Oolite Bulletins

Simcity, Test Drive, the mentioned Mercenary, Revs, Tir Na Nog, Saboteur.
Then Civilization (a lot), F-19 Stealth Fighter, Railroad Tycoon.
Edit: Stunts also, was fun on an 10Mhz x86 when the FPS dropped to 1 in hairpin bends.

Giana Sisters, Wizard of Wor, Krakout, H.E.R.O, Wizball and Boulder Dash in addition to the aforementioned Gunship and Bard's Tales. I loved helicopter sims. After Gunship came Jane's Longbow and finally Enemy Engaged that has it's sourcecode liberated and which I still sometimes play.

C64: Wizard of Wor, Elite & Bruce Lee. Amiga: Test Drive, Sidewinder, Attack of the Mutant Camels.

Amiga: A tramp steamer ship trading game I can't recall the name of. The trading aspect was almost identical to Elite, but actually better, and there was no distracting combat. Chose your destination port on a world map, bought some cargo, and off you went.

Wildeblood wrote:

C64: Wizard of Wor, Elite & Bruce Lee. Amiga: Test Drive, Sidewinder, Attack of the Mutant Camels.

Amiga: A tramp steamer ship trading game I can't recall the name of. The trading aspect was almost identical to Elite, but actually better, and there was no distracting combat. Chose your destination port on a world map, bought some cargo, and off you went.

Ports of Call?

I suppose my favorite c64 games (where I played original Elite) were F15 strike eagle, Apache, airborne ranger... Um... I'm sensing a pattern here.

But really it was the same reason as I liked elite. A level of challenge and more importantly, verisimilitude.

Later platforms like my old Amiga did so in other ways, via roleplaying experiences like the gold box TSR D&D games, or Alone in the Dark.

On my BBC B, I spent a lot of time on Text adventures, typing in & debugging games from magazines then playing them for a while (sometimes less time than it took to get them running - I think I liked sorting out the problems and hunting the typo-bugs ), even started writing my own (silly) BASIC programs ( must be why I became a molecular biologist )

There wasn't another game that grabbed me the way Elite did, transporting me to another universe. I can't think of any other game that I would still be playing now!

maik wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

Amiga: A tramp steamer ship trading game I can't recall the name of.

Ports of Call?

Yes. Thank you.

CaptSolo wrote:

I didn't play many computer games but did like the adventure / RPG style genre: Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance, and Questron to name three. They offered a relaxing diversion from Elite.

Ah Pool of Radiance - and that's where I got my screen name from...

When I've discovered ELITE in late 1995 (yeah very late, ELITE comes from 1984) on C-64 I can't even land on Lave Station. My first successful landing was in 1996. At that time I've played A.C.E., Last Ninja series, Boulder Dash, Bismarck, Beach Head, F-18 Hornet, F-14 Tomcat, Silent Service, Up Periscope, RISK, Continental Circus and many other games...

Wildeblood wrote:

maik wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

Amiga: A tramp steamer ship trading game I can't recall the name of.

Ports of Call?

Yes. Thank you.

Been playing that a lot myself.

Lords of Midnight - which, like Elite, later got remade with more advanced technology. I'm quite proud of myself that, given that UL has it that Lords of Midnight was thought to be unwinnable when first released, I found a winning line with just two weeks of playing. I downloaded a remake a few years back and found it just as enjoyable.

A little later there was an Amstrad CPC464 port of Gauntlet, the dungeon-bashing arcade game. It played really well, loaded extra levels from tape when necessary, and kept me amused for many, many hours.

Before I got Elite there was Interdictor Pilot, another space flight and combat game with a docking sequence to keep you amused. Ah, those Jahdran Aggressors, Gallanic Cruisers and especially the hated Meson Torpedoes...

Civilization came a lot later. I had a nasty Amstrad PC knock-off by then.

Bugbear wrote:

CaptSolo wrote:

I didn't play many computer games but did like the adventure / RPG style genre: Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance, and Questron to name three. They offered a relaxing diversion from Elite.

Ah Pool of Radiance - and that's where I got my screen name from...

Ah yes, the Bugbears! My magic user would cast a Charm Monster spell on one which would make him fight for my party.

i played Elite on a friends Amiga 500. we also played World Class Leader Board a lot......

pc wise would be might and magic one of the first 2 or 3 games i think it was. i found a buggy tile because i was always into completely exploring the maps. it ruined the game cause if you stepped on this one particular square it teleported you to the near end game which you wernt in any way prepared for...

also Links LS, Star Control II, wolfenstine, doom etc....

CaptSolo wrote:

Ah yes, the Bugbears! My magic user would cast a Charm Monster spell on one which would make him fight for my party.

You know it still plays nicely on Dosbox...where's that decoder wheel...

Somehow I missed the first three incarnations of Elite (shocker, I know), but the first computer we had in the house growing up was a TRS-80 (Model 1 - Level 2) and I remember spending much time playing Pyramid 2000 (text adventure) and Invasion Force (Trek 80 clone, I think).

In the early/mid 90 on my own computer, I played a lot of Commander Keen (and ones similar to it), and an ASCII-graphics based adventure game called ZZT. ZZT included it's own board editor and O-O language to allow others to create worlds for it. I think a lot of this community could relate to that.

HF