The Internet Archive is bringing good memories of the past to gamers as they can now access more than 2,000 classic MS-DOS games on their browser for free.
San Francisco-based Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library, which provides free public access to various collections of digitized materials that includes music, images, books and games. The organization also advocates for open and free Internet.
"2,400 MS-DOS games and programs have gone live on the Internet Archive," says Jason Scott, the software curator of the website.
The collection includes strategy, action, adventure and many other genres. The old games are bootable and playable with the help of Internet Archive's browser-based emulator EM-DOSBOX, which has been created specifically for accessing old programs. The browser-based emulation is still in beta and Scott wants gamers to report bugs if they come across any while playing the games.
"Some of them will still fall over and die, and many of them might be weird to play in a browser window, and of course you can't really save things off for later, and that will limit things too. But on the whole, you will experience some analogue of the MS-DOS program, in your browser, instantly," added Scott.
The games do not come along with a manual and some users may take a while to figure out the controls and how to play the games properly.
Exploring the vast archive of about 2,400 games can be difficult. You may find a few games that have long been forgotten. Some of the games are obscure, while some are hilarious. Some of the games even include adult content, which many gamers would have not thought that these ever existed on MS-DOS.
Some of the titles included in the Internet Archive MS-DOS game list are Prince of Persia, Oregon Trail, Metal Gear, Sim City (1989), Duke Nukem, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II, Back to the Future III, Aladdin, The Lion King, Donkey Kong, Lode Runner and many more.
Check out the list of games on Internet Archive to see if your favorite MS-DOS game is there.
