Chess. It's over 1500 years old!
RetroGaming
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I guess the oldest would be Asteroids using emulation via MAME. If you're talking about original hardware I would say Pitfall on the Atari 2600.
Has no one here played Super Mario Bros? 1985… or donkey Kong? 1981. Pac-Man? 1980. Space invaders? 1978. So many classics, all playable today with MAME or even still working systems or perfect emulation!
I definitely played SMB this year. I may have played Pac-Man.
But I also played mancala which is 8,000 years old.
In 2024? No.
Fallout 1997
DOOM, 1993. Finally went through and beat it. Also recently sat down and learned how to edit wads as well as picking up ACS for advanced map scripting. Still a great game.
Collassal Cave Adventure, 1976
Was going to post this as well. Just replayed it again, never gets old!
Oldest game I've actually played this year would probably be a bit of Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar, 1985.
I played countless hours of Cave Noire this year. It's a coffee break roguelite that released in 1991 on Gameboy.
I fuck around with old games a lot but there are not that many games I get really into these days. Cave Noire is similar to Desktop Dungeons where every attempt is a short puzzle so it fits pick up and play nature of Gameboy. Can't recommend it enough if you're into this kind of stuff.
Recently got a cheap Gamecube and now I‘m playing through Windwaker and some Double Dash every now and then. It’s insane how good the games still look that support progressive mode through the digital port.
This week it's been Megaman II (1988).
I feel like games before that era had a lot of coin-op focus. Not much content, but hard enough that you'll be pouring more credits into the machine. That said, I've been itching to play Alley Cat (1983), but I don't have a good setup for MS-DOS games at the moment. I'll have to see if my Miyoo mini is up for the task.
Of the games I can think of, probably Super Mario Land.
Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and later licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Command
On the actual arcade machine as well, with the huge ball "mouse".
Felt challenging, but also how it would be kinda trivial with a mouse and keyboard.
I know it's not the "official" game, but I've been playing some Ocarina of Time (1998) multi-world randomizers every now and then over the last couple years.
I tend to not go that far back usually, mostly hovering around the mid 90's and 2000's with my retrogaming, but does it count if I've played some rounds of NES Tetris?
I'm currently reading a fantasy book from 1984 if that doesn't count.
Burger Time 1982
It was one of my first video games, we had it for the Atari 2600, and I have it on a RetroPi emulator. You are a chef and the stages are platforms with ladders between them similar to Donkey Kong. The platforms have hamburgers ingredients on them and you have to avoid the enemies and run over the ingredients to make them fall to the bottom. You have to build all of the burgers to win the stage.
Ah yeah that was a cool game! I played a version of it on Intellivision in the late 90s.
That would be Ultima Online, released in 1997.
I can tolerate the graphics, but the controls are really something else. Played it for 3 hours and had the urge to play some more, but never did.
I went to a gamestop a few months ago to see if they had any games for my Gameboy Advance. The dude at the register said I might have better luck at the "retro game" store in the next town over. I nearly spit out my Crystal Pepsi at him.
Probably the ancient pong machine my grandfather had.
Day of the Tentacle (1993). Admittedly, it was the remastered version from 2016 which has more modern controls, but the game is exactly the same as the old one.
It was fascinating to look at it again with more mature eyes: besides the fact that it feels a bit dated as a whole, it was funny to me to notice how much humanity loves time travel stories.
It's not that this game is doing anything different in that regard, it's just that I thought about how much media exists on the subject (and has been very successful).
Anyhow, although dated, the game is brilliant and wholesome and made me wonder which are the best (and recent) graphic adventure games
Pong
megaman 3 from 1990
Was playing Rainbow Islands on the ST this week.
Oldest game I've played this year is Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) Ps2 emulated on my phone and played with ds5 via bluetooth
PS2 is your OLDEST played game??? Oh god. Oh, I think I should just invest in a walker before prices go up.....
I was playing Falcon 3 on DOS. 1991
Besides that I played some Bosconian from the arcade, 1981 and 1943: Battle for Midway on the arcade, 1987
I have Batocera on my Rapbperry Pi and I occasionally like to play some N64 games. So roughly late 1990s. I also tested the Apple 2 emulator and played either Apple Panic or Lode Runner, I can't remember. That'd be early 80s but I just did 2 or 3 levels.
Played a few minutes of Altered Beast (1988) on an incredibly shitty Genesis emulator I f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ rose from its grave in the closet last week.
Asteroids.
I actually played a wee bit of 1983's Crystal Castles (Atari 2600 version) earlier this year when I was trying out emulators 🤣 I loved that game when I was a kid, I get a major nostalgia hit when I play it. I'm sure some of the other games I tested were older still, but that's the one I remember because I was born in that same year.
I remembered it being one of the first games I ever played. As I fumbled my way through those first few sessions, I could physically feel my neurons flowering and blooming and creaking to life like a bunch of microscopic mind-rhubarb. It was the beginning of a life-long love of gaming.
It has to be Dragon Warrior.
Don't know if it counts but, "Game of Life" (1970) on "The Powder Toy" (2008).
Double Dragon II: The Revenge or Super Dodge Ball, both 1988.
I just played Mancala the other day which may be up to 8,000 years old.
There was a Star Wars text adventure game on the Apple II released in 1979 that I used to play. I've been searching for the code from that game for a long time I finally found it again just this month. Part way through my efforts to convert it to javascript I realized I hadn't bothered looking for an actual emulator for Applesoft Basic... Sure enough, they exist (jsbasic on github), so I now have that running on my server. Yay, good memories!
Super Mario Bros. 3 from 1988 for the NES.
frogger (1981) arcade machine at the local barcade, i think. sadly the place went out of business a little while back.
hm, throughout my life the ones that come to mind are:
- pitfall (82)
- number munchers (86)
- word munchers (85)
- oregon trail (85 version)
- a-maze-ing (81)
I went to Sakura Con this year and they had a Quick & Crash arcade cabinet from 1999.
It's not the oldest game I've played this year, but it was definitely the most interesting!
https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/quick-crash
Level 4 has a mug you shoot that appears to really explode
The effect is incredibly convincing!
Tap for spoiler
The secret is the real mug is pulled down very fast and real chunks of mug are shot up simultaneously