3D Realms Anthology
PC
"...In this pack are 32 complete games that harken back to a simpler time..."
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. The 3D Realms Anthology isn’t new, but its appearance on Steam is a welcome treat to PC gamers of a certain age. I picked up the 3D Realms Anthology when it first dropped on PC –it was a non-steam game bundle which is a rarity these days– and have had an absolute blast with it. If you search for my ongoing “Growing Up Dos” series here on the website you’ll be able to see just some of the games from the anthology that were a huge part of my childhood. That’s the thing, 3D Realms/Apogee weren’t some small thing in the early days of computing -The developer was the big name in computer video games. And now with the 3D Realms Anthology an
entire new generation can see where
much of what we se e today all started.
What you are getting in this pack are
32 complete games that harken back to
a simpler time when a keyboard was all
you needed to get lost in some truly incredible worlds. For someone like me, who only got a taste of some of these games as a kid, this anthology is like a dream come true. You see, back in the early 90’s full games were hard to come by on the PC. You had no idea what would or wouldn’t work on your machine for one, but as home video game consoles were the big standard, simply finding a computer store that carried PC games was a chore in most places.
Many times the only way you’d be able to find a new game was at software conventions that popped up from time to time. In my case this either meant the yearly fair that housed a pavilion of software/super sweet pogs, visiting the CompUSA when we went to LA to visit family, or by passing around disks on the playground. Shareware was the name of the game back then, and sharing/copying floppies was commonplace. If you really wanted a game you’d have to get it through mail-order which meant you parents would have to shell out money, wait for weeks on end, and then cross your fingers that the damn thing worked on your machine. You kids today have no idea how nice you have it.
Passing around shareware games –glorified demos– long enough would mean that, more often than not, you’d end up with a stack of Apogee titles. Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Wacky Wheels, Raptor, and on and on. I still have many of those listed titles on the shelf behind be because
they were so good that I held on to
them for sentimental value. With 32
games in full force in this pack, you can
rest easy knowing that you’ll find
something classic that will keep you
busy for some time. From side scrolling adventures, to first-person frag fests, and all manner of wild games in between, the 3D Realms Anthology is a joy to experience. It’s also a great place to find out where most of these retro inspired indie PC titles draw a lot of their inspiration from.
Still, for all the praise I am laying on this collection it is far from perfect. For how much I wanted to see this thing on Steam, it loses a lot of features that the non-Steam version came bundled with. In the original release the pack opened up in an easy to use menu that showed the box art of each included game, and while I know this isn’t quite possible with the Steam version, I still really miss the layout. Another thing is that you lose –at least I couldn’t find it anywhere– is the included original scanned manuals for each game. But most troubling is the fact that some of the games are missing from the Steam edition of the anthology.