CREDIT: MECC
You can play games like The Oregon Trail in-browser thanks to the Internet Archive.

Glancing across the map, your legion sits on the shores of the Mediterranean, ready to advance, ready to conquer. This is the setting for Centurion: Defender of Rome, one of the 2,300 MS-DOS games recently compiled and playable in a single searchable place – the Internet Archive.

The Internet Archive’s main goal is to preserve and digitize human culture and heritage, focusing specifically on digital formats.

Back in 2013 the Archive’s games curator/archivist Jason Scott started adding classic arcade games, but it wasn’t until last December that things went crazy. Internet Archive decided to host all the games on its website directly.

That’s right, all 2,300 games can be played in-browser, no downloads. Games like Prince of Persia had 200,000 plays. The Oregon Trail already had 600,000 plays.

The Microsoft Disk Operating System was developed 31 years ago as the main operating system for computers through the ‘80s and ‘90s. The main difference between old operating systems and our new shiny Windows 8 or OS X is a Graphical User Interface, which is essentially what makes it possible to have multiple windows, programs, home screens all visible at once and a reason for the computer mouse. DOS ran completely off keyboard controls.

An archaic system? Maybe, but tell that to the U.S. Military – many nuclear missile silos and bookkeeping procedures still run off these systems on account of their reliability.

Who knows though, maybe they used it for a few rounds of Scorched Earth as well, the classic side view tank war game which lets you customize and buy different ammunition types between rounds.

Though maybe launching nukes at your opponent sounds a bit harsh. Maybe your typing skills need brushing up, getting ready to head out into a career after this semester finishes – why not let Mario, Peach, Toad and Luigi help you in Mario Teaches Typing. Filled with four different mini games, each one is supposed to teach the player a different typing technique. Or maybe it’s a game night and you want to try something nostalgic. You’re in luck: there are plenty of multiplayer games like Monopoly and Scrabble. Yes, Scrabble is on here too, and with a lot more functionality than you’d think for a 25-year-old computer game.

These games are truly something else, if you can stand the ugly teals and neon pink you can play the original Donkey Kong, or how about a few rounds Super Street Fighter II. Of course, there are games for everyone – Bullet Hells, Sim City, Duck Tales and Pole Position – to name a few.

It’s good there’s this many, as there are still issues to work out.

In a blog post, Scott told of a number of issues still surrounding the project-games running too slow or too fast and terrible screeching sounds while playing. Sometimes they just don’t work. But that’s to be expected, as the Internet Archive interface currently in use is still in beta testing, and there will always be a few bugs first. Add to that over four million users within the first six weeks of being available and the site being completely free.

So try slashing your way through monster as an Amazonian in Jill of the Jungle, maybe destroy nuclear missile wielding mechs in the original Metal Gear or try your hand at the pioneering life with either the original or deluxe versions of the Oregon Trail, just be sure not to drink the ground water – it’ll cause dysentery.

For more information and searchability of this collection, go to tinyurl.com/ngpmbra.