Underdogs Come Back, Abandonware for Everyone!

One of the most disappointing problems with the video game industry is that we tend to churn through games so fast that a title released 6 months ago is likely to be overshadowed by newer releases. While in some cases this could be considered merciful in that really bad games fade quickly from notice, there is also a disappointing factor of forgetting our game history.

One of the premiere computer game historical archives, an abandonware website called Home of the Underdogs returned to life after going dark some time ago.

Gaming is a new hobby, it doesn’t have the legacy of other leisure activities but in many ways because of the evolving nature of technology and the cash driven nature of the industry it means that many games that could be considered foundational to the modern video game design are unavailable or obsoleted and incompatible with modern computing platforms. Consoles and computer games alike suffer from this and even though sites like Good Old Games (GOG.com) are stemming this trend with DRM free older titles like Fallout, Descent and Freespace there are still hundreds of titles that will never see the light of day because their publishers no longer exist or the rights are a mess.

I’m not a big fan of illegal activity but in some ways since the legality of older titles are in question often, I can only say I am glad to see that sites like Abandonia and it’s peer Home of the Underdogs served to preserve records and often copies of these faded titles for posterity. The Underdogs site was the victim of its own success for awhile, with the hosting fees and a lack of continued energy forcing the original founders to surrender the website to the eternal darkness of a 404 error.

If you’re a classic gamer looking to relive your halcyon days you might want to check out Underdogs.