The 12 Greatest PC Shareware Games of All Time
January 24th, 2012 by Benj Edwards
If you've read this blog for some time, you'll know that I'm a big fan of shareware games. Specifically, I love shareware from the "golden age of PC shareware," an era I just made up that roughly spanned 1988-1996.
And by "PC shareware," in this case, I mean IBM PC compatible. I was not involved in shareware or BBS scenes for non-IBM computers, so I am not nearly as familiar with them.
With that in mind, take a gander at this new slideshow over at PC World in which I attempt to pick the The 12 Greatest PC Shareware Games of All Time. Whether I have succeeded or failed is not exactly the point, because as I always say, you can never objectively rank greatness. But even if you don't agree with my picks, it should provide a fun journey down memory lane.
When you're done reading it, I'd love to hear from you guys — what are your favorite shareware games of all time? Feel free to bring other platforms into it if you want.
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If you love shareware games, check out my 2009 interviews with the twin titans of PC shareware, Scott Miller of Apogee and Tim Sweeney of Epic MegaGames.
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January 24th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Ah, the legendary Scorched Earth. The reason I bought a PC.
To this day I still try to convince people that it needs to be experienced.
January 24th, 2012 at 12:34 pm
You really bought a PC because of Scorched Earth? That's pretty amazing. I put it on my 10 Greatest MS-DOS Games of All Time list last year. I've spent more time playing Scorched Earth, a completely free title, than many games I've paid $50 for.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Commander Keen changed my life…
January 24th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I was sure Jill of the Jungle would be on this list… I would also have to nominate Hugo's House of Horrors. Either way, good stuff!
January 25th, 2012 at 12:40 am
Great list! But what about 'Halloween Harry'
January 25th, 2012 at 10:39 am
How awesome that I've seen two of the titles I immediately thought of mentioned here. All the usual suspects were there, of course, with Doom in its rightful place at #1, but…
Glad to see Raptor on there; one of those that I gladly bought the full version, it was so good!
And the other was Jill of the Jungle, just mentioned by Phillip D. Good taste!
January 25th, 2012 at 10:44 am
Jill of the Jungle was a strong contender, let me tell you, because it is close to my heart since I played it a lot back in the day.
However, I felt that Jill's gameplay is a little awkward and creaky compared to other titles on the list, and its influence (while it was important at the time) wasn't enough to raise its profile up the ranks. I highly recommend you play it again today, and you'll see what I mean.
That being said, I still love Jill of the Jungle — I think it was the first Soundblaster/VGA shareware game I ever played, and that was amazing at the time. I talked to its author, Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, about it back in 2009.
January 26th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Give me a "hell yeah" if you just knew Doom would be #1 before watching the slideshow.
January 27th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
I was really into Terminal Velocity back in the 90s. Never bought the rest of the game, though.
January 29th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
I'd just like to mention that if you really have to have some of Epic's old shareware titles, you can still buy them from Epic- go to epicclassics.com.
Despite the rather old look, the out-there prices, and other quirks, they do still sell the games (most of them anyway).
February 1st, 2012 at 12:20 am
Great list! Moraff's World and Descent were a couple of other shareware games I remember playing back in the day.