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Classic Apogee Games


DJLionheart
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This was inspired by a few comments given in BGC's Steam Summer Sale 2012 thread.

Some of my earlier fond memories included being at my grandma's house playing games like Crystal Caves and Monster Bash on their old DOS computer. I loved everything about them. The artwork, the sound effects, the music, the gameplay. . . It was all pretty top notch.

What are your favorite Apogee games? Which game would you say is THE best, or if you can't decide on "the best," name a few.

My top 3 would have to be 1. Monster Bash, 2. Commander Keen: Goodbye, Galaxy, and 3. Crystal caves.

There was just something so satisfying about shootin' the heck out of all those zombies with a slingshot, and collecting all the candy.

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Now wait just a minute Ectogemia. . . I had no idea what a theremin was before you posted it (had to look that up), I tend to keep my face clean-shaven, and have a PASSION for ketchup, so I have no idea what you're talking about ;)

Sure, Apogee might not be the cup o' tea for some of you, but I'm sure there are others like me, bound by the threads of time to Apogee with warmth and affinity. . . Okay, I admit that sounded kinda weird

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One of my greatest regrets in life is not finding a full copy of Cosmo; sure, I could pirate it by now, but it's not the same.

I actually went as Cosmo for halloween once, complete with suction cup hands.

My grandparents found that game in a bargain bin when I was young. Man, I think that may have been the first time I'd raged at a game in anger. But still so fun.

My grandpa in particular had quite the collection of old DOS games. I used to go to his room and mosey around his folder. Commander Keen, Duke Nukem 1 and Secret Sam are the only ones I can recall, though I played more later on. There were a ton of others, but many didn't work anymore on the 'new computers' (Windows 98, hah). Stuff like Amulet of Yendor and a vertex-graphics dungeon crawler I don't remember the name to. Good memories.

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One of my greatest regrets in life is not finding a full copy of Cosmo; sure, I could pirate it by now, but it's not the same.

I actually went as Cosmo for halloween once, complete with suction cup hands.

You know, you can also *buy it* from 3D Realms. The Halloween costume sounds awesome.

The only Apogee games I played were Math Rescue and Word Rescue. Fun games, even if they were educational.

Word Rescue! We played the hell out of it with my sister. It must have actually been somewhat useful for learning English vocabulary. Other favourite Apogee games of mine were the first three Keens, especially the sw episode, played so much of that. And Jumpan Lives! which was pulled for copyright reasons.

edit: Oh right, Raptor: The Call of Shadows as well. Played the SW version quite a bit back in the day, and finally bought it last year from GOG.com. It feels kinda good to finally be able to buy these games, it was practically impossible to do so in my childhood/teens. :)

--Eino

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Oh man Apogee - my brothers and I played the hell out of monster bash, crystal caves, and Duke Nukem when we were younger.

I always loved the sound effects of shooting the skull heads in monster bash - but once the computer got upgraded, they never sounded the same :(

What ever happened to Apogee? Imagine if they continued their quality and fun gameplay into the modern era...

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I got like, some weird limited edition release of Duke Nukem 3D for my birthday some millions of years ago. With it, came a separate disc with nothing but demos for older Apogee/3D Realms games. Some of them were pretty fun but I can't seem to remember their names (with the exception of Death Rally which I later ended up buying). Maybe you guys can help me remember?

One was a top down game they put out i think towards the end of their 2D era where you're like a future cop and you drive around some weird town in some kinda space... car... thing and do weird mission stuff? It was weird but kind of fun.

And there was a sidescrolling beat-em-up that shot super pixelated blood all over the screen whenever you hit someone. No not Ninja Rabbits. Though Ninja Rabbits was kinda fun too. Or at least it was when I was 7.

And there was also a 3D shoot-em-up that didn't totally suck.

Anybody remember these?

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one was a top down game they put out i think towards the end of their 2D era where you're like a future cop and you drive around some weird town in some kinda space... car... thing and do weird mission stuff? it was weird but kind of fun.

Traffic Department 2192? (Technically an Epic Megagames game; same era though)

and there was a sidescrolling beat-em-up that shot super pixelated blood all over the screen whenever you hit someone. no not ninja rabbits. though ninja rabbits was kinda fun too. or at least it was when i was 7.

Bio Menace?

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Yes! Traffic Department 2192! Thanks man, I have been trying to figure that one out for ages. Weird that it was included on a 3D Realms demo CD, but now that you mention it One Must Fall: 2097 (also an Epic Megagames game) was on that disc too. Maybe they had some kind of partnership deal back in the day?

Anyways didn't take me much digging on Wikipedia to figure out the other two. Realms of Chaos (2D beat-em-up) and Terminal Velocity (3D shoot-em-up).

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apogee was my life when i was younger! DOS games were the only real games i owned for a long time. i'd say my favorites are (having gone back and played these pretty recently):

1. Commander Keen

or

2.

(the other two Duke 1 episodes definitely have their moments, but aren't as consistent as the first)

3.

also, honorable mention to

(this is ignoring the obvious choices of Wolf 3D, Duke 3D etc)

oh, right. Jill of the Jungle isn't an Apogee game. well, whatever.

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LETS DERAIL into classic Epic Megagames games. Traffic Department 2192 was indeed great. I played it with a friend, and we were much awed by the Darker and Edgier, gritty storyline of the shareware episode. It had some cool twists and turns, and the cliffhanger in the end of the first episode was rather gripping. Some very good music from the tinny-sounding Adlib too. All that made for some very fond gaming memories.

One Must Fall 2097 us also something we played the hell out of. Many an hour was well spent in the vs mode. trying out the different options from the hidden menus on the way. The campaign mode took a lot of playing as well. I think it was possible to fight two-player fights with the robots tuned and set up in campaign in the practice mode. Not to mention you could fight with the Nova robot in vs mode that way. I'm pretty sure I also played the "normal" single player mode through with all the characters to see all their ending, though it can't have been on a very high difficulty. I've still enjoyed the game a lot on this millennium too, though it must have been a few years since I last played it. :) Talk about good music too! Gotta give props to DigiE for their remixes.

--Eino

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Wacky Wheels -- a great kart-racer for those of us that didn't own an SNES.

Hocus Pocus and Cosmo were both great; glad to see other people mention them.

Someone mentioned Rise of the Triad also...it's still hard to believe that it runs on a modified Wolf 3D engine! ROTT has everything Quake has that Doom does not, but not any of the overlap. For example, (true, platform on top of platform) multiple floors of physical space, and breakable objects are in, circular walls are out.

All of them are worth a look if you have the time.

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oh, right. Jill of the Jungle isn't an Apogee game. well, whatever.

Yeah, I could have sworn JotJ was Apogee. Even if it isn't, I associate it with the Apogee games I played, since they were all on the same computer.

Even more of a tangent, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was on that same computer. Lucas Arts, in the style of Monkey Island. Anyone ever play that one? An AMAZING game.

I remember playing One Must Fall a little, and Scorch or Scorched Earth, whatever it was (with the tanks, and awesome rainbow gradient backgrounds). I think it was like a great-great grandfather to the Worms series.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I loved the old Duke Nukem games. I remember playing them on the floppy disk on my old x486. Rise of the Triads (ROTT) was also awesome. My favorite part was shooting the guys just enough to wound them pretty bad but not kill them. Then they would drop to their knees and beg for your life, which was when they got waxed. Lots of fun!

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