How this started
With a game one of us had described, in print, as a masterpiece. Fifteen years later they replayed it and could not finish the third act, not because it was difficult but because it was tedious in a way that had left no trace whatsoever in memory. The review had been honest and it had also been wrong, and the difference between those two things is what this site is about.
Memory is a highlight reel. It keeps the moment the puzzle clicked and deletes the ninety minutes of clicking that preceded it. Almost all writing about older games is produced from that highlight reel, which means the received wisdom about an entire era has not been checked against the actual experience of playing these games since the era ended.
What we do
We choose an older title, install the version most readers could plausibly obtain, and record every step required to reach a playable state on a current machine — including the attempts that failed. That number is published, because it is the honest price of entry and nobody else states it.
Then we finish the game. Not the first level, not a representative sample: the whole thing, on a modern display, with modern input devices, in the conditions a reader would actually face. And then we grade it on one question only, which is whether it is worth playing now.
The people
Four contributors, divided by what they can tolerate: role-playing games and crawlers; simulation and strategy; adventure and narrative; racing and flight. Everybody does their own setup, because setup is part of the review and cannot be delegated to somebody who already knows the answer.
One rule applies to all of us: nobody reviews a game they played at the time and loved. Sentiment is disqualifying, and the pieces on the titles we personally care about are always written by somebody else on the desk.
What we will not do
We do not distribute software, host files, or explain how to obtain games from sources their makers would object to. Our setup notes describe configuration on a legitimately obtained copy and nothing else, and requests for anything further will not be answered.
We also do not write the two standard formats of retro coverage. There are no lists of forgotten gems assembled from other people's opinions, and no pieces about a game's cultural significance by somebody who has not finished it. If a title has not been completed on our bench, it does not appear here.
Independence
No advertising, no affiliate arrangements, no sponsorship, no membership tier, nothing for sale. Everything reviewed is bought with our own money, which is straightforward for games of this age. Nobody has ever asked us to cover an old game favourably, presumably because there is no commercial reason to.
When we get it wrong
Nine grades have been revised across fifty-eight pieces. Most changed because a reader showed us a configuration that removed a problem we had described as inherent — the most useful correction we receive — and two changed because we had simply misjudged a game's difficulty as unfairness. Every revision keeps the original grade visible with the reasoning, as set out on the grading page.