How I got here (and some goodies)

Lord works in mysterious ways? Well, indeed. It all started with Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers which I started playing early in March only to get frustrated by the fact that the stupid game let me go through four days although I didn't do all I should in Day 1! I would in fact still be stuck with Gabe if it weren't for the truly awesome and magnificent UHS Reader/hints which I often use. Since I wasn't sure there weren't more similar "traps" in the game, I decided to trawl the HotU forum and see if other people had similar experiences.
So, I typed "Gabriel Knight" in search field and (not surprisingly) out came a huge bundle of threads. There were many useful information in those, but one thread specially attracted my attention - some guy posted his intention to start a site dedicated only to full CD ISOs of games and was inviting people to post their requests. I couldn't believe my eyes - is it possible that someone tried to start a site I always dreamed of? Yes, you've guessed it - the guy was (now proverbial!) Gargantuan Orangutan and in a short time I opened the home page of the ISO Art for the first time in my life (some eight months late, alas). The rest is history. Wink

That's how a strange discussion I bumped into almost a month ago changed my life.

Now, those of you who had patience to read this gibberish this far might ask why in the hell's name I posted this here. Well, that's because I remembered that GO asked HotU staff for a list of the full games hosted on HotU. Underdogs' policy is not to announce the list of downloadable games from the Home of the Underdogs, as she considers HotU as some kind of a museum that folks should visit and spend long hours savouring games inside. I have spent couple of years wandering through that vast museum (and I still occasionally do!), and I couldn't help sharing this (partial) list of magnificent full games/software at HotU:

1. Blood Bowl
2. Chewy: ESC from F5
3. Chronomaster
4. Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase
5. Dune
6. Electronic Popple
7. Gateway 2: Homeworld
8. Hodj & Podj
9. Muppets Inside
10. Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
11. Labyrinth of Crete
12. Merlin's Apprentice
13. Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity
14. Marco Polo
15. Cosmology of Kyoto
16. Metal Marines Master Edition
17. Doonesbury Election Game - Campaign '96
18. Flying Saucer
19. Leonardo Da Vinci
20. Baseball Mogul
21. Heart of the Alien
22. Beyond the Wall of Stars
23. Last Chance to See
24. Millennium Auction
25. Dawn Patrol: Head to Head
26. Heaven's Dawn
27. Beyond the Nine Dragons
28. Bubble Bobble Hero 2
29. Down Under Dan
30. Last Call
31. Comic Book Confidential
32. The Dark Eye
33. The Legend of Kyrandia 3: Malcolm's Revenge
34. Shark! Hunting the Great White
35. Globetrotter 2 (Round the World Challenge)
36. Duckman
37. The Reap
38. U.F.O.s (Gnap)
39. Orion Burger
40. System Shock
41. Shannara
42. Bermuda Syndrome
43. First Person: Stephen Jay Gould - on Evolution
44. Private Eye
45. The Typing of the Dead
46. Macbeth
47. Rollcage
48. Terminus
49. Trial by Magic
50. Heart of the Alien
51. Valkyrie Fight Tag
52. System Shock 2
53. Theatre of the Imagination
54. Playboy Interview
55. Criterion Goes to the Movies
56. Escher Interactive: Exploring the Art of the Infinite

There it is. Bear in mind that this is only a partial list of full downloads at HotU. I am working on a comprehensive list of all HotU games (5325 up to now) with essential details (name, year, genre, sub-genre, mark,...) but if you can't wait to have a good fun, just try one of those listed. I heartily recommend my favorites: Globetrotter 2, Duckman, U.F.O.s, The Dark Eye, Escher, Leonardo Da Vinci, Comic Book Confidential. Just in case, check the game's page at www.the-underdogs.info first and read the review to see whether it's your cup of tea!

Enjoy! Smile

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Divinum dare, humanum accipere.

Last edited by zobraks on Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:44 am; edited 1 time in total

That's very nice list and should come in handy. You might also appreciate http://www.old-games.ru/ if you haven't been there yet. They have quite a few ISOs available (next to ISO Art). But it's an oldwarez site, not an abandonware site. Eventually I'd like to see one comphrensive list that has all of these links. You'll be able to enter a title, and voila, get a download option to whomever is hosting it.

As far as this site you really have to give Ermuli a lot of the credit, considering around 90% of the downloads are from him. Wink

And what makes these kind of sites work is the downloads, not the museum aspect. You're suppose to play the games, not just read about them and look at them. HoTU kind of lost the point along the way.

Good too see you zobraks and thanks for the tale of how you got here.

	Gargantuan Orangutan wrote:
	And what makes these kind of sites work is the downloads, not the museum aspect. You're suppose to play the games, not just read about them and look at them. HoTU kind of lost the point along the way.

I don't quite agree with you. Yes, games are meant to be played in the first place, but you have to find out somehow which games suit you. In that respect HotU did (and still does, although it regretfully didn't have updates since January the 13th 2006) a great job. I cannot find words to express my admiration for Sarinee Achavanuntakul ("Underdogs"). She is a very young successful investment banker from Thailand who somehow managed to single-handedly establish and operate one of the biggest (in every respect) gaming sites in the world! Just look how many game reviews she had written. I simply find it impossible that one person could have played all those titles, and she almost did it!
She stated clearly that the intention of the site is not to be just another abandonware site where you can download games, but to pay the belated respect to the titles that slipped by public attention due to some overhyped games who (very often undeservingly) attracted the interest of the crowd.
I myself learned a lot about games and game playing from HotU. Don't forget that it is also a vast resource of technical information about games.

So, Underdogs did exactly what she had in mind when she started the Home of the Underdogs, and other sites, like ISO Art, have the task to do some other useful things for the gamers around the world. The people like you, Ermuli, GTX2GvO, Rezaf and others do a great job in supplying the brilliant rare old games that are virtually impossible to find elsewhere. The people at Replacement docs do a great job in providing manuals, reference cards and all the other games documentation. And so on. No one's effort shouldn't be underestimated since all of you (us Wink

) have the same goal: to help people all around the world to have a fuller and better gaming experience.

Cheers!

____________________________
Divinum dare, humanum accipere.

	Gargantuan Orangutan wrote:
	You might also appreciate http://www.old-games.ru/ if you haven't been there yet. They have quite a few ISOs available (next to ISO Art). But it's an oldwarez site, not an abandonware site.

Thanks for the link. No, I haven't been there yet, and I think I won't go there soon, since there is a long list of downloads I have to make first (including the long coveted "Clandestiny" and "Morpheus", and you know my trouble with those Wink

). As soon as I finish the priority list, I'll pay our Russian brethren a visit.

As for Old-games.ru being an oldwarez site, it's OK with me. My moral standards aren't the highest, I'm afraid. Embarassed

____________________________
Divinum dare, humanum accipere.

	Gargantuan Orangutan wrote:
	You might also appreciate http://www.old-games.ru/ if you haven't been there yet. They have quite a few ISOs available (next to ISO Art).

The site is OK. Lots of nice games, but (like always in life!) there's a catch. It won't let you download anything if you're not coming from an IP address recognized as the Russian IP address! Rolling Eyes

I've downloaded a lot of files from different obscure sites in Slovakia, Poland, Czech and never heard of something similar. Guess there IS some way to spoof the IP address and fool a server, but I really don't feel like trying it.

Thanks for the link anyway. Smile

____________________________
Divinum dare, humanum accipere.

I've downloaded from there not long ago and wasn't blocked. I think that use to be their policy, but no more. I guess they could have changed. Question

Maybe they've changed, but there aren't many games there I would die to play right now. I'm an adventure buff, so my top priorities still are Morpheus and Clandestiny.
I sincerely hope I'll get that broadband connection some day in the near future. Rolling Eyes

Cheers!

I think their focus is generally the more popular games...

Long live the non-popular games!
Laughing

(Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain) Cool

Old-Games.RU has been very slow lately; I don't have enough patience to wait
the page load. I'll get my stuff elsewhere.

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Nunc est bibendum

	zobraks wrote:
	I am working on a comprehensive list of all HotU games (5325 up to now) with essential details (name, year, genre, sub-genre, mark,...)

Please, tell us about it when it's done!
I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I started something similar a while back, although I didn't get that far and don't know if I will continue much, as my "list" also includes the downloads themselves... Embarassed

I did it partly because of my fear of the site going offline, and partly because of my strong, subconscious urge to archive stuff...

	Tadrio wrote:
	Please, tell us about it when it's done!

Unfortunately, I had to slow down on this, but I'll let you know as soon as I finish the list (and, of course, make it available to anyone interested). Wink

	Tadrio wrote:
	I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I started something similar a while back, although I didn't get that far and don't know if I will continue much, as my "list" also includes the downloads themselves...

Hamster syndrome, eh? I suffered from it myself, but got cured eventually. Smile

Still have a fits of it occasionally, though.

Today I went ahead and made a link to this thread from the ISO Art site.

I hope it would be useful to someone. Smile

	zobraks wrote:
	Hamster syndrome, eh? I suffered from it myself, but got cured eventually.

Exactly!

What was your cure?