Apple II games from the early 80's

[khabbi]

Just going though some old memories of my Apple II days back in the early 80's and wondering if anyone else had one and played the games that were available for it? 

One of my favorites of all time was Miner 2049er, it was a cool level game that required you to think about how cleared the board by running over/filling in the beams as you touched them.  Spent so much time on this one and had a great time... I sometimes wonder if there is anywhere I can play an emulation of it:



Another game that absolutely blew my mind was Rescue Raiders.. a little like choplifter, but with strategy.  You would defend your base and send specific types of attacks from your base rolling/walking towards the enemy base while you flew your helo and cleared the way.  Another game that I spend hours on.  I also had Choplifter, but RR was a better game to me:



And I can't forget Lode Runner, the ability to make your own screens, and the thought that had to go into clearing a level was pretty intense sometimes.. I guess looking back I played more strategy type games, although I never really looked at it that way when I was a kid. 



Any of you guys used to be Apple II game players?  If so, what were your favorites? 

[ratsflif]

I had an apple II.  There is one game that I can't recall the name of, you were a two legged robot like character and you could walk on the walls and ceiling and it was in a cave like setting.

The others that stand out:

Defender
Rampage
Flight Simulator
Lemonade Stand

But the one I remember the most was "Earth Orbit Station" which was very difficult based on my age at the time.  You were responsible for building a funding a space station.  To start the game you had to swap the floppy disc about 10 times for all the data to get loaded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMswrzUxOGQ

[ratsflif]

Oh and I almost forgot:

Aliens

That game was awesome, I remember bringing the game to school when I was in elementary and loading it up on the school computer.  You get a sweet pixelated image of Ripley in the mech suit before the last fight with some choice words...

[Cloud2Ground]

Karateka!!! 

[Marshall]

Played many hours of Aztec during sleepovers at Jay Harwood's house in High School.


One morning I saw the sun rise as he slept. I'd played until dawn! I had a TI99-4A at home so this was luxury! 

[bit_slicer]

In home ec class we played Stellar 7 (Battlezone ripoff) and Taipan.  Good times indeed.

[Niloc]

Yup - Apple ][ was my family's 2nd computer after the TI99-4A. Actually we had an Apple ][ C clone called a Laser 128. Worked fine though and was actually more capable than a lot of real Apples due to its whopping 128K of RAM.

I played all the ones you listed except for Lode Runner. For some reason we never got a copy of that one even though it seemed very popular/common.

Some favorites:

Bilestoad - strange overhead perspective fighting game

Conan - great platformer

Boulder Dash

Floppy - Very weird game, but I liked it. I found out years later that I had been playing it on "hard mode" because we had a monochrome amber monitor and it's a puzzle game where colors are important. Tough to find screenshots of the game due to the stupid name, apparently it was a bootleg of a game called Flappy - also hard to find screenshots of that due to the modern "Flappy Bird" game.

Below the Root - adventure game based on a series of books (which I've never read). This one was pretty cool - apparently it's an official sequel to the book series. I played it in 4th & 5th grade but never got very far because we didn't have the books or manual. Found a play-through on YouTube a while back so it was satisfying to see what the hell it was about and how it ends all those years later.

Robot Odyssey - educational game that teaches circuit design - in retrospect really kind of advanced and tough for 4th/5th graders. Also a pretty cool game, rather psychedelic, seemed to be at least somewhat inspired by Yellow Submarine in style. I've never completed this one or found a full play-through video. I'd still like to see how it ends. All the YouTube vids I've found seem to end right around the point I got to when I was a kid.


There were a ton of others too. The early Wizardy RPG games - "Bane of the Cosmic Forge" and others. Archon 1 & 2. Lots of good ones, we must have had a couple hundred floppy discs by the end.

[Niloc]

In home ec class we played Stellar 7 (Battlezone ripoff) and Taipan.  Good times indeed.

Yeah, played both of those too. Taipan was good but eventually it got to the point where your ship had just a ludicrous number of guns and you were trading in nothing but huge quantities of opium (the most expensive resource in the game - great for an "educational" kids game - sling dope & get rich kids!) and there was nothing left to do. It had a "retire" option at that stage just to end the game.

A guy made a version you can play online here: http://www.taipangame.com/

Last time I messed with it, it did not have the retire option but that was years ago so he may have added it since.

[Baiter]

Some of the standout games I remember spending significant time on: Load Runner, Karateka, Prince of Persia, Choplifter, Moon Patrol, Ancient Art of War, Autoduel, Castle Wolfenstein, Silent Service, Spy Hunter, Stellar 7, Summer Games, Winter Games, Wasteland, and the Ultima series.

Karateka and Choplifter actually sold me on the Apple II after playing them in BASIC class... and Choplifter inspired inspired the arcade game.  A lot of quality and timeless titles here for sure.

[PinPup]

Just going though some old memories of my Apple II days back in the early 80's and wondering if anyone else had one and played the games that were available for it? 

One of my favorites of all time was Miner 2049er, it was a cool level game that required you to think about how cleared the board by running over/filling in the beams as you touched them.  Spent so much time on this one and had a great time... I sometimes wonder if there is anywhere I can play an emulation of it.

Played the hell out of Miner as well, but on Colecovision. Great game, maybe you can snag a used console.