So, I admit it.  I’m an old school gamer of a sorts… and there are a lot of old school games I still enjoy playing.

To that end, a while back I set up DOSBox on my system so I could play MechWarrior II, MechWarrior II: Ghost Bear’s Legacy, and MechWarrior II: Mercenaries since they are, in all reality, three of my all time favorite video games.  I actually have 2 versions of the original MechWarrior II – one is the standard DOS version, while the other is a 3DFX version that was designed to run under the very first 3D video card… the Diamond Monster3D.  Naturally I can’t use the 3DFX version on DOSBox… but no worries.

There is still a very large following community out on the internet for all three of these games, and I spent some time attempting to get NetMech and MercNet running so I could try to play online against some people, but it was problematic, so I gave up after an hour or so because I just didn’t want to take the time at that moment (I’ll probably just set all that up on my DOS system I have running an old Pentium II processor and DOS/Windows95 dual boot anyway).

Anyway, I have of course played through both Mech 2 and Ghost Bear several times already and am working through Mercs again.  I had forgotten that I had to beat the entire campaign of Ghost Bear without failing a single mission to get into the Trial of Bloodright for the Tseng Bloodname… so I had to redo the entire campaign with a new profile; and did it all in less than 3 hours.

This weekend though I decided to try to get all the games I used to have on DOS set up on DOSBox so I can play them, and went out hunting.  Since most of them are all abandonware at this point, I didn’t have any trouble finding downloads of most of them, and I just created ISO’s for the ones I actually still have copies of.  I managed to get DukeNukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Wolfenstien 3D: Spear of Destiny, Wing Commander 2 (the first PC game I ever played), Warcraft, The Dig, Alone in the Dark, Ultima IV, Dark Forces, TIE Fighter, Rise of the Triad, Hexen, Strife, and a bunch of others.  I’m having issues with my USB joystick setup being recognized in DOSBox, and until I have that fixed I can’t really play TIE Fighter (which sucks – another all time favorite).  I still want to get a bunch more installed… a few more of the Ultima series, and some others.

The irony is that this got me wanting to play some other games that require Windows 95 – like Outlaws, HyperBlade, and some others.  So that just means it’s time to really break out the aforementioned DOS/Windows 95 machine I have still packed away in my closet.