Children of the ’80s and early ’90s, rejoice! The Internet Archive has made a collection of nearly 2,400 MS-DOS games available to play for free in a browser-based emulator. The library encompasses nearly any computer game from that era that you can think of, and plenty of others that you didn’t even realize you remember. It’s a major nostalgia trip for gamers of a certain age, and also a monumental effort of interactive digital preservation.
The collection includes the origins of some franchises that are still major players in today’s industry, such as Metal Gear or Street Fighter. It also has beloved classics like The Oregon Trail, Prince of Persia and Maniac Mansion. Fans of the Kickstarted Wasteland 2 might want to check out the original 1988 Wasteland.
Disney may be back on top with Disney Infinity, but back in the day the company licensed film characters out for platformers based on Aladdin and The Lion King that were actually pretty great. Also be sure to dig into the deeper cuts that might not have endured as franchises but still hold a special place for many, like Dragon’s Lair, Sim Ant, Commander Keen and Mario Teaches Typing. We really could do this forever, and encourage you to do so.
Digital archivist Jason Scott is behind the project, and announced the release with a blog post. The library is an unprecedented production, and still in beta, so Scott encourages you to take it for a spin and provide feedback for how things could be improved. The Internet Archive is probably best known for the Wayback Machine, a database of dated snapshots of websites where you can see, for instance, what the first implementation of Google looked like in 1998, or check out Digital Trends when it started in 2006.
Whether you’re nostalgic, a scholar, or simply curious, this is an extraordinary resource for gamers that is well worth your time, and it establishes a fantastic precedent for how works of digital, interactive art can be preserved and emulated for the easy access of future generations. What games on the list got you excited?
Remember when transparent gadgets were the coolest things you could own? Sony is bringing that late '90s aesthetic back with its new PS5 Prism Collection. The gorgeous lineup gives your DualSense controller and PS5 console a glossy, see-through makeover in three eye-catching colors.
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/2115459064981512662?s=19
For years, Call of Duty’s campaign mode has used big, scripted set pieces to tell the overarching story amid all the adrenaline-pumping action. The 2023 Modern Warfare 3 tried to shake up the established formula by introducing a handful of short open combat missions, and I genuinely liked the idea, but the game's overall negative reception seeped into how those missions were received.
I feared the next iteration might abandon the idea because of the backlash, but I am glad it didn't. MW4’s “Stranded” mission uses the same approach, but instead of fragmenting it across the campaign, it puts it all in a single large-scale open-world mission.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.