Ah, aD&D... axis and alies...

My favorite pnp's were Earthdawn and Shadowrun. Not quite as old school but still getting pretty old :/ Titan (or Titan Quest?) was a fun board game if anyone remembers it. I am probably a little younger than some here because I also remember playing a D&D dungeon crawler (don't remember actual name) on an Intelevision when I was real young. Bard's Tale was a blast too... great nostalgic references all, and cool article idea :)

Great thread!  Loved seeing the more obscure games like Feudal, Archon, Ultima IV (a game which I personally mapped every square of).  How about Telengard.  Played a good number of games back in the day. 

AD&D, (isle of dread was my fav), Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Star Frontiers (in fact I recently programmed a Knight Hawks map simulation), Car Wars, Battletech.  Axis and Allies, and I picked up TITAN about two years ago (much easier to learn on the computer/Java version).

Usually attend Rock Con (Rockford, IL) every year since I was 17 (i.e., long ago).  When Gary passed, a new con came into existence: "GaryCon."  Lots of old TSR employees and artists attend that one; and it is great to game with them and hear their stories.

I'm not sure why threads like this always leave me feeling so depressed.  Part of it could be the age factor, part of it could just be that nostalgia thing kicking in and saying they don't make games like that anymore...meh.

Gets into all the thinking about the various Avalon Hill games - later games like Phoenix Command - and so many of those already mentioned.

The game shop that I went to as a kid's still around...selling mainly TCGs...bah.

Originally posted by VirusDancer

I'm not sure why threads like this always leave me feeling so depressed.  Part of it could be the age factor, part of it could just be that nostalgia thing kicking in and saying they don't make games like that anymore...meh.

Gets into all the thinking about the various Avalon Hill games - later games like Phoenix Command - and so many of those already mentioned.

The game shop that I went to as a kid's still around...selling mainly TCGs...bah.

I know what you mean - and for me, computer gaming never measured up to tabletop gaming.  The social aspect really made the difference.

The shop I used to go to is also still around, though the products are indeed different.  RPGs and tabletop games don't sell like they used to.  Still can find some interesting things every once in a while.  Finding gaming groups isn't easy - who wants to be the creepy old man?

Anyway, really loved those old games, like Car Wars.  I remember the first version I bought came in a ziploc bag - then bought the one that came in the little plastic box.

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Originally posted by Tardcore
And last but not least, Diplomacy

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Here are some of my old-time favorites (adding 5 more):

Traveller (I still misspell this word!)

War of the Ring (The original by SSI)

Magic Realm

Dungeon!

And I never played Green things, but did play another Tom Wham game Snit's Revenge!

Snit's Revenge = WIN!

Props to Traveller too, Car Wars, and Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay is still one of the best game systems around!

I liked Axis and DnD but i will admit i was not a huge RPG fan at that time.My table top gaming consisted of monopoly,horse racing,clue,Yahtzee and Risk :).

DnD however always intrigued me,it was the reason i began looking at rpg's like Ultima and Wizardry,Might n Magic.

However the simple board game idea was not fun because it relied on getting people together.So instead i enjoyed the early wave of single player games,mostly first person shooters.

IMO ,well actually not even an opinion but the majority of MMO players right now,were not even around or old enough to  enjoy Dnd or those other games.

What put DnD on the map was that 90% of the games were all using their DIE formula,be it 1/2/3/6 sided dice.Axis imo was more notable for it's figurines.

What i noticed back in the day was that as soon as the internet became popular ,board games died off fast.At that same time Hasbro was sued for trying to create a monopoly on board game pricing and of course lost to the USA government.

Of course no surprise guess who owns DnD?Hasbro has tried to gain copyrights on the entire board game industry,they try every year over and over to claim the right to anyone using a board for a game.After they were sued the yhired some of the biggest lawyers in the US.

Hasbro also owned Axis and Allies at one time as well.

It is actually VERY sad when you see an obvious monopoly like Hasbro ,they even have their hands  on that unknown Littel Green Things.Hasbro btw owns TSR aka Wizards of the Coast.

It's kind of funny thinking back to the preinternet time period as well - the various magazines that many of the games had.  Not talking about things just like Dungeon or Dragon, but ADQ - BattleTechnology...etc.  It really added to the games.

I think the major depressing part, in having thought about - was losing it all about 4 years ago after a motorcycle accident.  With all the work stuff, medical stuff, post office deciding I didn't live where I did I apparently missed two payments on my storage - I couldn't blame them if they had sent a letter (post office screwed that up) but they never left a voicemail.  I found out when I went in to pay the bill... over 30 years of stuff that I had spent way too much money on, heh/meh - was all gone.  Tabletop games, RPGs, wargaming, miniatures...all gone.

Then, there are the revivals!  Remember Titan?

Here's the sourceforge online adaptation:

http://colossus.sourceforge.net/

I still have Axis and Allies, plus its companion, also worthy of the list - Shogun or as it was later known Samurai Swords.

Those two games kept my friends and I from getting into fights over Risk daily. It would take us 5 days before getting into a fight playing Axis and Allies.

Another niche' genre

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

I tracked down Dune and the two expansions several years ago. Don't have anyone to play them with, but I remember being the only kid in my family interested as the adults pulled this game out. After that, I was hooked on games for good.

Nice List!

These are mine:

1. AD&D mixed with Rolemaster

  and

2. Traveller / MegaTraveller

3. Top Secret

4. Ultima

5. Honorable mentions to Gamma World, Car Wars, Boot Hill, and a few others that we shamelessly blended the rules, features, and stories together.

"Old School"?

Hell, I still play many of these!

Have you guys heard of Vassal? If you haven't - it's an open source boardgame engine with litterally hundreds of games on it now...

Awful Green Things from Outer Space?

http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:The_Awful_Green_Things_From_Outer_Space

Axis and Allies

http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Axis_%26_Allies

There are more than a couple of PC versions of this... and IIRC there was a free one somewhere... (might look later)

Paradox Interactive owns the rights to Squad Leader at the moment and Paradox also released the last PC version of Diplomacy - which sucked by the way.  Some of which was Paradox's fault (really poor beta testing)... and some of which was ATARI's fault (limiting what Paradox was allowed to do)

In the case Diplomacy though - there are hundreds of sites around. PBEM and interactive games.

Snits Revenge - there used to be a site called "e-boardgames.com" that allowed PBEM games of this - the site is still there but not working ATM??? (not sure on the status there)

As for Wooden Ships Iron Men:

http://www.youplay.it/

Which also has games like Blue Max

Blood Bowl is a PC game too - and was on sale at GamersGate a couple of weeks ago

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-BBLE/blood-bowl-legendary-edition?caff=2208651 <- linky with my personal account referral (but if you don't want to use it you can search yourself)

Yeah... these 'retro' threads always make me laugh... I am still playing these games!