D&D 2E Steam Re-Releases the D&D "Gold Box Classics" Computer Games

[CleverNickName]

Earlier this month, Steam dropped a pretty sweet deal on the old-school "Gold Box Classics" D&D computer games. Remember those? For $32 you can pick up a bundle of everything...20 games in total, from the most popular AD&D campaign settings: Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance.

Gold Box Classics on Steam

store.steampowered.com

Of course I bought them; it works out to less than $2 per game...and I don't have to keep swapping a stack of CDs to play them! These are not "enhanced versions" by any stretch: the graphics are outdated, the game mechanics are outdated, you get the idea. But that's to be expected: these games were published when the computer game industry was just getting started, and when CD-ROM was the latest breakthrough in technology. I expect everything to be very 90s-tastic.

I'm curious how many of us remember these old games, so I put together a poll with every game that you can get in this bundle. Vote for the ones you played, however briefly, back in the day.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I've played all of these and finished most of them.

 

[Dire Bare]

I never played these as a kid . . . my dad bought the family an Apple II computer rather than a DOS PC, and I don't think these were available for Apple computers. At some point later, I bought this exact collection on CD-ROM . . . but couldn't get any of the games to work on my PC at the time.

As soon as this dropped on Steam, I purchased the entire collection!!! I'm currently playing through Eye of the Beholder for the first time ever!!! So excited!

Please note . . . THERE'S MORE!!!

D&D Stronghold Kingdom Simulator

D&D Al-Qadim The Genie's Curse

There is also the much later released D&D Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance game, which was originally a console game. I couldn't find its sequel (with a "II" after the title) however.

There may be more . . . its hard to search for D&D games on Steam because Fantasy Grounds has a TON of D&D content available on Steam.

 

[Parmandur]

Wake me when they come to the Nintendo eShop. Or the. NES/SNES/Genesis versions come to NSO!

 

[billd91]

I never played these as a kid . . . my dad bought the family an Apple II computer rather than a DOS PC, and I don't think these were available for Apple computers.

Some of them were. I played Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds on my Apple IIc. I later played Secret of the Silver Blades, Pool of Darkness, and Dark Queen of Krynn on my Mac running, I believe, System 7.
But it was weirdly spotty which titles made it to the Apple side of the personal computer divide.

 

[MGibster]

You can't go home again. I have fond memories of those games, but sometimes it's hard to go back and play those older games even when I remember them so fondly. You'd have to pay me to play through Baldur's Gate or Fallout 1 & 2 even though those are great games. I don't think I could go back and play those Gold Box classics for more than a few minutes before giving up and playing something else.

 

[billd91]

You can't go home again. I have fond memories of those games, but sometimes it's hard to go back and play those older games even when I remember them so fondly. You'd have to pay me to play through Baldur's Gate or Fallout 1 & 2 even though those are great games. I don't think I could go back and play those Gold Box classics for more than a few minutes before giving up and playing something else.

I dunno. There's something kind of satisfying about digging out the pad of graph paper and mapping out Phlan as you explore it. And then there's the very first time you get a wizard to 5th level and unlimber that fireball. THAT's still fun in the old gold box games.

 

[Maxperson]

Earlier this month, Steam dropped a pretty sweet deal on the old-school "Gold Box Classics" D&D computer games. Remember those? For $32 you can pick up a bundle of everything...20 games in total, from the most popular AD&D campaign settings: Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance.

Gold Box Classics on Steam

store.steampowered.com

Of course I bought them; it works out to less than $2 per game...and I don't have to keep swapping a stack of CDs to play them! These are not "enhanced versions" by any stretch: the graphics are outdated, the game mechanics are outdated, you get the idea. But that's to be expected: these games were published when the computer game industry was just getting started, and when CD-ROM was the latest breakthrough in technology. I expect everything to be very 90s-tastic.

I'm curious how many of us remember these old games, so I put together a poll with every game that you can get in this bundle. Vote for the ones you played, however briefly, back in the day.

Hah! Thanks! I just bought the steam package so I can re-play some and play others for the first time. Should I vote all of them since I'll be trying them all out?

 

[GreyLord]

They've been on GOG for awhile...and GOG doesn't have DRM.

Dungeon Hack was the best of all of those, IMNSHO. Great Game. Still play it.

 

[JEB]

The only one of these I "played" back in the day was Unlimited Adventures, which turned out to be more than I bargained for as a young teen, so I never properly did anything with it. I've since made more recent attempts to play Eye of the Beholder and Strahd's Possession, but didn't get very far in. (To be fair, though, that's not a problem with these games - it's just rare for me to invest time in long games anymore. Maybe when I retire in about 30 years...)

Now, Planescape Torment, in the late 1990s? That once ranked as my #1 RPG video game ever. (Still would be if not for Avellone.)