Can anyone name an old RPG game that’s been bugging me?

September 1, 2015 6:35 AM

It was a RPG game on PC, around 1989. Futuristic, dystopic. I’m quite sure the main character was called ‘Mike’ something, a grizzled fella. There were several scenes in smoky bars. That’s all I have to go on, in the absence of some epiphany. Any ideas guys?
posted by scrm to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Could be Mines of Titan?
posted by pinacotheca at 6:46 AM on September 1, 2015

What do you mean when you say "RPG"? There are a lot of different (and distinct) types of games that potentially fall under that umbrella and some clarification would definitely help narrow things down. My first inclination is that maybe you are thinking of Gabriel Knight.
posted by 256 at 6:47 AM on September 1, 2015

Response by poster: 256: A role-playing game, where you move from scene to scene. I can’t recall if you interacted with text or the mouse however. I remember something though: “Mike” had a black leather jacket!

Pinacotheca: No, it wasn’t that. Thanks though.
posted by scrm at 6:52 AM on September 1, 2015

Was it the sort of game with stats and different types of equipment to choose from and constant fights, or the kind where you wander around and have to solve puzzles with by combining unique items with one another and the background elements of the scene?
posted by griphus at 6:55 AM on September 1, 2015

Okay, although I can't find any reference to a "Mike" in the plot description, Ubisoft released B.A.T. in 1989, and if nothing else, the main character on the box is sporting a particularly rockin' leather jacket.
posted by pinacotheca at 6:57 AM on September 1, 2015

It wasn't Full Throttle, was it? Dystopian, future, black leather jacket, but 1995 and the character's name is Ben.
posted by amarynth at 7:23 AM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

So something more like these than like this?
posted by 256 at 7:24 AM on September 1, 2015

Neuromancer?
posted by SansPoint at 7:28 AM on September 1, 2015

Another possibility: Circuit's Edge
posted by pinacotheca at 8:21 AM on September 1, 2015

Might it have been one of the handful of computer games in the Shadowrun universe?
posted by gauche at 9:12 AM on September 1, 2015

I was going to guess Full Throttle too...
posted by lgandme0717 at 3:27 PM on September 1, 2015

My first thought was one of the Tex Murphy games - Mean Streets, Martian Memorandum, Under a Killing Moon, etc. Future dystopias, noir elements and grizzled characters, smoky bars. Mean Streets came out in 1989.
posted by naju at 9:19 PM on September 1, 2015

Response by poster: Hi guys - thanks for all your input. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have found it yet. I also went through the RPGs on wikipedia that were released around this period and I can’t find it either. Cheers anyway.
posted by scrm at 6:45 AM on September 4, 2015