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As computer gaming has aged, logically some of the less recent games have become, in a word, old. Though generally virtual in nature, these forgotten gems show their age like any other artifact: unless preserved, they decay (i.e. are no longer playable on systems hundred-fold more powerful than those for which they were designed) and disappear (as when the company picks up ’shop’ and vanishes from the ether). The generally accepted term for such software is abandonware. A preservation movement of sorts has sprung up all over the ‘net, sometimes in esoteric, high-minded form, and other times indistinguishable from the w4r3z k1dz and their entirely illegal trade. Abandonware is generally determined to be no longer sold by any distributor, past a certain date (almost like a shelf-life), and, well, downloadable. One of the best abandonware repositories is the Home of the Underdogs.

Online for many years, the HotU champions primarily forgotten and underappreciated games for DOS, Amiga and Apple computers. Maintaining exhaustive lists of underrated and overrated games in a number of genres, publishing reviews and comprehensive links for more information, and even providing legal methods to obtain non-abandoned software, HotU further impresses by constantly adding new games to its collection.

More so than merely cataloging the games, the Underdogs seeks to document the historical significance of many of them. Prominent developers today may not be proud of their shareware roots, but that doesn’t make games like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem and Jazz Jackrabbit any less fun. Fun though they may be, playable they often aren’t on newer systems. Which is again where the Underdogs step in and provide detailed tutorials and helpful software to make even the fastest machines today capable of running software meant for yesterday’s 4.77 megahertz dinosaurs.

All of the games might not be deserving of posterity, but downloading and enjoying classic oldies is a whole lot cheaper than buying new games.