So far it looks like my new years resolution has been to 'blog less'. I can guarantee you that this is not the case.

The year just started off a bit strangely for myself and my wife. We moved house to Brakpan... not a bad decision, but definitely a financial one. We are saving a lot of money per month which means we will be able to put more money away for the more important things in life. Things like a deposit for a house, a deposit for a car. A new powerful gaming PC... you know, the basics.

Back on topic though, a comment made by one my readers got me thinking about older or really old games. The Space Quest series was mentioned and this plucked me straight back to 1989.

I was eight years old and a friend of mine had just received an IBM XT PC that his dad bought from his work. The thing came preloaded with a few games, one of which turned out to be Space Quest.

We spent entire weekends trying to solve the game. There was no internet, no walkthroughs and to top it all off, the game was tough! Those were the days where you could actually die in an adventure game.

It was entirely possible to end up with a save game that was unsolvable because of an item that you haven't picked up earlier on in the game. We would have three or four diffent games going at the same time, switching between save games to make sure we didn't miss anything!

It took us about four weekends to finish the game. It was the pinnacle of gaming achievements among ourselves and our friends who had the game. We really had to use our brains, which for the average 8-year old is a difficult thing to do. This game really stretched our creative limits and expanded our imaginations.

Which brings me to a list of games that I have been getting nostalgic about.

Some of the games on this list will make quite a few of you have an 'Oh right, I remember!' moment, while some others will be completely foreign to you.

These are all games that I am itching to find online and start playing. Most of them will probably need Dosbox to work correctly on our super fast machines.

• Any Quest based game: Sierra had some amazing games on their hands with the different -Quest games. My personal favourites were the Space Quest games which followed the adventures of Roger Wilco and the King's Quest series of games, which had more elements of magic and fantasy. Basically, these two series' of games covered both of my favourite genres at the time. Fantasy and Science Fiction
• X-Com games: Specifally X-Com: UFO Defense and the sequel, X-Com: Terror from the Deep. These games pitted you against a multitude of Alien forces, trying to take over the planet. The game was unique in that it covered both turn-based strategy and resource management in a unique way. This game kept me up for hours at a time.
• The Jagged Alliance games: Also turn-based strategy games. Jagged Alliance portrayed you and your mercenary team in an battle to rid an island from the clutches of a terrorist called Santino. What made this game great was that each and every merc had a unique personality. Some mercs refused to work together with other specific mercs. You could fire a specific mercenary and his friend would not want to work for you anymore. Another would become trigger-happy and would refuse to listen to your orders for retreat. Where else have you heard of a game like this? Jagged Alliance 2 continued this great series with improved graphics, a bigger map to conquer and yes... more mercenaries, each with their own unique personality.
• The Star Control games: Star Control was a space combat simulator that enabled you to play against the computer or a friend on the same PC with a multitude of ships available to you. Each ship had it's own unique primary and secondary weapons. Star Control II had the nerve to take great gameplay and then add a brilliant storyline on top of that! As with the other games on this list, SC2 just sucked up time like a vacuum on steroids.
• Master of Magic: This game took the best elements of city building and planning from Civilization and then added turn-based combat with all sorts of magic creatures and spells. You could choose from five schools of magic, namely Life, Death, Sorcery, Nature and Chaos and then try to take over the world with your magical prowess. This game would keep me up at night, plotting all kinds of strategies against my enemies.

These are but a few games that I fondly remember playing when I was younger. I'm sure if I sat down and thought a bit harder, I could list at least twenty more games that filled (some might argue wasted) almost all the free time I had as a child and a young teenager.

There are times when I feel that the games of today are missing the point. They are all pushing for the latest photo-realistic graphics or the greatest online experience.

The older games did not have the luxury of high-powered graphics cards or super-fast processors. So they had to concentrate on the one thing that could be the difference between an okay game and a great game.

They all had heaps of great gameplay.

Sometimes I wish that the developers of today would look back at their gaming predecessors and try to recapture some of that magic.

Once they do that, they can finally start work on Master of Magic 2.

I can dream, can't I?