Old PC Games on Cereal Boxes

I mentioned a bit of this a few years back in a post where I shared some early computing memories. At the time, I only recalled what the games were about, but I didn’t remember the names or specific game mechanics.

However, through vague descriptions and looking in some abandonware sites, I found the games and decided to share them here. There were a couple of educational titles, a couple of racing games and a zoo management game that is actually still being sold on Steam!

All of these games were bundled in Cereal boxes somewhere in the 2000s in Mexico! They were everywhere and absolutely worked on me, I just wanted my parents to get me some every time, there’s a chance some of those games aren’t listed here, but the ones that left an impression are mentioned, at least.

I talked about this post idea to Wouter, and he immediately reminded me about his own post of a similar vein where he reminisced on edutainment games from his childhood, so there you go, check it out too once you are done, or before, since they are older games than mine. 😉

Without further to do, here’s my list!

Superbike Racing

This is one of the earliest games I have memory of ever playing on a computer. I booted it up on a kinda bulky Toshiba laptop that my father had. It was developed (or maybe just published?) by IncaGold and I remember playing it around 2007.

This game had pretty neat graphics for my young eyes, and it was of the realistic style, rather than arcadey. This made the physics and the speed way too slow for me, and really deterred me from playing it that much as a kid.

I had not really played Mario Kart at the time, but I guess I just didn’t vibe with a simulator kind of game at that age, and this was closer to those, even if rather low budget. I never quite managed to turn properly and never won a race in it that I recall.

I somehow didn’t remember the name of this game at all, but once I did, I immediately recalled how I used to just say “SuperBike” in Spanish as a kid (“SuperBique”) and that made me chuckle.

Check out this gameplay video—where I got the screenshot from—it really brought some memories back!

Pet Racer

I thinks I played this much later than Superbike Racing, and I think I was already familiar with Mario Kart Wii—which I played at an older friend’s house. Either way, this is a blatant rip-off of Nintendo’s franchise, but I didn’t really care much about that. This game was pretty fun to play around 2008.

Unfortunately, I don’t really have any significant memories about it. I just know it was a racing game and that all the characters were pretty ugly, to be honest, my favorite was the shark. I wish I could say some more things about it, but it’s probably the shallowest of the games mentioned here. There is a lot of gameplay footage out there though, so I guess I could check it out, but the next few games proved to be much more interesting.

You can easily find gameplay of this one on YouTube, but just play Super Tux Kart, honestly, although the music ain’t too bad.

Zoo Empire

Now, this was more my jam, and I didn’t even remember it very well. Nowadays I rarely touch management games, but I really was addicted to this one as a kid. Just the thought of having my own mini-world inside my computer were animals roamed around was so fun. The game had lots of fun animations and interactions, and causing mayhem by putting animals in the same space was fun.

This game was developed by Enlight Software and was first published in 2004. I think I played it around 2009 myself, but I can’t be sure.

You managed a zoo and took care of animals, building their habitats, as well as the passageways and commodities for visitors. What blows my mind is that the game was fully 3D! with full camera controls and stuff. The graphics are old by now, but still have a lot of charm.

Another thing I really liked was the amount of terraforming you can. I can modifying terrain and making mountains or lakes and using those instead of fences.

I’m kind of interested on giving this one a revisit, the game is still available on Steam and on sale right now. It will probably suck by today standards, but I will give it a go for nostalgia’s sake.

Reviews say that the game will eventually crash, but it will be fun to just mess around for a bit.

Check some gameplay here!—The music actually holds up so well and unlocked my nostalgia even more than the gameplay itself.

My Amazing Human Body

This is an educational game about—you guessed it—the human body. Titled in Spanish as Mi Increíble Cuerpo Humano, and developed by DK Multimedia in 1997, although I played the version I did around 2007 or so. It was full of minigames and things to click around. There’s also a character that narrates the game and asks questsions named Seymour Skinless—he is just Skelly in Spanish though—and yes, he’s a talking skeleton.

There were puzzle games about dragging and dropping body parts in the right place, tons of fun facts about each part of the body, and each organ will also come with specific games to learn what they do. For example, the brain information page has a memory game or tells you to attempt to write with your non-dominant hand, while the eye section comes with optical illusion experiments, explaining how the eyes are fooled by it. Everything in this game has plenty of drawings, models and diagrams.

This is a game that really rewards exploration, and each description of how an organ works will often highlight other specific terms and link to another terms, it is very easy to get into rabbit holes just reading and looking at visuals. There really is a whole glossary not only about the organs, but the systems and processes and how the body develops over time as we grow. I skimmed through a playthrough of the game online and was truly astonished by how much information it has, all the text on it is fully dubbed as well.

Check some gameplay of it on YouTube—I must admit I prefer the Spanish dub, even though it’s not Latin Spanish, I just got used to the voice.

My First Amazing History Explorer

This was just La Máquina del Tiempo del Pequeño Aventurero in Spanish and was also developed by DK Multimedia, however, where a lot of the artwork on the Human Body consisted of prerrendered 3D models and 3D animation. Most of what is found in this game is mostly 2D graphics. It makes sense given the presence of paintings, maps and similar art compared to organs and bones.

Anyway, this was an extremely fun game, and had more of a story too, since I traveled through time to find the whereabouts of a missing professor. Like Skelly, there’s another character who calls himself the Time Fugitive—altough he calls himself Cronos in Spanish!—and he’s the one behind the professors disappearance, simply to get more people interested in History—a bit of a stretch but okay.

In any case, this game is as deep and fun to poke around with, letting you explore through the professor’s house—which acts as a hub or main menu of sorts—as well as access the Time Machine itself, which let’s you visit eight different time periods, showing a giant map with graphics, animations and things to click and get into rabbit holes just like the previous game, so much interactivity everywhere. There’s puzzles and questions and minigames, you can collect stamps for each time period and fill a book with them. I really enjoyed revisiting gameplay online.

There are whole playthroughs on YouTube! they evoke so much nostalgia. The English dub is really good, the Spanish voice is kinda annoying, but I didn’t mind much as a kid.

Finishing thoughts

All these games—except maybe for Pet Racer—were such a nostalgia hit for me. Remembering the days were I would get these free games on cereal boxes from Kellog’s or Nestle. I am amazed at how much I already know computers back then, as I set up these games myself without help from my parents and such.

I am not sure of where in the world the CD-ROMs are in my dad’s office space. There’s a chance there would be more games there that I didn’t remember at all. I have a vague memory of a flight simulator, but I think the disc got scratched and I never played much of it.

In any case, I wonder how many of you have played these games or even got them for free too! Let me know by contacting me or leaving a comment!

This is day 37 of #100DaysToOffload