Ooh, good thread! I've got a few games that I'd class in this way, though in some cases they were ports and I've since shifted over to emulating the original console versions because it's a superior experience now that we've got the computing power to do so. They are;

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, one of the only 3D platformers I ever enjoyed.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2, one of the best 2D platformers ever made.

Sonic CD, another of the best 2D platformers ever made.

There are also a few titles that never had PC ports that I always have ready-to-go via emulation, too, but those are probably outside the scope of this thread! Still, here they are anyway;

Bomberman '94 (PC Engine)
Cosmic Ark (Atari 2600)
Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy)
Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
Kirby Super Star (SNES)
Klonoa -Door To Phantomile- (PlayStation)
Star Fox (SNES)
Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman! (Game Boy)

I really can't think of any game I keep installed or replay regularly.

Love 'em and leave 'em. That was always my motto. Both with video games and during my courting days...

I have to say:

• Quake 2 I replay it every year


• Baldur Gate 2 gemrb is a gem that I have installed


• Mario 3 NES


• Monkey Island 1 and 2 I can't get sick of them


• Honorable mention is Higan and Nestopia, always I have roms available

I try to try a couple of "new" games each year, but always come have those installed.

What game(s) will you always have installed as long as they work???

Modded games:
NFS MW 2005 with my "Street King" mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLU_zIcapk .
GOF 2 HD with my not yet named mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXP80Lznp8 .
HTA with my "Destructo" mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsZxh4F8Lg8 (this shows just a fraction of the whole mod).
Star Control Origins with my not yet named mod for which, unfortunately, I don't have a video bc the game FPS drop like crazy when recording.
Carmageddon 2 (again - with my not yet named mod; come on, I can't name every single mod I make ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMIlcM_wbc .

Not modded (not by me, anyway):
Half Life 2 (native), Serious Sam 4, Flatout 2, GRID 1 & 2, Spore Galactic Adventures. And the last one, ETS 2 (native), will always work bc I moved it out of Steam, so that it can't update anymore and stay at 1.46.2.20 forever, thus having ALL of my mods keep working forever. Cuz I don't like how with every update more than half of the mods stop working and I'm tired of remaking them from scratch.

What game(s) will you always have installed as long as they work???

Modded games:
NFS MW 2005 with my "Street King" mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLU_zIcapk .
GOF 2 HD with my not yet named mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXP80Lznp8 .
HTA with my "Destructo" mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsZxh4F8Lg8 (this shows just a fraction of the whole mod).
Star Control Origins with my not yet named mod for which, unfortunately, I don't have a video bc the game FPS drop like crazy when recording.
Carmageddon 2 (again - with my not yet named mod; come on, I can't name every single mod I make ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnMIlcM_wbc .

Not modded (not by me, anyway):
Half Life 2 (native), Serious Sam 4, Flatout 2, GRID 1 & 2, Spore Galactic Adventures. And the last one, ETS 2 (native), will always work bc I moved it out of Steam, so that it can't update anymore and stay at 1.46.2.20 forever, thus having ALL of my mods keep working forever. Cuz I don't like how with every update more than half of the mods stop working and I'm tired of remaking them from scratch.

Hi, about your mod for NFS MW 2005; is it possible to make it modular? I am only interested in disabling catch-up and maybe making police unable to arrest, keeping the rest of the game vanilla. Cheers!

Pretty much all the games I really like, stay installed. Games I REALLY like, that I want to preserve, are all getting rebought on GoG.

A good example, last night I was in a mood where I couldn't get into anything. Even new (to me) games I just bought. Dying Light (an actual GOOD opengl Linux port!) nope, No Man's Sky... nope, Borderlands 3... nope, not even Mass Effect 2. So I thought I'd go watch some funny youtube videos... not amused.

Bioshock (Remastered) was the medicine. I enjoyed that for hours. When sick of modern games and their bullshit, sometimes an old school linear game you've played a hundred times is the ticket.

A game that's not installed, can't be played on a whim (the mood would be gone) and if it's a big download, I'm even less likely to.

P.S. I have about 2 Tb of games installed.

Last edited by Grogan on 10 Sep 2023 at 7:22 pm UTC

Till about 2019.... Morrowind
Since.... Kerbal Space Program, Rimworld, and Factorio

If there is one game for me, it's clearly Heroes of Might and Magic III. I play it, more or less regularly, for approx 18 years...

Hi, about your mod for NFS MW 2005; is it possible to make it modular? I am only interested in disabling catch-up and maybe making police unable to arrest, keeping the rest of the game vanilla. Cheers!

WDYM by "modular"?

The cops ARE unable to arrest. You could stop next to them and the gauge will never fill to get to "busted", so they'll simply stop next to you with their sirens on.
However, if you crash somewhere and reset your car close to them, that's the only case where they CAN and will arrest you. If Cross boxes you in, you can't reset your car. Instead, use nitrous to push your way out of the box. The NOS isn't really infinite but it refills faster than it's used, which I guess does make it infinite, in a way. Aaaand... you're gonna need infinite NOS, if you're to push your way out of being boxed in.
Catch-up is also disabled.
The rest of the mod contains no collision with traffic (useful for drag races), no spikestrips and mofications to the Golf to reach 520 km/h top speed. I had begun modifiying Audi TT as well but that will be completed some other time.

Hi, about your mod for NFS MW 2005; is it possible to make it modular? I am only interested in disabling catch-up and maybe making police unable to arrest, keeping the rest of the game vanilla. Cheers!

WDYM by "modular"?

The cops ARE unable to arrest. You could stop next to them and the gauge will never fill to get to "busted", so they'll simply stop next to you with their sirens on.
However, if you crash somewhere and reset your car close to them, that's the only case where they CAN and will arrest you. If Cross boxes you in, you can't reset your car. Instead, use nitrous to push your way out of the box. The NOS isn't really infinite but it refills faster than it's used, which I guess does make it infinite, in a way. Aaaand... you're gonna need infinite NOS, if you're to push your way out of being boxed in.
Catch-up is also disabled.
The rest of the mod contains no collision with traffic (useful for drag races), no spikestrips and mofications to the Golf to reach 520 km/h top speed. I had begun modifiying Audi TT as well but that will be completed some other time.

By modular, I meant if it is possible to make a version that only disables Catch-up and maybe police arrest without changing anything else. I just want to make the game less annoying. What tools do you use for making your mod? Anyway, have a nice one.

By modular, I meant if it is possible to make a version that only disables Catch-up and maybe police arrest without changing anything else. I just want to make the game less annoying. What tools do you use for making your mod? Anyway, have a nice one.

I changed so many things and it was long ago, so I don't remember how to reverse the most of them. You can try modding the game yourself with the things you want. The tool is named "NFS VAULT EDITOR 4.6". If you can't find it or download it, I'll upload mine somewhere and give you the link.

By modular, I meant if it is possible to make a version that only disables Catch-up and maybe police arrest without changing anything else. I just want to make the game less annoying. What tools do you use for making your mod? Anyway, have a nice one.

I changed so many things and it was long ago, so I don't remember how to reverse the most of them. You can try modding the game yourself with the things you want. The tool is named "NFS VAULT EDITOR 4.6". If you can't find it or download it, I'll upload mine somewhere and give you the link.

Thanks for the info, I will give it a go when I get to playing the game in the future. PCGWiki also mentions a customizable script mod I might try. Thanks again.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Oh yeah, before I switched entirely to Linux that was basically me as well.

The only game that I have sitting on all my machines now for years already is Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos. It's one of the best games ever for me personally and I still greatly enjoy it.

Last edited by Plintslîcho on 12 Sep 2023 at 6:05 pm UTC

* Garou: Mark of the Wolves
* Virtua Fighter 2
* Tekken 3
* Fatal Fury 2 Special
* Street Fighter II Remastered Edition
* Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
* Doom (1993)

Every now and then I play Torchlight 2. It's the perfect arpg. It works on potatoes, graphics are holding up, no DRM so offline play is no problem, has LAN coop, a great Linux port and lots of mods. They don't make them like this anymore. :P

Last edited by devland on 19 Sep 2023 at 8:03 am UTC

• Warhammer Online


• Xonotic


• Vietcong


• NFS: Porsche Unleashed

NES Tetris (via nestopia), & the OG Doom (via chocolate doom)
-- apparently these two are the only ones I've cared enough about to keep 'installed'; though I'm pretty sure I have a loaded DosBox folder with Civ 1 & 2, Volfied, etc. somewhere on my drive.

I used to make sure I had a MAME version ready to play the Street Fighter Alpha & 'II' series; though at some point my installation broke, and I didn't bother to fix it.

• Warhammer Online


• Xonotic


• Vietcong


• NFS: Porsche Unleashed

Are the return of reckoning servers open source? Can you setup your own?

Are the return of reckoning servers open source? Can you setup your own?

Afaik WAREmu is opensource, but RoR database and all the rest is not.
You can setup your own server but you would not have much there, though there might be some old databases somewhere who knows...

I used to make sure I had a MAME version ready to play the Street Fighter Alpha & 'II' series; though at some point my installation broke, and I didn't bother to fix it.

The RetroArch Flatpak makes MAME an awful lot more convenient these days, in my experience, and it's nice and easy to add entries for individual games to your system menu/Steam/etc..