next »

[Greg Game Man]

stumbled upon this, thought id let you guys know:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/

a load of old games there to download. I just got JazzJackrabbit 2, Earthworm Jim, Doom2 and Blood.. theyre all great! Theres also a ton of really crap games here, which are good for a laugh.. anyway just posting it incase someone is intersted.

 
EDIT- wtf epic made jazzjackrabbit?haha, long way to gears of war.
Also, Blood is like the hardest game ever? Someone else download it an see if you can get anywhere with it.. this shotgun dude just comes out the first graveyard an blasts you D: an you seriously cant waste ANY ammo.. its like D: (im on "pink on the inside" difficulty)

[Tanner]

Yeah, Abandonia is ace.

[Saker]

epic classic is not epic as-we-know-nowadays

thanks for sharing , man .. this bring me back in time

[Gnarf]

I'd imagine Indie Games is not the right sub-forum for this one.

They don't actually have Doom II for download there, do they? It's pretty easy and straightforward to get a legit copy of that.

But yeah. It's a nice site.

[muku]

They don't actually have Doom II for download there, do they?

Seems they don't. Abandonware is technically illegal anyway, but those sites typically seem to get by with just removing games that are protected by the ESA or similar. I'll have to admit to owing many hours of good entertainment to Abandonia, HOTU and their ilk.

[Cymon]

I was active in that site some time ago and wrote several reviews, but have hesitated to mention it because I never know how certain communities react to abandonware. It is technically illegal but maintains itself on an attitude of "if no one cares we wont get caught." Abandonia automatically checks it's database against a list of games for sale or the ESA list of protected games. Hence the reason why games that were available for download are no longer. Like X-Com. It was available for download until it showed up on steam.

But since this board seems okay with it (for now) lemme link to my reviews. There's actually one more, Star Control that is still erroneously credited to mika because of a technicality, which I'm can't be bothered to have fixed. About half of those reviews were games I was really passionate about, and about half of them were reviewed at the request of the site. I had forgotten about half of them before I found that list.

[Gnarf]

They don't actually have Doom II for download there, do they?

Seems they don't. Abandonware is technically illegal anyway, but those sites typically seem to get by with just removing games that are protected by the ESA or similar. I'll have to admit to owing many hours of good entertainment to Abandonia, HOTU and their ilk.

Yeah, I know. And I checked to find the "No go!" thing on Doom 2. Just found it odd that Greg-Anims said that he had just gotten Doom 2 from there like.

HotU is/was awesome. Like, it would've been pretty awesome if it was only the lists of games with reviews and not the downloads. Lots of great stuff to discover there.

[muku]

Yeah, I know. And I checked to find the "No go!" thing on Doom 2. Just found it odd that Greg-Anims said that he had just gotten Doom 2 from there like.

Yeah, that's a bit confusing.

HotU is/was awesome. Like, it would've been pretty awesome if it was only the lists of games with reviews and not the downloads. Lots of great stuff to discover there.

True, that. If only it weren't the slowest site on the face of the internet...

[Tanner]

If only it were still updated. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Home of the Underdogs is a similar site. Tim told me that he was motivated to start his blog on indie games after the Underdogs site stopped being updated.

I don't think such sites have bad intentions, as long as they remove a game when someone requests that they do it seems fine. Although I'm not sure if they actually do honor all takedown requests by the copyright holders, or just those with the power of the ESA behind them. In any case a lot of the games on the Underdogs are legitimately legal, and it's a site worth checking out just for getting to know the history of PC games -- they have playable PC games that go back to 1977 or so on that site.

[Inane]

You can't get X-Com from Abandonia anymore? GOD, WHY!? I'm never gonna format my HD again.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Because you can now buy it on Steam. They probably asked them to take it down after they decided to start selling it again.

[moi]

Home of the Underdogs is a similar site.

That's what HotU was for.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I didn't read the entire thread before replying -- was just replying to the first post.

[Lucaz]

I download most of my abandonware from Abandonia and Abandonware Paradise. I used HotU a lot, but at this moments all downloads are down 'cause of a HD malfunction, and that's starting to get me stressed. Yet, all the info is still there, and it's the best place to get it.

I love spending time in these sites, just pressing random link after random link, downloading everything.

[Don Andy]

Oh, the memories. I once translated reviews for the German part of the site, but I quit the whole thing because nobody seemed to care.

[Tanner]

I've also found XTC Abandonware to be nice.

[moshboy]

I originally came from the Abandonware community also.. it's what got me into indie games in the first place. Can't say I have the same feelings about Abandonware as I used to though.

[Powergloved Andy]

Thanks for all the free links everybody  There are some places I didn't know about. I was just used to raping Home of the Underdogs!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

EDIT- wtf epic made jazzjackrabbit?haha, long way to gears of war.

I'm not sure they're the same Epic. Perhaps it's similar to Atari -- the Atari that exists today is not actually the same Atari that created the 2600, they are just a different company bought the right to use the name, but there isn't a single employee who is the same from back then. It could be the same with Epic.