The Games

On this page I intend to keep an updated list of the many video games I have played across various system owned over the years.  This page is going to get updated and tweaked as I remember and recall games I have played. It will be under continuous updating and will appear meager at first until I am able to add information.

If interested in the hardware that I have owned go to this page link:  The Hardware.

The Games

I was going to try and create the lists below by hardware that ran it by the year that it was purchased. But trying to recall the exact years for each game and when I had a legal copy of it is hard to remember. I owned and still own a lot of games.

It all starts with 1981, when my parents got my sister and I an Atari 2600 for Christmas.

ATARI 2600 Games Owned

• Adventure (a favorite of mine)
• Air-Sea Battle
• Asteroids
• Basic Math
• Berzerk
• Breakout
• Combat
• Defender
• Demon Attack
• Dig Dug
• Donkey Kong
• Frogger
• Frogs and Flies
• Haunted House
• Indy 500
• Pac-Man
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Riddle of the Sphinx
• Space Invaders
• Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
• Starmaster
• Warlords

Atari Musings:  Between 1981 and 1984 the Atari never got used much as my family lived in the country and there weren’t hardly any kids around to play it with me. My sister was four years older and didn’t seem overly interested in it. It maybe saw use a handful of times a week. But there were long periods where it would sit for weeks and maybe even months. The games seen listed above usually came as Christmas presents. They got used heavily for a month and then things tapered off rapidly.

1984 my family moved to a different town and one of my new friends there had an Atari 2600. Between October 1984 and October 1985 my new friend and I, The Bishop, who would later become a founding member of Upstairs Room Software, would have Atari Conventions. Our conventions consisted of playing all our collected Atari Games for hours at a time.

The Atari was an amusing distraction and a lot of fun.

By Autumn 1985 I got introduced to the Commodore 64, and little did I know, I would become a gamer.

Commodore 64/128 Games Owned

• Ace of Aces
• Action Biker
• Archon: The Light and the Dark
• ArticFox
• Artillery Duel
• Auto Duel
• Bard’s Tale: Tales of the Unknown
• Bard’s Tale II: The Destiny Knight
• Bard’s Tale III:  The Thief of Fate
• Beach Head II
• Beyond Castle Wolfenstein
• Beyond the Forbidden Forest
• Bounces
• Bruce Lee
• California Games
• Castle Wolfenstein
• Centauri Alliance
• Choplifter
• Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer
• Commando
• Conan
• Curse of the Azure Bonds
• Deathlord
• Defender of the Crown
• Demon Winter
• Earth Orbit Station
• Echelon
• Elite
• Face Off
• GATO
• Gauntlet
• Ghostbusters
• Green Beret
• Gunship (1st C64 game I purchased with my own money)
• H.E.R.O.
• Harrier Combat Simulator
• Hat Trick
• Hellcat Ace
• Hired Sword 2
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Hot Wheels
• Impossible Mission
• Jumpman
• Kane
• Kane 2
• Kickstart
• Kickstart 2
• L’Abbaye des morts
• Leather Goddesses of Phobos
• Legacy of the Ancients
• Legend of Blacksilver
• Little Computer People
• Lode Runner
• Lords of Conquest
• Maniac Mansion
• M.U.L.E.
• Mail Order Monsters
• Might and Magic Book One
• Montezuma’s Revenge
• Ninja
• Pitfall II
• Phantasie
• Pool of Radiance
• Questron
• Raid Over Moscow
• Rambo First Blood Part II
• Realm of Impossibility
• Red Storm Rising
• River Raid
• Roadwar 2000
• Roland’s Ratrace
• Satan’s Hollow
• Saucer Attack
• Save New York
• Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic
• Seven Cities of Gold
• Shards of Spring
• Shogun
• Skyfox
• Snooper Troopers
• Spy Hunter
• Spy vs Spy
• Star Trek: The Kobyashi Alternative
• Starglider
• Strike Fleet
• Strip Poker
• Summer Games
• Summer Games 2
• Super Huey
• Super Huey 2
• Suspect
• Tai-Pan
• Temple of Apshai Trilogy
• Test Drive
• The Bulge
• The Eternal Dagger
• The Great Giana Sisters
• The Hobbit
• The Last Ninja
• The Pawn
• The Sword of Fargoal
• Times of Lore
• Trolls and Tribulations
• Ultima IV
• Ultima V
• Wasteland
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
• Winter Games
• Wizard’s Crown
• Zac McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
• Zaxxon
• Zork I
• Zorro

C64 Musings: I had my first run in with the C64 in mid 1985, but in early 1986 I fell in love with it and actually began acquiring games quickly before I even had a computer of my own to use them on. A few were pirated but 95% of them were purchased originals.

It was Christmas 1986 when my parents got the family (really it was just for me) a Commodore 128, a 1571 disk drive, a fancy dot matrix printer, a monitor (I forget what kind, but it worked with the C128 & CP/M abilities), a mouse and TAC II joystick controller.

I recall learning that they got me a C128 and not a C64, and I got worried all the games I had been buying up wouldn’t work on it!  All my friends had C64s and that was what we were playing the games on. I learned very quickly that the C128 could be put into C64 mode and play all the games. By holding down the “Commodore” key and turning the computer on it would start in C64 mode. Or, if it was in C128 mode all I had to do was type “Go 64″…  Ahh, memories…

Amiga 500 Games Owned:

• 688 Attack Sub
• A-10 Tank Killer
• Afterburner
• Airborne Ranger
• Alien Breed
• Alien Breed II
• Another World
• Auto Duel
• Bar Games
• Barbarian (same as Death Sword)
• Barbarian+
• Battle Chess
• Battletech:  The Crescent Hawk’s Inception
• Benefactor
• Beyond Zork
• Black Crypt
• Black Dawn Rebirth
• Bridge Strike
• Budokan: The Martial Spirit
• Cadaver
• Canon Fodder
• Conan the Cimmerian
• Covert Action
• Crystal Dragon
• Day of the Viper
• Death Sword (same as Barbarian)
• Defender of the Crown
• Demon’s Winter
• Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
• Dragon Lord
• Dragon Strike
• Dragon Wars
• Elite
• Elite II
• Elvira
• Elvira II
• Eye of the Beholder
• Eye of the Beholder II
• Flashback
• Flight of the Amazon Queen
• Future Wars
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier
• Gauntlet II
• Golden Axe
• Hard Nova
• Harpoon Battleset 1
• Hillsfar
• Hostages
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• It Came From The Desert
• Jetstrike
• Journey
• Keef the Thief
• Lemmings
• Little Computer People
• Maniac Mansion
• Mean Streats
• Midwinter
• Phantasie III
• Pirates
• Pools of Darkness
• Questron II
• Rampage
• Red Storm Rising
• Rick Dangerous
• Rick Dangerous II
• Rise of the Dragon
• River Raid Reloaded
• Roadwar 2000
• Roadwar Europa
• Robocop
• Rocket Ranger
• Secret of the Silver Blades
• Shadow of the Beast
• Shadow of the Beast II
• Shadow of the Beast III
• Space Rogue
• Star Control
• Starflight II
• Supremacy
• Sword of Aragon
• Swords of Twilight
• Syndicate
• Temple of Apshai Trilogy
• Terrorpods
• The Blues Brothers
• The Chaos Engine
• The Guild of Thieves
• The Secret of Monkey Island
• The Shadows of Sergoth
• Times of Lore
• Treasure of the Savage Frontier
• Turrican II
• Ultima V
• Windwalker
• Wings
• Worms
• Zak McKracken

Amiga 500 Musings:  Christmas 1989 was another year that sticks out in my memory. That was the year I was able to convince my parents into upgrading our C128 into an Amiga 500 (for school work, of course…hahahahaha). My new Commodore Amiga 500 had a full MEG of memory, an external external floppy drive, a fantastic monitor, mouse, and all my old joysticks from the C128 worked with it too. The Rook (Upstairs Room Software buddy next door) gave me a side port RAM upgrade (not sure why he had 2), so I was rocking 2 full MEGs.

If I could go back and recover one of my old computers and have it once again, it would be my Amiga. However, with that said, I admit to going back and forth… as I write this I am saying my Amiga, in a month from now I could easily be saying my C128.

Some of the games I had for my C64/128 I repurchased to play on the Amiga, as you may have noticed some duplicity in my lists above.

By 1990 three of the four members of Upstairs Room Software had upgraded to the Amiga 500. That 4th member actually lost interest in computer gaming and got heavily into cars when he turned sixteen.

PC Games

I got into PC games and sold off my Amiga in 1995. What’s sad is that I never even looked back fondly at my Amiga computer at that time. I boxed it up and shoved it into a closet the same day I brought home a 486 PC. At that phase in my life I was not gaming much anymore, but I did want to play games like Doom and Star Wars Dark Forces.

In fact it was Dark Forces that really pushed me towards getting a PC.

After I had the PC at home I didn’t game nearly as much as I had back in the late 80s and early 90s. From 1995 until now I only have purchased a handful of games per year.

Here are a few I have played over the years: Doom, Doom II, Star Wars Dark Forces, X-wing, Diablo, Raveloft Strahd’s Possession, Raveloft Stone Prophet, Forgotten Realms (all the gold box games), Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Conan (Age of Conan), Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout (all of them), Oblivion, Skyrim, Star Trek Online, Elite Dangerous, Shroud of the Avatar, etc…etc…

How I Acquired The Games (Commodore years)

All of the games listed above were legally purchased and not copied from friends in Upstairs Room Software. Don’t get me wrong, the fellas and I had a selection of pirated games…  But I had a thing for game boxes and still do. Game box art sucked me in at the computer stores. Any money I managed to get was saved and used to buy games.

My parents were not divorced but my father did work away from home. He was around about 80-90 days per year back then.  My mother was very accommodating to my childhood ‘wants’ and I was able to get her to buy me a new game a couple times a month as long as I kept out of trouble, and the Commodore Computers kept me out of trouble.

Getting new games was never tough. There were dozens of computer & software stores nearby back in the 80s into the early 90s near where I lived; B Dalton Booksellers, Waldenbooks, Electronic Boutique, Software Etc, to name a few.

Myself and the other guys in our gaming group all were working part time at age 14 and 15. We had money to spend, and we spent it on software. If one of my buddies had a cool new game and I liked it, I would go out and buy it for myself.

Pirated Games

I’m not saying we were angles and didn’t have pirated games… we did. Many of the games Upstairs Room Software had that were copies hardly worked, and many were copies of copies of copies… who knows how many generations from the first gen copy that we were copying from…? I still look back at that time and the software pirating and don’t understand why we did it.

Oddly enough 99%  of those copied games never got any game play time in our computers. Personally for me, I was too busy trying to play and beat the originals I had, like Bard’s Tale II, Ultima IV, Wasteland, The Legend of Blacksilver, Eye of the Beholder II, Starflight II, Red Storm Rising, etc… etc…

If we came across a copied game we liked we would go out and buy it; prime example would be Bard’s Tale: Tales of the Unknown. I had a copy of that game but it was impossible to play without the game manual with spell casting information… the internet did not exist back then to look up that stuff.  If you wanted to play a game, you really needed the game manual in many instances.

I think a large amount of the allure of copying games back then was just to say you had them, but it didn’t make it okay.

Continually Updating

This page will likely remain in a state of perpetual updating. I am pretty sure there are games of I have forgotten about that will come to me and need to be added to this list.

Tim