Download Attack

This ancient game was probably developed for internal use at IBM but presumably leaked (according to MobyGames.com). This horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up was written in IBM Basic and only features ASCII characters as graphical elements. Nevertheless, IBM managed to create a lifelike flight simulation with awesome sound effects and spectacular visuals. Nah... just kidding :) But, you've got to remember, we're talking 1982 on the PC platform here, so what can you expect? 

The objective of the game is simple: shoot approaching enemy fighters and nuke buildings on the ground. You get points for everything you destroy, and dropping a bomb on top of the Apple factory (the one creating all those pesky Macintosh computers with their fancy schmancy graphical interface and everything) gets you the highest amount. You've got to take care you don't waste your ammo, since you only have a limited amount, but other than that, it's just flying up and down, shooting your lasers and dumping the occasional bomb on unsuspecting IBM competitors. 

The controls are simple and done through the numeric keyboard. '8' and '2' will make your plane go up and down and '5' will stop the movement. '6' fires your laser, a fierce red piercing beam that's sure to eliminate everything in its path. Pressing '4' drops a 10 kiloton asterisk on top of a building. That's it. Don't get hit by an enemy, and don't fly to low to the ground, or you'll surely perish. Sound effects consist of an occasional speaker blip. It's a pretty basic game, but if you don't mind the lack of graphics or sound, you can still have a bit of fun with it. 

You should really run this in DosBOX and tweak the cycles a bit (on my machine I got the best result with about 690 cycles). Start the game by running AUTOEXEC.BAT from the games' folder.