The original Deus Ex.
Which I did my very first playthrough of 20 years after its original release, during the pandemic.

Not because I don't like or back then didn't like the immersive sim/RPG genre, the Cyberpunk setting or anything - no, it was simply because of another seminal little open world RPG called Gothic being released around the same time which just was much more appealing and impressive in regards to the premise and especially the technical aspect that anything that did something similar (like Deus Ex) just had fallen off the radar. And for the next two decades at that.

Glad I finally got around to it and having been able to cross it off the "Must-Play-cRPGs-Before-You-Croak-It" list.

Huh??? You want to tell us you successfully manage to play each and every game within a timeframe of 15 years starting with its release? There is really no old(er) game left for you to enjoy truly for the first time? Pfff...

RPGs - I had an absolute blast with Lands of Lore 1 and, despite some frustration, for the most part with Fallout 1.


Adventure games:. Loom. Love that one. Might be my favorite LucasArts game. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was also great fun... for the first 2/3 of the game or so. It unfortunately gets a bit tedious just when it should be the best - when you get to Atlantis. Still, I do like it.

Shooters: Two games from very different moments in the 90s - Unreal and Blake Stone. I didn't expect to have nearly as much fun with either as I did.

All of those I only played for the first time after getting them here.

I only started PC gaming in 2016, and I didn't play many games at first, so there are many. However here are some from the top of my head:

Half-Life 1 + Blue Shift + Opposing Force
Blade Runner
Arx Fatalis
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Metal Gear Solid
Thief Gold, Metal Age, Deadly Shadows
Deus Ex + Invisible War
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Punisher
No One Lives Forever 1-2 + Contract JACK
Max Payne 1-2
The Suffering 1-2
System Shock 1-2
F.E.A.R. + Extraction Point + Perseus Mandate
Postal 2

I like the idea of this topic - after all, it's a great testimony of well made game, if you can play it for the first time so many years after release and enjoy it :)

Missionforce: Cyberstorm (played it for the first time... I think in 2017, so 21 years after release, game took me by surprise, but was so great, that I put aside anything else I was playing back then and spent many hours in campaign - played back then in retail version, GOG release appeared about 2 years later - I wholeheartly recommend this game to anyone, who doesn't have allergy for turn-based games)

Sanitarium - I'm not sure when I played it for the first time, but I'm sure it wasn't earlier than 2016 or later, so for sure 20 years after release - I had great time with the game (I was only heavily dissapointed with the conclusion*) and I was "angry" on myself, realizing that I left this game intact on my GOG account for YEARS before I actually played it,

*Won't describe here why I was disappointed, as it would be a major spoiler for the game's plot

Thrillville: Off the Rails - played it for the first time in 2022 , so 15 years after initial PC release. Quite a surprise, as I'm completely uninterested in "theme park management" thing, but plenty of fun mini-games turned out to be a strong point of this game and I enjoyed it a lot - have hope that I will have opportunity to play it with someone else, to have even more fun from those mini-games)

Soul Reaver look decent, will have to take some time looking into it. Have them both via sharing on Steam. Seems 1 is getting a patch or re-release.

I disagree, I like most played what I played. The games, or in most cases shareware\demo version, was quite random and great games could have easily fallen off the radar. Games that one not be fully aware of today, sure everyone knows what Doom is or things like that. But there are so many, slightly lessen known, games out there. The whole point of this thread is to discover games that you might have missed, to broaden your horizons. And if you played a game when it was "recent" 20/30 years ago then you are not seeing things objectively and the games that most have played and not many are able to list here are games that you are probably already aware of.

Uh, the Unix version IS the original ;)

Who knows if that's actually going to ever happen. That was supposedly the original reason for it being pulled from GOG, in the first place. That was years ago now without a peep since. =/

I certainly didn't have enough time or money 15-20 years ago to buy and play all interesting games, so now I discover games that I didn't happen to play back then.

For a long time I've tend to play games that are at least 5+ years old (partly because I buy mostly from GOG nowadays and GOG tends to get releases a bit later, and also because I have a big backlog already), but it is maybe rarer that I play a 15+ years old game, and enjoy it as much that I'd have no reservations to recommend others also to play it today.

It is indeed interesting to think that if I played e.g. System Shock, Starcraft or Serious Sam + Second Encounter the first time today, would I still enjoy and appreciate them as much as I do now, originally playing them when they were at most a couple of years old games? Really hard to say, maybe I just wouldn't be able to get over their archaic graphics, feel and user interface today if I tried them for the first time?

Quite often when I play some old games (for the first time) today, lots of things may annoy me and unfortunately it shows too much they are old games. Like, ummm, Daggerfall or HOMM1, I can't really say I've enjoyed trying to play them.

Back in the 2013 summer sale I bought a bunch of games on here from the late 90s that I enjoyed greatly, and became some of my favorite games. Baldur's Gate, Thief, Fallout, Deus Ex, System Shock 2.. I played them all that year, and have done multiple playthroughs since.

I also played through the first two Syberia-games around 15 years after their release, and have fond memories of them now.

Bloodrayne is another one that I really enjoyed. The fast and intensive combat, while a bit janky by today's standards, is still a blast. Vampires are always cool. I bought it for $1 here, but ended up buying it again later on physical copy for Switch. I am a fan.

I recently played Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Freedom Fighters. Freedom Fighters was especially a nice surprise because I got it without really knowing anything much and it turned out to be a really well-made, tactical shooter. The story isn't anything deep, but it's pretty good.

I enjoyed Hitman 2 a lot too, although I kind of expected it to be good. I actually played through the game twice — once on "Normal" and then on "Expert". I plan on playing through it once more on "Professional" and also Hitman 3: Contracts.

The Thief series and Deus Ex. They are similar to me, because the graphics are beyond awful (to today's eyes), but I loved the stories and the gameplay.

I don't really keep track of how many years since release, and that 15 number feels rather arbitrary.

However, here are some games I played after release and liked:
* Final Fantasy 2, 3, and 5 (5 likely was significantly fewer than 15 years after JP release, but not sure about 2 or 3); I actually liked these games more than FF4 or FF6
* I've played around a bit with Shard of Spring and Demon's Winter (haven't played either seriously), and enjoyed what I've seen
* Maybe Might and Magic 2, which I played soon after its GOG release (long after original release)

(I'm also interested in other old RPGs of that era. Maybe I should play through the Phantasie series? Or Star Command?)

Also, Kirby Super Star. (Didn't like Kirby's Adventure as much.)

The Sega Genesis Monster Boy game (not the one with a female protagonist, which I haven't yet tried).

This, plus tastes and interests change/evolve/broaden. For example, I really wasn't into early 3D games in the 90s. I thought they were ugly as hell and couldn't for the life of me understand how something that looks like this can be replacing beautiful 2D platformers like Jazz Jackrabbit or Disney's Aladdin. It wasn't untill the early 2000s with games like Max Payne, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Jedi Knight 2 and Tron 2.0 that I embraced the third dimension in games. So some stuff, like Quake and Unreal, I just ignored untill I got them relatively recently on GOG.