As a group, gamers are a forward looking people. We’re all too easily distracted by the shiny new penny that’s about to come rolling around the corner to spin to a stop at our feet. This is a good thing for the industry that we all feed, as money is made off of the new far more than from the old. However, there is always the need to catch up on games that you missed. Maybe you were broke or too busy when the game was released; maybe you didn’t get a console until late in its life, and now you’re trying to catch up on all the great exclusives that you missed; or maybe, like me, you spent most of your life as a secular gamer and you’re just beginning to explore the platforms you’ve been denying.  

I grew up as a console gamer. I got my NES for my tenth birthday, and progressed through the usual console path of the following twenty years. Even after buying my first PC, I didn’t really get into PC games. They just didn’t seem right to me. Their controls and gameplay were foreign to me. Give me a gamepad and I can blast my way through Nazis and aliens by the millions, but put me in the same situation with a keyboard and mouse and I turn into a fumble-fingered spastic.

In the last five years or so, I’ve been dipping my toes into the PC game scene. I’ll never be a hardcore MMO player again (City Of Heroes pretty much burned me out on that genre....four years of my life drowned in a sea of spandex and AoE attacks) or a world class FPS sniper (that whole mouse problem just won’t go away), but I’m learning to like some of the game types that are more available on PC than console (Epic RPGs being the prime example...I lust after everything BioWare has ever made). The only problem is that I read about all of these great games that came out in the 90s and 2000s that I really want to give a try, but they’re either out of print and expensive to track down, or they won’t run on my modern PC without the use of a  cumbersome DOS emulator. I was pretty much resigned to waiting on erratically released “anniversary editions” or HD re-releases to play these missed gems, until I read about Good Old Games.

GOG.com is an online retailer that is bringing the silver and golden ages of PC games back to all of us who may have missed them, or just want to revisit an old favorite. They have over 500 games available, ranging from early 90s adventure games (none of the much requested Lucasarts games, unfortunately) to today’s most popular indie games and RPGs (The Witcher 2:  Enhanced Edition was just added), most for between $5 and $10 (with frequent sales at ridiculous prices). All of the games are DRM free, can be downloaded as many times as you want and are formatted to run properly on modern PCs (many are also available for Mac), with the older DOS games including a copy of DOS Box that automatically installs and runs when you boot up the game. Most of the games also include a plethora of extras that are included with purchase. The most common extras are game specific avatars, soundtracks, manuals and artworks, but many include things like developer interviews and game expansions.  

I’ve been a customer for over a year, and have yet to buy a game that didn’t install and run perfectly. I have the complete Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate series, most of the Leisure Suit Larry series, the entire Descent series and am about to dig into System Shock 2 (recently added). I’ve discovered what all of my PC gamer friends have been talking about for years.  What I’ve missed. And the best part? I’ve bought 45 games, and spent less than $200 doing so.  Hell, for $5 I’ll give just about any game a try. You never know when you’ll find a new favorite.