Just like many people close to my age, I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Shareware games on our home PC. Better than a game demo, you could play the first “episode” of a game for free, but then had to pay to get the rest.
Well, my parents weren’t going to pay for the full version ofDOOM, so I ended up playing that first episode over and over again. Later, when I actually started making my own money as a young adult, I could buy it for myself. However, there are plenty of great games I played as Shareware is not as readily available as the likes ofDOOM. Only in the past few years have I had the opportunity to play some of my childhood favorites past Episode 1.
7Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Despite playing a few classics in the schmup genre on our 8-bit Famiclone back in the day, I was never really enthralled by one of these games until I got to playRaptor: Call of the Shadows.
A big part of it was that we had just bought our first ever sound card. So the sound effects and music blew me away compared to the PC speaker bleeps and bloops I’d been enjoying up to that point.
Raptor is a beautiful game with a very specific art style. I love the look of the explosions, and those grainy cutscenes. Every time the animation of your plane landing plays, I get a little thrill like the first time I saw it.
The enemy ship designs are always interesting, and it has a great progression system, where you can use the money you earn during each level to upgrade your plane back at base. It gives it a lot more depth than a typical arcade schmup.
Sadly, I only ever got to play the shareware version back in the day, but in 2015 the game was brought to Steam asRaptor: Call of The Shadows - 2015 Edition. However, there’s also the1994 Classic Editionif you want a more authentic experience.
6Epic Pinball
Sticking with games that I got with my new sound card in the late 90s,Epic Pinballgave away its Android table for free in the shareware version, later updated to “Super” Android.
I put hundreds of hours into this shareware pinball table, and probably wore out the Shift keys on our keyboard because of it. The actual table is pretty great, but it’s the sound effects and music that really make it stand out. Just have a listen to thisEpic Pinball YouTube video.
The rest of the tables were locked away in the full version, and I only got to experience them for the first timein 2023when I saw the complete version of the game was on GOG.com. Best of all, it works on my MacBook, though Ireallydon’t want to wear out the Shift keys on that computer!
Epic Pinball
Possibly the best DOS-era pinball game collection, with great sound effects, interesting table designs, and amazing music.
5Wolfenstein 3D
The game that really kicked off the first-person shooter genre isWolfenstein 3Dor simply “Wolf3d” to its friends. I was obsessed with this game in the late 90s untilDOOMentered the chat, but once again the only copy I had access to was the shareware version, which I played over and over again.
Again, it wasn’t until I was an adult, and the game was available on digital platforms, that I could actually buy the full version. Maybe it’s for the best, because although that first episode isn’t too hard, the game’s difficulty ramps up to brutal levels as you work your way through all the content.
Don’t think, because Wolf3d is simplistic in its gameplay, that it’s easy. In fact, later episodes and levels feel downright unfair. However, that’s part of the fun and there are endless mods for the game too, as well as modern alternative engines that you can use to modernize it somewhat.
4Commander Keen
BeforeDOOM,before Wolf3d, there wasCommander Keen.It might not seem like a big deal now, but back then the one thing that PCs couldn’t do well was fast side-scrolling.
Even though the typical computer was way more powerful than, for example, a NES, the way PCs were architected made it hard to stream in data as the character moved across the playfield.
So, while PC platformers certainly existed on PC, they had no scrolling. When your character reaches the end of the current screen, it will simply flip over to the next screen. The folks that would later form id Software famously developed an unofficial port ofSuper Mario Bros.and showed it off to Nintendo, hoping to get the contract to make an official PC port. However, Nintendo was predictably not interested. Later, after id Software had formed, that side-scrolling technology
There are five episodes in total for the Keen games, and my favorite is, of course, the shareware episode given away as part of theGoodbye Galaxyarc. I never got to see the rest of the adventure though, but today you can buy the complete series for just a few bucks online, and it still plays and looks fantastic.
3Jazz Jackrabbit
While id Software is undoubtedly the pioneer for smooth side-scrolling on PC, just a few years later other developers had cracked it too—it also helped that PCs had rapidly become faster too!
Jazz Jackrabbitis one of my all-time favorite games, but, of course, I only got to play the shareware version until just a few years ago, when I purchased the full version online. Now I can play it on my handheld PC whenever I like, or even my Mac!
The game itself is like a mix betweenSonic the HedgehogandMegamanwith amazing music (which is reactive to what’s happening) and these really cool pseudo-3D bonus stage segments that look like Mode 7 graphics from the SNES.
The music itself is pretty fantastic, and Jazz is a great character. The game was designed by Cliff Bleszinski, who would later go on to be the main guy behindUnrealand Gears of War. The game is now part of the GOG Preservation Program, and you can buy theJazz Jackrabbit Collectionthere safe in the knowledge that it will run on your future systems.
2Bio Menace
This game is strongly inspired by the first twoDuke Nukemgames, and if those two classics weren’t currently abandonware, I’d put them on this list instead. However,Bio Menaceabsolutely has a special place in my heart, if for no other reason than it was the goriest game I’d ever played up to that point.
Based on a licensed version of theCommander Keenengine, you play as Snake Logan—a top CIA agent. The city is being overrun by mutants, and by golly Snake is going to one-man-army his way to victory.
I only ever played the first episode until recently, but at least I didn’t have to pay for the full version. Yes, that’s right-the game isfree on GOG!
1Quake
Isn’tQuakea little too mainstream for this list? Well, this game came at the tail-end of the shareware era, and I think (though I might be wrong) that it was id Software’s last shareware game, but perhaps some people have forgotten that this generation-straddling title was shareware to begin with, and that unless they’re FPS-obsessed like me, they’ve only every played the first episode.
What I’m saying is that you should absolutely go back and play the remaining episodes of Quake if you never got to do that back in the 90s. It’s been remastered and made available on just about every platform you could imagine, and it still plays better than most modern shooters today.
Because the different episodes were largely designed by different level designers, with different aesthetics (that’s the reason behind the dimensional slipgate plot), you haven’t really experienced the diversity of Quake if you haven’t.
Shareware was a fantastic way to play some of the best games of the 90s without spending a dime, but for many of us it’s taken all these years to finally see what was hidden behind that paywall. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
