Keep in mind I’m 27 years old. This means that back when I was 10 we didn’t have demo discs, (Well, actually we did via PC Gaming Monthly but that means shit-all to a kid whose computer didn’t have a CD-Rom drive,) and the idea of a demo download was a concept too big for most of our Neanderthal minds to grasp. Enter fun-assed DOS and windows games and a measly 3 bucks. What we got on each 3.5 floppy disc usually amounted to about a ¼ of the full game. Each disc had one, sometimes two games on it, each containing a trial version of the game that always encouraged you to mail away for the full version. Sure, I had no money to get a full game, but a quarter of a game a piece was good enough for the time.
As for the quality of the games...well, it kind of varied. Some weeks I would find a game that hooked me for days at a time and even made me want to find a way to find the full version of the game. Other games were what essentially amounted to the digital equivalent of hippo shit, even for the time, but I still at least beat each one once if only so my allowance wouldn’t go to complete waste. There was always a variety when it came to shareware titles: Platforming, FPS, Fighting, Strategy, racing, Shooter, even educational titles. Already having my life’s share of educational gaming though Captain Novolin for the SNES, (a hilarious edutainment title I may get into another day) I decided the other genres (largely FPS and Action) were the way to go. Have a seat and let me show you some of the above mediocre to awesome DOS/Windows titles shareware had to offer. Also, what the hell were you doing reading these last three paragraphs standing up?
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
OK, if you’ve ever played this game before odds are you’ve noticed that this game is essentially a Wolfenstein 3D clone. The game plays the same, the sprites felt similar, and the levels weren’t much different in presentation. That being said, taking your cues from a game like W3D isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. The game puts you in the role of the titular character who is on a quest to stop the evil Dr. Pyrus Goldfire from using his army of aliens, mutants and scientists to take over the world. Also you get a cool blaster gun that blows holes in people’s chest.
Score!
This game had alot of the standard elements you would see in a FPS of its time. Lots of similar looking hallways and corridors, killing scores of clones made from gradually less inept villains, and key cards. Always with the fucking key cards. This one was actually pretty fun to play and I recall giving it more than a few playthroughs. It had 8 episodes, one of which was playable in this case. What most don’t realize is that this game in a way acts as a precursor to legendary FPS title Goldeneye. How you ask? Well, true Blake Stone was supposed to be a British Agent who worked for Her Majesty the Queen, but the where the real connection comes in is the inclusion of the scientists.
Aside from regular enemies, you also had random scientists who would either open fire on you if you tried to talk to them, or they gave you hints about how to get health, and maybe even give you tokens that were used to purchase health via vending machines scattered throughout the game. We would see this used again later in Goldeneye (Dr. Doak!) and used again even more prominently later when Half-Life came into existence, but Blake Stone did it before any of them. As a full title however, BS:AOG didn’t do very well in sales. Well, to be more accurate it did great it’s first week. Unfortunately old BS was in the position of being released a week before another somewhat popular shareware title hit the market...
DOOM
Oh yeah. Poor Blake didn’t have a chance once this bad boy came out. We’re talking about not only one of the most popular PC games of all time here, we’re talking about what is widely considered to be one of the most important games of all time. Id software made this game after the classic Wolfenstein 3D, a game already known for its high level of violence at the time (At least by early 90’s standards) and still cranked that shit to 11. The story was simple enough. You were a lone Marine stationed on a base on one of Mar’s moons. Demons from Hell take over the base and the assholes in charge leave you guarding the back with nothing but a pistol while they take all the good weapons and go charging in to get annihilated. It’s you job to go in after them and kill everything with a pulse.
This game is one of the better examples of getting ¼ of the game in the shareware version. Actually, later releases non-withstanding you actually got a 1/3 of the game instead. Doom was separated into 3 chapters, the entire 1st of which, the episode “Knee Deep in the Dead,” was given to us in the shareware copy. This was actually the one shareware title I went out of my way to find the full version of. Unfortunately, it just did not seem doable in Sydney, NS. Not for me anyways. I think I picked up 3 different versions of the game. All of them turned out to be shareware in a bigger box. I recently decided to remedy that (better late than never) and downloaded this game via XBL and it still holds up today. Especially the full version. By the time you reached the second chapter the screen would get filled to the gullet with enemies. The only thing missing was “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” playing through the speakers as you used your trusty shotgun to kill every single one of God’s mistakes. No cover, no waiting for your health to magically regenerate on its own. It was just you and a metric fuck-ton of zombies, imps, and demons to kill. Doom was all about the bloodlust.
Also, cyber-demons with rocket launchers for hands.
Sure, I could go into some of the technical marvels it displayed for its time like LAN deathmatches (before it was cool) and the use of shadows and multi-level planes (W3D only has single floor corridors. The concept of “shooting up” was still exclusive to heroin junkies at this point.) but others have said it better and truthfully I didn’t know the first thing about LAN back in the day and I didn’t really notice things like shadows and multi-level yadda yadda yadda. When I was a kid, I just wanted to kill stuff. Cyber-Demon stuff. And in the end, isn’t that what being a child was all about?
........
Annnnnyways.
Duke Nukem 1 and 2
Remember Duke Nukem 3D? The game with all the strippers, pigs dressed up like cops, peeing in urinals, and one-liners stolen from Evil Dead and They Live? Yeah, it was a pretty epic game of its time. The thing is, that game wasn’t just called “3D” because of the fancy graphics. The “3” in “3D” actually stands for the 3rd entry in the series. Unlike 3D however, the first two DN games were actually platforming/shooter titles and were both fun in their own right, even if they certainly feel dated by today’s standards.
The original Duke Nukem followed the story of Duke as he fought an invasion from the evil Dr. Proton and his evil robots. Duke lacked his trademark shades and proper spelling of his name, (Duke NukUm as at the time. “Duke Nukem” was a Captain Planet villain.”) but you could still see his attitude was still somewhere in line with what we would see in later games. The graphics were certainly cruder, but Duke’s trademark personality was still there
The gameplay was fairly straight-forward. You went through stage after stage, jumping and shooting bad guys, traps, cameras, etc on a 2-D plane. There were 3 acts in total and you would get the entire first act in the shareware copy. It played a lot like other shooters of its time and looked about the same in terms of graphical quality. It may not have been mind-blowing but it was certainly a good start for what was to come.
Before medkits, there was chicken.
The sequel, the now properly spelled “Duke Nukem 2,” was a noticeable improvement from the first title. This time around Duke is abducted by aliens while in the middle of a talk show appearance plugging his new book, “Why I’m so great,” an account of how he kicked Dr. Proton’s ass in the first game. Once abducted and jailed, Duke busts out and begins to open the proverbial 40-pound box of rape on everything breathing. Of course, the story goes a little deeper than that, but you basically get the jist of why the ass kicking has to start.
He broke out using a radioactive molar. I am not making that shit up.
Duke’s design was a little closer to what we’ve come to know and love in this game, minus the shades. You can see more of his trademark attitude and sense of humor shine through in this one too. (Duke became even more of an arrogant bastard after beating Dr. Proton.) The graphics are also a step up from the original and with more colors and more detailed stages. The gameplay has also been improved. You still need weapon upgrades and keys but Duke can now shoot in more directions than just straight. The music is better as well although I’ll admit, not having speakers at the time certainly put a damper on things. I could only ever hear the damn sound effects.
Both of these titles were my introduction to the world of Duke Nukem. A year or two later, Duke Nukem 3D would come out to kick ass and steal from John Carpenter, but this is where the story really began. The best part? This was one of those shareware releases that came with both games bundled in one package. Groovy. Very damn groovy indeed.
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Honestly, there weren’t a whole lot of vertical shooters in the shareware department. Not in the places I was looking anyways. Actually, most of the titles outside of edutainment were either platforming games that played similar to Duke Nukem, or FPS games that played like Wolfenstein. I wasn’t a big fan of shooters at the time but after a few months of what felt like playing the same damn games over and over I decided to give Raptor a roll in the hay. Unlike several other times in life where I’ve followed that logic, this time I was not disappointed.
There’s isn’t much of a story to speak of in Raptor but this is a game that really doesn’t need one. Hell, most vertical shooters I’ve ever played didn’t have any story save for what you read in the manual but who cares when the main goal is to simply blow shit up? You start every mission in a hangar which acts as your options menu. Here you can upgrade your jet and weaponry using money which you earn during each mission. You can upgrade your weapons, adding things like missiles and lasers to your armory as well as the option to upgrade your jet’s shields. They also switched up the gameplay a bit by giving you weapons that could only hit ground targets and weapons that could only kill airborne enemies. Plus of course, there was the nuke. Every good shooter needs that “kill the shit out of everything at once” button and thankfully Raptor was no exception.
The shareware version of Raptor had 9 playable levels. That was a third of the entire game which consisted of 27 missions in total. I was never the best math student, but then more than ever before, the math made sense. 3 dollars + nuclear weapons = happy boy.
There are plenty more shareware games I could go on about here like Halloween Harry, Jazz Jackrabbit, The Catacomb Abyss; but if I did we would be here all day. (Or you would eventually get up and do something with your day. Vagrant!) If you’re curious to see what this whole shareware thing was about go to this site and check these guys out. You can find all the games I mentioned plus a shit-ton more from the era. All Shareware. All the time. I can almost feel my 10 year-old self giving the adult me the finger.
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