Ye Olde

[Ye Olde] Back to 1996 with Dutch Flyer

Posted by benez256 on

Hello guys,

Today I can barely contain my joy.

Just yesterday I was talking with Retro Redress about the illegal games compilation that flooded the market in the Netherlands and in Italy at the end of the 90s. Back then was very hard to find a CD burner and the ones on the marked had prices so steep that nobody could afford them. Plus they were very slow and a small box of 10 empty CDs was quite pricey.

For this reason flourished an industry of illegal compilation of games that, even though they were rather expensive, ensured to us young and poor avid gamers 15-20 good titles to play. Of course to squeeze everything in only one CD some features were cut (especially sounds and cutscenes) but it was better than nothing. I’ve talked some times ago about the Twilight compilations. Persolanny I’ve never owned one but in my group of friends there was one who knew the right people and from time to time came to us showing his last piece. The first time he showed us the Twilight 001 we were absolutely blown away. To give you an idea these were the titles:

On the CD there was also some useful software like Adobe Acrobate but of course we really didn’t care about it. all we wanter were games. And some of them were even more than what we could dream of because our PCs were way underpowered to run them (Rayman, anyone?).

This is just a long intro to introduce the compilation I’m most fond of. Back in 1996 my dad had a friend who worked in a port a few km away from where we lived and one day he came to us with a game compilation, the Dutch Flyer. He knew I had bought my first computer slightly before becuase he kinda “taught” me how to use it and he privided the first games and softwares. Well this compilation had an incredible number of great games on it, 114!

Unfortunately I’ve never owned that CD and after seeing it that night I’ve never seen it again for a few years. Until that friend of mine came up with that CD! We ran home to try it and it was amazing. So many games, so many hours spent on it during the cold winters. We were a bunch of friends who met everyday to play games.

When he had to move away from our town he gave the CD away to another one of our group and yeasr after we went together to the university, and guess what CD he brought in his new venture? Yes, the Ducth Flyer. We lived together 4 years and from time to time we played some of the games in the CD. Games that started to become quite old (like 10-12 years old) but we didn’t care. At the end of the university I took a house for myself and he took his own one and when it was the time to pack everything to leave our common flat we forgot in which box we put the CD.

Neither him nor me had found it during all there years and we were really desperate about it because we didn’t even remember the list of games in it in case we wanted to “recreate” the compilation.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to promote piracy: I’ve got a beautiful collection of original games and even though I have a region free PS1 and a region free PS2 I buy only original games to stay true to my philosophy. But Dutch Flyer was something more than a game compilation, it was one of the thing that kept our group of frinds together for years and years and its value were way more that the price of all the games one by one.

Back to today: I was cleaning my house in view of Christmas with my parents and under a pile of old books, exercise books and broken CDs one CD emerged, incredibly in good conditions and with just a bit of dust on it. The Dutch Flyer was still alive and after 20 years it still fired up at the first try.

The list of games is absolutely amazing and back in 1996 I didn’t know some of the tiles were smash hits. Below the full list of the games; as you can see there are more or less all the genres of games availble back in 1996. Prepare to a dive into nostalgia:

  1. 3D World Boxing
  2. 4D Sport Driving
  3. 5th Fleet
  4. 8 Ball Deluxe
  5. Aladdin
  6. Alone in the Dark
  7. Another World
  8. Arkanoid: Revenge of DoH
  9. Armored Fist
  10. Asterix
  11. B.C. Racers
  12. The Beauty and the Beast
  13. Beneath a Steel Sky
  14. The Big Red Adventure
  15. Big Red Racing
  16. Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
  17. California Games II
  18. Cannon Fodder
  19. Car & Driver
  20. The Chaos Engine
  21. Christmas Carnage
  22. Colonization
  23. Comanche
  24. Cyclones
  25. Daughter of Serpents
  26. Dawn Patrol
  27. The Day of the Tentacle
  28. Deadly Racer
  29. Desert Strike
  30. Die Hard 2
  31. DOOM 2
  32. Double Dragon 3
  33. Dragon’s Lair 3
  34. Dreamweb
  35. Dune 2
  36. Dylan Dog 3
  37. Ecstatica
  38. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
  39. Entombed
  40. Eternam
  41. F29 Retaliator
  42. Fascination
  43. FIFA Soccer
  44. Fleet Defender: F-14 Tomcat Simulator
  45. Flight Commander 2
  46. Fury of the Furries
  47. Gobliiins
  48. Golden Axe
  49. Guilty
  50. Guy Spy
  51. Hardball IV
  52. Heimdall
  53. Hook
  54. Inca
  55. Inca 2
  56. IndyCar Racing
  57. Innocent Until Caught
  58. James Pond 2: RoboCod
  59. Jordan in Flight
  60. King Quest V
  61. King Quest VI
  62. The Kings of the Beach
  63. Last Action Hero
  64. The Legend of the Seven Paladins
  65. The Lemmings
  66. Links 386
  67. The Lion King
  68. Lure of the Temptress
  69. Olympic Games ’92
  70. Magic Carpet
  71. Mech Warriors
  72. Metaltech: Earthsiege
  73. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
  74. Mortal Kombat
  75. Mortal Kombat 2
  76. NASCAR Racing
  77. NTW Rally
  78. One Must Fall
  79. Operation Body Count
  80. Operation Overlord
  81. Out Run
  82. Panza Kick Boxing
  83. Panzer General
  84. Pinball Mania
  85. Powerboating Simulator
  86. Quest for Glory 3
  87. Quik the Thunder Rabit
  88. Raptor: Call of the Shadows
  89. Retribution
  90. Reunion
  91. Rise of the Triad
  92. The Rocketeer
  93. Sam & Max
  94. Sherlock Holmes
  95. SimCity 2000
  96. Ski Pro
  97. Soccer Kid
  98. Space Ace
  99. Space Ace 2
  100. Space Federation
  101. Street Fighter 2
  102. Strip Poker 3
  103. Stunt Cars Racer
  104. Super Fighter
  105. Syndicate
  106. Theme Park
  107. U.F.O.: Enemy Unknown
  108. Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness
  109. Ultima II:The Revenge of the Enchantress
  110. Ultima III: Exodus
  111. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
  112. Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
  113. Ultima VI: The False Prophet
  114. Utopia
  115. TFX
  116. The Ultimate Body Blows
  117. Unnecessary Roughness ’95
  118. Virtuoso
  119. Ween: the Prophecy
  120. Wulin
  121. Zorro

As you may notice  this list include a lot of games I reviewd in these years and this because, as I told you, I grew up with this compilation. The games shouold be 119 but the list featuyres 121 games. I don’0t know why, probably I made some repetition and if you’re guessing, no. I don’t know that king of game is Wulin. I haven’t find anything about it and the only thing that I know is thta is a fighitng game a la Street Fighter but all in japanese!. I don’t even know if it has analternative title.

Do you have any story about some of these games? I relly would like to hear something about you, especially from the PC gamers as I was!

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