Do you remember? The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon and more nostalgic games

Despite playing outside regularly as a kid, there was nothing I enjoyed more than playing some computer games at home after school. Personally, I played a bunch of different games when I was young. From online games to PC-disk games, such as Freddy Fish and Pyjama Sam (anyone else remembers these?) to The Sims and Zoo Tycoon. In this blogpost I am going over all the nostalgic games we, or at least I, played as a kid.

Online games and spele.nl

The Dutchies among us probably remember www.spele.nl. This was, and maybe still is, the most popular website to play simple online games. Despite the lay-out having changed over the years, a lot of popular games still can be played! Earlier popular games were Gold Miner, Bomber Man and Bubble Shooter (feeling old yet?). Nowadays you can online games that used to be an app for us, such as Pou. Even older games can be played such as Tetris and Pacman. Other games that I used to play were: Building your own Island and Swords and Sandals.

The Sims

The Sims might be one of the most well-known games out there and lots of people have played it at least once in their live time. The game came out around the year 2000 and has not left us ever since. Whether you enjoy building houses, creating new families or actually playing a sim there were just so many options! I would spend hours building a house for a specific sim family, only to be bored after playing the family for about 15 minutes. I don’t quite know why, but people, including myself, enjoyed getting their sims into not so nice situations. Perhaps this explains the popularity of the game, as it had a “nice” and a “dark” side to it. You could remove the stairs from the swimming pool and make sure your sim could not escape or, in later versions, turn them into werewolves and vampires. On the other hand, you could make them successful in life and fulfil all their wishes. The sims just had so many possibilities.

Zoo and Rollercoaster Tycoon

Other popular 2000s computer games were for sure Zoo and Rollercoaster Tycoon. The games, that had multiple versions, gave you the possibility to build your own theme park or zoo from the ground up. The games had many possibilities, however not as many as The Sims. Whether you wanted to build an awesome rollercoaster, only for everyone to be too scared to actually go in, or to build a Zoo with as many different types of animals, only to let them escape at the end of the game (let’s face it, we all have been there). For these games its popularity is probably due to the same reason as The Sims: players have a lot of freedom whilst playing the game. Not only from attractions and type of animals, but also the possibility to flourish or wreck your work.

The Sims, Zoo Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon are still successful, despite their launch about 20 years ago and despite being no gamer myself, I have always enjoyed these games. Some versions of the games are still available via Steam, however you can also just get that nostalgic feeling back through YouTube videos. Have you or are you still playing any of these games?

Sources

Deze 12 games maakten Spele.nl vroeger zo geweldig (vroegert.nl)

The Sims, the world’s most popular life simulator, turned 20 years old. Here’s how it stays relevant. – The Washington Post

The Adorable, Against-All-Odds Charm of ‘Zoo Tycoon’ | WIRED