Classic games for download
Minter, Vulcan, Revolution give their blessing to abandonware website
Gamers of a certain vintage (i.e. pushing 30 or over) will no doubt be filled with heart warming nostalgic feelings at the news that a bunch of ageing gaming classics have been made available for free download at Infinite Frontiers' website www.infinitefrontiers.org.
Following "extensive negotiations", the abandonware site has signed up a selection of games from the likes of Llamasoft, Revolution, CDV, Vulcan Software, Apogee, and a host of other slightly less well known Amiga and PC developers.
"Many people remember these old classics fondly, and we wanted to bring these games and applications back to a new audience without the need for people to resort to piracy," said an Infinite spokesman.
"All of these titles were deleted years ago, and they have now become rare items to source the originals. For many people, they are left with little choice but to scour auction sites online to find these classics, and even then there is no guarantee that they can find what they are looking for," he added.
As one would expect for these golden oldies, the site assumes that you have a working knowledge of emulators, and recommends the likes of WinUAE, which Eurogamer can testify is a marvellous, easy to use Amiga emulator. In fact if our Kick Off 2 or Sensible Soccer playing readers want to take us on, we're more than happy to demonstrate that the passage of time hasn't blunted our edge.
The site is hoping to add more titles to the list in the near future, with "many being added on a daily basis"; Infinite is in the process of talking to a "large number" of companies and authors to get legal clearance for their games. It also called upon publishers housing "non commercially viable" games to get in touch with Simon Plumbe at InfiniteFrontier@aol.com.
The current list of companies who have allowed the site to carry their titles is as follows:
Apogee (PC)
CDV (PC)
Cloanto (Amiga)
Distant Suns (Amiga, PC)
Emurasoft (PC)
Llamasoft (Atari, BBC Model-B, Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Spectrum, Vic 20)
Mutation Software (Amiga)
Revolution Software (Amiga, Atari ST)
Robinson Technologies (PC)
Mark Sibly (Amiga)
Tuna Technologies (Amiga)
Vulcan Software (Amiga)
A range of non commercial freeware titles are also available.