Abandonware, but not Forgotten

Pandora Tomorrow Wallpaper. Taken from Fandom.

It's great that many older games nowadays get the attention they deserve by receiving a re-release on current digital platforms, but not every title gets so lucky. Sometimes publisher/owner puts out the games for free (Marathon trilogy as an example), but in many cases nothing actually happens and it becomes difficult to find them.

I would rather get a game in "the right way", which means getting it either on Steam or GOG. If that's not an option, well... Depends on the situation. I'm not in the position to collect games physically (sadly) and don't feel right about, you know... "borrowing" them. My current mindset is that I have to earn stuff and such ways just don't make a lot of sense to me. Especially when I already have a library of games in previously mentioned services... even though I got most of them through gifts and giveaways. That's why I decided to talk a bit about some games (and expansion) that can be classified as "abandonware".

The Lost Vikings 2.

Of course I'm going to start with this one and I still refer using that title instead of Norse by Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings. I've played the Super Nintendo version of this game through emulator on my old tablet a few years ago and it's been a lot of fun, even if I "exploited" its save features during my playthrough. Freeware release of PC/DOS version would be neat, but I personally prefer Super Nintendo one more and think that more people should be able to get their hands on both.

I really hope that it will be added into Blizzard Arcade Collection at some point. It has Sega 32X version of Blackthorne made by Paradox Development, so there's really no excuse for The Lost Vikings 2 not being there. Perhaps I'm just missing some critical information, but I'm sure that Blizzard is well aware about it. Maybe it's just not ready for release yet or they're holding on to it for a time. Perhaps they simply don't want to sell this compilation separetely for lower price than on consoles, so instead they're keeping it a part of The Celebration Collection until the end only to then add it in Battle.net for $20.

Chasm: The Rift.

Now let's talk about another hidden gem. Chasm: The Rift is one of those games that might be not as popular or massive as other titles from its time. However, it still is a great FPS with its own charm and following that I think has been slowly increasing recently. I guess you can say that HROT played its role here and I've been interested in both games for a while now. I want to check it out somehow eventually.

Anyway, this game truly is abandonware. While I couldn't find any specific source I could've referenced, general consensus is that current owner of Chasm: The Rift simply not interested in re-releasing the game to the public for some reason. Many people supposedly approached him and were unsuccessful, sadly. I just don't understand this attitude.

HeXen 2: Mission Pack - Portal of Praevus.

Unlike previous cases, this is not a full game. I could've mention Heretic 2 because it shares similar fate in terms of availability, but I'm not really interested in that game at the moment. Although I wanr to continue my Heretic/HeXen marathon and beat all three games and expansions released since originally I've only completed the original Heretic and HeXen. I've never played HeXen 2, so that promises to be fun. Still deciding between Crusader and Necromancer for my first playthrough.

Yeah, this time it's going to be an exception and I might try and just download Portal of Praevus to play after beating Eidolon. Why there's a sudden change of heart? Well, you see... Raven Software is owned by Activision and they're stuck with working on Call of Duty games. Although many of old developers left the company and id Software has publishing rights for majority of Heretic/HeXen games, Portal of Praevus and Heretic 2 are out of their reach... just like the rights for the franchise, I think. In other words, that's just a huge mess and their recent release on GOG shows that it wouldn't change anytime soon.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.

You know, I don't think you can call it an abandonware game. Although Ubisoft doesn't sell Pandora Tomorrow on any PC platform, you can still buy it on Xbox just fine. HD version for Playstation 3 is another option, but it's as scuffed as PC version can get and there's no fixes this time. I guess our only hope is getting GOG release that then could also (at least in theory) lead Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell sequel to Steam too.

That was very unconvinent since I've recently beaten both first and third games of the series. They were really fun and it would be nice to go through Hesperia Railways and LAX Internation Airport missions officially. Until then, there're Co-op and Versus modes for Chaos Theory. Spies vs Mercs (that debuted in Pandora Tomorrow) is particularly interesting to me and I would love to write a dedicated post about it, but I want to actually try it out. I feel like my "multiplayer burnout" is almost gone, so that's something. Finding people, right time and setup to actually play this mode will definitely take some time...