Everything but Oldgames

I was browsing my stats checking out the referers and to my suprise found a copy of Everything but Oldgames. I don't quite remember the full story but what I do remember is that abandonware veteran Voh started EBO using a fake alias and wanted to review abandonware websites and do interviews with the webmasters. If I hadn't found this site I probably would have never remembered this but it all comes back now :).

<sigh> Those were the times when the abandonware scene was still alive and kicking.

Computer Gaming World Magazine Museum

Just recently I discovered this amazing website called CGW Museum. On this site you can download about every issue ever released of Computer Gaming World Magazine.

I never really heard of it before but it seems to have been a very popular magazine in the US. Great site for collectors like me!

For some reason I just love reading reviews that are written on the dates the games were released. It's amazing to see how people thought of those games back then. Most of the regular Abandonware reviews are usually written with a huge amount of nostalgia, telling us about the impact of the game, how it used to play, how good it used to be etc. Good reviews tell us how it feels to play the games right now, how or why it could still be fun, or why it's not so much fun in modern times. But imho, the interesting reviews are the ones you read in the old gaming magazines.

Abandonware archive - GROG: Dune 2

There once was a small but very decent abandonware site many probably have forgotten by now: GROG. This site was all about quantity. The two webmasters Anti and Jante didn't put many games online, but the ones they did had long, inspiring reviews. Check it out yourself:

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What happens when sites go abandoned

I seem to have lost about every Abandonware Blog backup I used to have so I decided to check out The Wayback Machine. Apparently the site has archived a lot and while searching for some interesting posts I found a discussion written by Jman, the Just Games Retro webmaster who used to write some great stuff for this blog. Sadly the comments are not archived.

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SimCity 3000 in the early stages

Apparently the original idea for SimCity 3000 was to make it a 3D game. Luckily EA bought Maxis in 1997 and scrapped the version. Even though you don't see much, this early trailer I found makes it pretty obvious it would've been crap: