards
Core Meltdown
Cryptograms
Deductive Logic
Engulf
Head-On Collision
Hex
Hexapon
Invaders From Neptune
Kizbot
Laser Clash
Make4-3D
MazeRace
Moku
Neutron Trails
Nim
Olive Wars
Pangki
Pegopolis
Poker Machine
Poker Patience
Push-Pull
Quinto
Reversi Plus
Roboattack
SechSeck
Siege
Shi Sen
Stack Blitz
Suzy Sushi
Thinktnk
Tic Tac Toe 3D
Ultimine
Um El Bagara
Vanishing Cross
Voracity
Wari
Winding Standoff
Zap Pod

These seem to be mainly puzzle games, Sokoban, etc.


100 Action Arcade Games Vol. 4



This is pretty cool. Has a lot of recognizable stuff. Titles listed are taken from their folder names:

3dballdef
3D Blocks
3 Phase
Abo Bugs
Adventure Blaster
Agent USA
Alien Force
Alien Force 2
Alien Hunt
Amazins
Ant Run Pro
Apple Gather
Astro Rock 2K
Auto Battle
Ball Breaker
Ballistux
Ballman
Battle Time
Betris
Blitz
Bomber Bloke
Boogaloopers
Brainwave
Brainwave 2
Brickshooter
Brix
Bubblet
Bugs
Bzzz!
Cell Block A
Chaos Nucleus
Chicken Chopper
Close Approach
Code Name Eagle
Cool Run
Crazyoid
Demonstar
Desktop Destroy
Desktopdog
Diamond Caves 2
Drainstorm
Dropball
Dweebs
Dxball2
Excessive Speed
Fire!
Gravity Well
GTA2
Hidden And Dangerous
Hook Worm 2
Hot Chix N Gear Stix
Hyper Ball PC
Jet Boat Champs
Level Games
Logans
Mad Robots
Marf
Metaloids
Micro Man 1
Millenium Bugs
Millenium Man
Monkey Shines
Moon Buggy 98
Moz Pong DX
Native Assault
Noid 99
Nonsense 2000
Nonsense Trilogy
On Land And On Sea
On Target
Operation Ninja
Operation Tank
Oxide
Pac Mania
Pac Mania 3D
Pacster
Phobiall
Punchem
Puzzle Rally
Raising Dead
Raptor
Rats!
Rich Diamond
Rock N Roll
Sentinels Of Ceth
Six Gun
Smiley Breakout
Space Duel
Space Meanies
Space Quarry
Spheres Of Chaoes
Star Miner
Super Breakout
Super Racer
Tactical Nuke
Teazle
The Race To Galamx
Time Jumper
Top Speed
Tower Of Ancients
Tzar
Ultimate Darts
Vinnies Tomb 1
Vinnies Tomb 2
Virus The Game
War Of All Time
Witches

As you can see it's got stuff like Grand Theft Auto 2 and Hidden And Dangerous mixed in with a lot of no-name stuff and titles that may or may not be legit versions.


The Game Room

This last one I can't find a pic of and too lazy to take one myself at the moment. This is a DOS compilation of shareware released by "C&C Software" out of Coral Springs, FL. It has a lot of very popular shareware games from the time. Game listing from back cover:

Alien's Ate My Babysitter
Around The World Trivia
Bass Class
Bass Duel
Battle Ship
Bio Menace
Blockout
Blind Wars
Boogle Deluxe
Bolo Ball
Brix
Captain Comic
Catacomb Abyss 3D
Chinese Checkers
Cipher
Clock Solitaire
Commander Keen
Conquest
Cosmo's Cosmic Adv
Cross Down
Caddi Hack Golf
Cunning Football
Cyber Chess
Dark Ages
Darnet
Dble Down Video Poker
Doubles Pinochie
Draw Poker
Duke Nukem 1
Duke Nukem 2
Egaint
Electronic Aggravation
Epic Pinball
Epic Baseball
Forzze
Gate World
General Trivia
Goodbye Galaxy
Gruber's Scrabble
Galactix
Hang Man
Hexxagon
Hong Kong MahJongg
Hugo's House Of Horror 1
Hugo's House Of Horror 2
Hugo's House Of Horror 3
Idiot's Delight
Jill Of The Jungle
Keen Dreams
Kosynka
Kriss Kross
Las Vegas Casino
Last Half Of Darkness
The Lost Vikings
Major Stryker
Mario Bros VGA
Math Rescue
Micro Bucks II
Midnight Oil Solitaire
Monster Bash
Monte Carlo
Movie Trivia
Night Raid
Oil Cap
Osmosis
Over Kill
Oxyd
PC-Gammon IV
Picture Puzzle
Pyramid Solitaire
Phylox
Royal Cotillion
Raptor
Risk 1.1
Shadow Caster
Sango Fighter
Save Our Pizza
Secret Agent
Shooting Gallery
Solar Winds
Solitile
Slot 8
Spear Of Destiny
Sports Trivia
Strategy
Super Maxit
Super VGA Puzzle
Tile Match
Ultimate Black Jack
Vega Pack Black Jack
Vegas Pack Slots
VGA Monopoly
VGA Wheel
Video Poker Slots
Wolf 3D
World Rescue
World Empire
Xargon
Zentris
Zone 66

[Tanooki]

I wish I could remember the list, and it was a pack-in with the 1990(89 too?) Philips/Magnavox Headstart PC. There was this games disc and it has the best of stuff from like 1987-90 on it. Infiltrator1 and 2, Into the Eagles Nest, Skyfox 2, Road Runner, Pebble Beach Golf, some text games (wish I could name it where you run a kingdom), and more. I'd so buy that disc if I could find it again. I remember it just being generic clean shiny CD with minimal ink like a green bar and some print on top at most.

[noiseredux]

Pebble Beach rules. So many hours I spent on that game.

[ExedExes]

I used to buy those all the time at the local computer shows around here.

I had a few of them from a company called Armorware -- all sorts of DOS and Windows (3.1/95) shareware titles.

But of course there's always the Internet Archive......

[BoneSnapDeez]

A few years ago I found this huge ugly ass PC game box labeled Take Five: The Entertainer at Goodwill. Contains:

Road & Track: Grand Prix Unlimited
Links: The Challenge of Golf
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
Trump Castle 3
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands

Each game is on its own disc, which is interesting. Paid a couple of bucks, totally worth it for King's Quest VI and Dark Sun.

A dodgy one I have is Amiga Classix 4, which is really just WinUAE + a shitload of disk images. Many of the best games featured on the box, like Turrican II, are only on there as demos. Boo.

[nightrnr]

There is one compilation in particular that had a profound effect on my teenage pc gaming experience.
It was called something like "50 Amazing 3D Action and Adventure Games" (or something like that).
They were pretty much all shareware, but introduced me to:
Heretic
Descent
Terminal Velocity
Castle of the Winds
Commander Keen
God of Thunder
Sokoban
Halloween Harry
Blake Stone
Superfrog
Jazz Jackrabbit
Alien Carnage
Hocus Pocus
Cyberdogs
and a slew of others.

I really wish I still had that disc, if only to remember what else was on it.

I would play those shareware episodes for hours on multiple difficulties. Gaming in the 90's was awesome, even for us poor kids.

[samsonlonghair]

This thread reminds me of the Independence Day mission disks that were released on 3.5 inch floppies back in 1996. Each floppy disc contained a single mini-game based on the movie. I had a pack of the first five mission disks together. My dad probably got them for free somewhere or other. I remember that the mission disks didn't have much replay value at all. Once you figured out the sequence or pattern it was the same every time.

[noiseredux]

This thread reminds me of the Independence Day mission disks that were released on 3.5 inch floppies back in 1996. Each floppy disc contained a single mini-game based on the movie. I had a pack of the first five mission disks together. My dad probably got them for free somewhere or other. I remember that the mission disks didn't have much replay value at all. Once you figured out the sequence or pattern it was the same every time.

I thought the disks came bundled with the action figures?

[samsonlonghair]

This thread reminds me of the Independence Day mission disks that were released on 3.5 inch floppies back in 1996. Each floppy disc contained a single mini-game based on the movie. I had a pack of the first five mission disks together. My dad probably got them for free somewhere or other. I remember that the mission disks didn't have much replay value at all. Once you figured out the sequence or pattern it was the same every time.

I thought the disks came bundled with the action figures?

I never owned any of the action figures. I only ever had the first five mission disks.

That doesn't mean much though. You're probably right. They may have come with action figures at one point or another. My dad used to buy a lot of strange stuff at pawn shops or, "from a friend" without any further explanation. Goodness only know how dear ol' dad came up with these floppy disks.