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Who here is the biggest LONG-time PC gamer?

S

Speevy

Banned
Just curious.

I'm not a PC gamer myself, but I thought it would be interesting to get a sense of this forum's PC gaming history. I'm not talking about the occasional big release like Half-Life 2. I'm talking about everything from classic point-and-click adventure games to the first RTS, FPS, and every genre in between. Then there are folks who seek out obscure titles like Darwinia. I'm referring to you as well. What are your all time favorite PC games? Developers? Playing anything in particular right now?
 
My first PC games were Tangled Tales and Monday Night Football on a 286 CGA.
I was there for Kings Quest I, Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization, Dune 2, and so forth.
 
me!

favorite games? Stunts, 4d boxing, paganitzu, Counter-Strike HOLY SHIT I FORGOT CIV! CIVILIZATION = PWNAGE.

what am i playing now? Counter-Strike. Favorite developers? DSI of old and probably Blizzard.

Started PC gaming back in the 80s. You know... when games were for kids.
 
Hrm, I'm probably an average PC gamer I'd say. My first PC was an Amiga 500, I enjoyed games like Wizball, Inertia Drive (did anyone else play this?), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Strider (where I chose my nick from).

I played Doom and Doom 2, and Warcraft II on the IBM compatible we got after that, but then didn't get another PC for a long time so was out of the loop for the Quake/Quake 2 years, I then put together my own PC around the time when Quake III arena and Unreal Tournament were popular, I've been trying to keep up with PC titles since then.

Favourites of mine have been HL, Starcraft, Diablo, Black and White I was crazy for but didn't even end up finishing it, then I got really into multiplayer games as well playing RTCW in a league and getting owned in CS when I had the patience to (and occasionally owning a little myself :))

More recently I really enjoyed HL2, Doom 3 was pretty fun (mainly because I got my new 6800GT that same week), I'm not a big RTS fan really but was enjoying Rome: Total War until it started crashing on me (must check for a patch for that soon), what else have I played, I know there's more.. Oh I was playing KOTOR 2 for around 10 hours but then stopped due to studies.

I'm really looking forward to F.E.A.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Spore.
 
I'm too young to go *too* far back, but my origins started around the Apogee/3D Realms/Epic MegaGames big era. Duke Nukem, Blake Stone, Jazz Jackrabbit, Leisure Suit Larry, Terminal Velocity, Major Stryker, Boppin' etc. Those were some of my favorites then.

Lately I'm still into Epic games (Unreal forever, bitches) and pretty much any PC release I can get my hands on. Dragon Ages will rule all.
 
I was raised on the PC. I learned to read from Sierra's early adventure games. Kings Quest 6 is still the best PC game of all time.
 
I remember playing a port of Frogger on my father's TRS-80 Model 1. And, even more fun, typing in game programs from magazines.
 
I've been a pc gamer ever since 1994. My favorite titles are Alone in the Dark, the Doom series, the Thief Series, Deus Ex, Marathon series, Deus Ex, System Shock II, Ultima series, Elder Scroll series, Arx Fatalis, Far Cry, Half-Life series, Age of Empires, Civilization, SimCity, Baldur's Gate series, and the Diablo series.

I should also mention that I'm completely jumping ship and switching to console gaming-only this upcoming generation. Fuck pc's, fuck patches, fuck driver issues, fucking upgrading, fuck it all. I like the simplicity that a console offers; plus, with HDTV, the whole resolution thing isn't even an issue now.

It's been fun, but I am twenty-five years old, and I cannot for the life of me keep rationalizing the purchase of a $500.00 video card every year, plus the occasional mobo and ram switcharoo.

CONSOLES 4 LYFE, SUCKA!
 
I played Savage and Life & Death on 8088 with CGA graphics.
Populous with EGA.

But I'm not really a big PC gamer - those were just the PCs we had at school. I didn't get a PC myself until Doom came out in 93. Then it was Doom, Magic Carpet, Duke Nukem 3D, Cannon Fodder, Command & Conquer, GTA, Quake, Half Life. Hardly play anything on PCs nowadays. Last thing I played was BreakQuest, but I'm keen on trying Darwinia.
 
first online game was Quake

PC games i played for 500+ hours:
Ultima Online
Counterstrike

~100 hours
Warcraft 2, 3
Starcraft
C&C Red Alert 2 (online)
Quake
Battlefield 1942

I'm ready to hang up my PC gaming hat though. I dont have as much time to devote to it, i choose to spend my money on other things besides worthless 3D cards, I work at a computer 9-10 hours a day so playing games on it is the last thing i want to do when i get home, and console games have officially caught up in both graphics and online gameplay. fuck world of warcraft couldnt even hold my interest... thats a huge sign right there.
 
Who remembers the game about the girl who wanders from her family and must fend for herself on the great plains? It was set during the 1800's and called something like "Sarah on the Prairie."



My first game was Rainbow 6.
 
My first PC game was Tomb Raider on Voodoo. Soon after Diablo, Moto Racer, Whiplash, NBA Live 95 and then Unreal, then eventually Rainbow Six, Quake II, Red Alert and then the masterpiece Myth: The Fallen Lords and just everything really after that. It was probably the greatest time in gaming ever for me (been gaming since Atari 2600). I don't know if it will ever be passed. Due to the fact all those I listed were all online gaming games for and back then online gaming was very special! especially since it was so new and the gamers so cool and passionate. XBL little kids screaming just doesn't capture that old magic.

All of the ones I listed were my favorite. But alltime favorite is easily Myth: The Fallen Lords. I played that every single night for over a year. I became the #1 rated player in the world twice, ran a website (The Gates of Covenant) for it, won some tournies, etc. and is the reason I fell in love with Bungie.

P.S. Next gen I'm pretty much moving to consoles full time again. At least until PC's can make another huge push in tech that will wow me, which I just don't forsee, maybe ever, again.
 
Might as well ask who is the oldest gamer here because the older gamers didn't have that much of an alternative in consoles. The very first game I remember playing is a game about cleaning teeth believe it or not on some abstract gaming PC my sister had. That was in 83 I believe. Math Dig-Dug and some other forgettable crap were the other games on the platform. The first modern PC games I remember playing (*86 architectures) were Ultima and Dracula. I think both were text adventures. I had Top Gun which looked like a vector game and something called Freindly Ware which was a compilation of simple yet majority unappealing games. And what was that Q-Basic game were you had to enter cordinates to shoot at your opponent on some random playing field? I remember that and a game called Nibbles I use to mess with.

Of course all that crap was before Kings Quest and Wolfenstein so the enjoyment was mild but felt more productive than a Mario, Excitebike or Double Dribble. I didn't actually start enjoying PC gaming more than console gaming until the early 90's though due to a string of graphically vibrant and content rich releases above and beyond what a console was capable.
 
Chiggs said:
I should also mention that I'm completely jumping ship and switching to console gaming-only this upcoming generation. Fuck pc's, fuck patches, fuck driver issues, fucking upgrading, fuck it all. I like the simplicity that a console offers; plus, with HDTV, the whole resolution thing isn't even an issue now.

It's been fun, but I am twenty-five years old, and I cannot for the life of me keep rationalizing the purchases of a $500.00 video card every year, plus the occasional mobo and ram switcharoo.

CONSOLES 4 LYFE, SUCKA!
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm going to be doing the same, I've had enough.
 
Razoric said:
I'm ready to hang up my PC gaming hat though. I dont have as much time to devote to it, i choose to spend my money on other things besides worthless 3D cards, I work at a computer 9-10 hours a day so playing games on it is the last thing i want to do when i get home, and console games have officially caught up in both graphics and online gameplay. fuck world of warcraft couldnt even hold my interest... thats a huge sign right there.
Click to expand...


You, me and Stryder should all start a support group. :)

Anyhow, I remember playing RE 4 on a $99.99 GameCube and realizing that I was having more fun with that game than any pc game on my $2500.00 money pit. That was a wake up call.
 
Well if you include the home computers from the 80s in your definition of "PC gamer", I've been playing since the early 80s (Atari 800 in 1982). I mostly played war games, strategy, and RPGs. Some of my early favorites:

War in Russia
Eastern Front 1941
Combat Leader
Objective: Kursk
Reforger 88
Gettysburg
Battle of Antietem
Colonial Conquest
Silent Service
Mech Brigade
Guderian
Lords of Conquest
O.G.R.E.
Autoduel
Microleague Baseball
Star Raiders
Alternate Reality: The City and The Dungeon (two awesome RPGs)
Ultima III
Ultima IV
Wizard's Crown
Phantasie I & II
Galactic Adventures (a strat RPG)
M.U.L.E.
Jupiter Mission 1999
Infocom games
Seven Cities of Gold

Plus tons more I can't remember. Fav developers were SSI, Origin, EA, and Datasoft.

I got an IBM-style PC in 1990. First game I bought was Ultima VI. Continued playing mostly RPGs, simulations, adventure, and strategy games. Civilization was an early favorite, along with LOOM. Didn't get into FPS until Doom. Was crazy about FPS thru the mid-90s, including all the Doom variants, Duke Nukem 3D, and Blood. My interest peaked with Quake, which was the first game I played online. After Quake my interest in most PC gaming fizzled (late 90s was all about Playstation for me). I didn't get back into PC gaming until around 2002, still playing more PC games than anything else.

Current favorite devs? Don't really have any although I keep an eye out for Blizzard games. I still enjoy PC RPGs, but somewhat burned out on RTS and strategy games. Haven't been interested in a FPS except for UT 2004 in a long time (haven't played HL2 yet). Modern wargames are way too complex for my tastes. Here's what I have installed and play somewhat regularly:

Warcraft III
Wizardry 8
Morrowind
Unreal Tournament 2004
World of Warcraft (already quit this one)
Final Fantasy XI (on the verge of quitting)
Crimson Skies
Alpha Centauri (I still love this game after all these years)
 
I first started playing "PC" games on a TRS-80 with a tape drive. Back then I was into text adventures, most notably Gymnasium, Adventure, and soon Zork. I then started using an Apple 2 and played games like Kings Quest, Ultima 3, and a ton of Infocom titles. I started getting into EA (or were they interplay? Just remember the neat flat boxes) games on the C64 such as Archon, seven cities, and other RPG games such as Might and Magic and Bard's Tale (889 skeletons are attacking you). I then graduated to a PC jr. compatable system and played such fun games as freddy fish, rouge, alley cat (!!!), more infocom stuff, police quest, space quest, LSR, etc...

A pal of mine had a neato Amiga at the same time I was into my pc jr compatable system and it just rocked. The best game was Time Warrior (not sure on name) in which you traversed different era's in a 2 player gauntlet style game. It really was fun to play.

My first modern PC was a Pentium 3 333mhz with 2 3dfx voodoo 2 cards in SLI mode. It was $4,000 or so when I bought it!
 
My first computer was a Timex 2048 (Spectrum). I was 6 years old then.
Later I got Commodore 64. Then Amiga 500 with 1MB RAM. And finally my first PC - Pentium 100 with 8MB of RAM. That was back in 96.

I've been playing PC games for 9 years now and I don't think I'll ever stop.
 
no love for DSI :(

They made stunts! They made 4D Boxing! They made NHL 98! They made Test Drive 2! They made NFS 1, 2, 3 (!!!) and 4

DSI is ownage guys. OWNAGE.

(though some people might hate DSI now because they brought EA Don Mattrick. And Don Mattrick brought you exclusive NFL games.)
 
I've played Police Quest, many versions of Leisure Suit Larry, and Carmen SanDiego.

Wolfenstein was ahead of its time (...or so I claimed way back when). But these are only EARLY games that I've played.

But I'm a much more seasoned vet on the consoles, of course.
 
Borys said:
My first computer was a Timex 2048 (Spectrum).
Click to expand...

*gasp* My first "computer" was one of those... them a ZXSpectrum 128k +2. I and a cousin had a C64 and later one Amiga 500. My real first PC was a used 286 but i quick changed it to a MONSTER 486 DX2... damn IÂ’m feeling old now.........................
 
Home-brew qBasic games were my first, like snake and tanks. This was still on our 286. Don't remember which year, but I reckon about 1989 or something. 50 MB compressed hard drive, I remember it being HUGE at the time :)

Never got a new computer 'till the Pentium II era. Couldn't even play Doom at home, had to go to friends' houses.


I was a pretty early bird considering my age (22 in 10 days) but nowhere near some of the older guys in here...

(This outside of all the C64's I owned. I also had a C16+4 - that one kicked ass :D)
 
I guess I have a rather unusual "PC" history. My neighbour when i was young worked for philips so I got all of their computers in the 80s.
- Videopac when I was 5 (I don't remember the name in the US)
- Then VG5000
- MSX 1
- MSX 2 (both great computers/console, lots of konami games)
- Then 386SX16 with a monster 40 MB hard drive (I remember wondering if 20 MB would have been enough...)
- Afterwards it was just a big evolution of that computer, changing some parts from time to time. I think I still use the original floppy drive.
My first PC (true PC) game was Tetris. I remember being amazed by Budokai, my first VGA 256 colors game. Then Links 386 pro wowed me, with even digitized sounds coming out of the horrid PC speaker. I mainly played good old adventure games though, especially the Lucasarts ones.
 
Some of my favorite games (games I grew up playing):

Wasteland (favorite game ever).
Ultima V, VII
D&D Gold Box Series
Police Quest I (taught me how to play poker!)

Tons of other great little titles too, like Stunt Track Racer, Arcticfox, too many to list.

Those were the days, I tell ya.

EDIT: Those weren't my "first," but they were certainly my favorite, truly the PC Golden Age for me.
 
I'd like to take this moment to express my annoyance at "PC" being made into a synonym for "IBM Clone."

I vaguely recall playing simple BASIC games on my school's Commodore PET when I was in second grade.
 
my first game was James Bond diamonds are forever on C64... not counting any timex sinclare stuffs
Click to expand...

LoL
I had the Timex Sinclair 2068.. Color Biotch-- with tacticle keyboard!!
...Hungry Horace comes to mind...
:)
 
If I had to guess, I would say that I hold the award for being the farthest thing from a PC Gamer on this forum. I didn't even own a computer until two years ago, and I am 28 years old. For school assignments and such I would always either use school computers or borrow a friend's. Me=cheap. :)

That said, I did play a few games way back in the day. When I was in 6th grade, I used to play Q*Bert on my classroom's computer obsessively on lunch break, "wowing" the class with my skills, until my teacher would come in and beat me over the head when I should have already been back in my seat. Then in the high school lab, we used to play games like Scorched Earth, Doom, Wolfenstein, and The Heretic (I loved that game, but never see it mentioned anywhere anymore). My best friend growing up had one of the very first Macs, and we used to play Scarab of Ra, Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle. BDC is probably one of the best computer games I have ever played, for sheer laugh factor. Of course I played other games at school like Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail. I haven't played a computer game in ages, except for bits of Diablo and Neverwinter Nights here and there. I still don't own any computer games.
 
I've been playing PC games since the Commodore 64, also the XT

I've been writing code since the age of 12.

Probably been playing PC games for about 20 years or so plus or minus a couple of years.
 
I've been gaming on PCs for about 20 years too... I've played a good cross-section of classic & modern games. I have to be near the top of the PC hardcore 'round these parts, where the platform doesn't get enough respect.
 
I'm a "PC Gamer" from way back in the early 80's as well. Had a Vic-20 when I was in Junior High. Played all the Scott Adams text adventures, Sword of Fargoal, Lode Runner, you name it. I graduated on to a C-64 which was the best game machine of it's era. Tons of great games. Over the years, I've had my share of Mac's and PC's and I've played most of the major games.

All time favorites include: Zork series, Pirates!, Archon, Gunship, Red Storm Rising, Racing Destruction Set, Test Drive, The Last Ninja, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Dungeons & Dragons "Gold" box RPGs, Space Quest, SimCity, X-Wing, Tie Figher, Civilization, Doom, Quake, MechWarrior, WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo, The Sims, Thief, Half Life, EverQuest, NeverWinter Nights, and tons more. :)

Edit: If I had to guess, I'd say I've been playing PC games in one form or another for 25 years or so.
 
Like most others here apparently, my first "PC" gaming was on the Vic-20.

anyone wants to help me out.. there was a game where you had a station in the middle of the screen. it had like 4 dicking ports on each side or something. you then moved this laser beam around the station to kill the aliens trying to dock in these ports. it was sort of like tempest only the aliens only came in across one of the eight paths. but it got pretty fast and furious for my 6 year old fingers..

didn't do a whole lot else with the Vic-20 except for the 16KB memory cartridge. Unfortunately we didn't have a cassette recorder so I would spend hours typiing in adventure games and then have to play them there on the spot because we would lose it when we turned the power off... luckily I could beat them everytime because I coded them in there and new the GOTO paths... lol...

the vic-20 was very shortly lived though. it was immediately followed by the CoCo2... that was when I became a hardcore "PC" gamer. Dungeons of Daggorath, the cassette text adventures like Bedlam, Pyramid.. Clowns and Balloons.. oh how we played clowns and balloons.. but the most played game was Castle.. a BASIC game I typed in out of Rainbow Magazine.. took me like a full day to type in (was like 6 pages 2 columns per page, smalltype). We saved that puppy to tape.. but what was great was we would load it in to memory, then edit it to make the enemies smarter or faster, give ourselves more lives.. and there was this simple drawbridge screen created using LINE statements that we would edit and put our initials or stupid logos on the drawbridge.. lol..

from there it went to a Tandy 1000A, our first true PC. It was an 8088 at 4Mhz with 384K. I believe it had a turbo mode to 8Mhz, but I could be wrong. I do know it had tandy graphics and tandy sound though.. so it was ok. played pools of radiance and curse of the azure bonds on there. Battletech Crescent Hawk (or something). umm.. the first MechWarrior. The original Madden Football (well, after it was ported from the Apple). lots of good stuff on there.

from there we went to the Amiga 500, and from the 500 to the 1200. that was probably the best time of gaming in my mind. lots of cool commercial (psygnosis and bullfrog) and freeware (some battletech table top rip off that I can't remember the name to). The amiga also was my first internet exposure, logging into my brother's friends' college terminal logins. still remember downloading jpegs of Akira and McFarlane Hulk. But back to gaming, the Amiga was my first exposure to online gaming. it started out with MUDs, but then Kingdom of Drakkar was released. Essentially it was a mud with a graphical front end. It was an MMO with dozens of other people in the game at the same time. Good stuff.

After the 1200, I went back to the PC with my DX2-66. Three games dominated my time in the early days of that box. The 7th Guest, Doom, and Tie Fighter. Probably put undreds of hours into all three. then a short time later Wing Commander 3 and Civ2 came out.. the rest is history.
 
lockii said:
I was raised on the PC. I learned to read from Sierra's early adventure games. Kings Quest 6 is still the best PC game of all time.
Click to expand...
Ah, good times. King's Quest games were awesome.

I think I started PC gaming around 1992ish. The King's Quests, Zork (on Apple II), Return to Zork, Wolfenstein, Troika, Frogger, Sim City, Civilization, and Wing Commander come to mind.
 
Oracle Dragon said:
Hmm yeah somone said "PC" games so I was immediatly thinking of the oldest IBM I had, heh. I guess my first would be then.... Omega Race on the Vic 20, in 1981. THAT was a sweet machine! :)
Click to expand...

Oh my! I forgot all about Omega Race. Loved that game in the arcade, and loved the Vic-20 port! The Vic-20 carts were fast and easy to use, but damn was that tape drive slow! :D
 
CIV 2 IS GOD, ive been playing it on and off for over 5 years, even now i love to fire it up agin so i can pwn the n00b cpu. Also another favorite on mine is Natural Selection which is the BEST Half-Life mod i have ever played!, think of it as a rts/fps where its more about your commander using good strategies and tactics over individual skill and wits, simply beautiful.
 
27 years old, here.

I did the whole "type the game programs in from a magazine" thing, too. Spent a week typing in Frogger as a little kid, only to find there was AT LEAST ONE typo in that issue.

Had some games that loaded from MOTHERFUCKING CASSETTE TAPE on an ancient Tandy (a pre-Tandy 1000 that took about a half-hour to boot up). I still wonder how some of this junk actually worked correctly. First games I played were those text adventures. "You are at Death's door, knocking loudly!"

After that, we upgraded to the Tandy 1000, with the cartridge slot in the side of the keyboard. Fond memories of playing Thexder.

I'd blather on for pages if I had the time, but the answer to the question is that I started in the early 80's. I feel old posting in this thread.
 
shpankey said:
All of the ones I listed were my favorite. But alltime favorite is easily Myth: The Fallen Lords. I played that every single night for over a year. I became the #1 rated player in the world twice, ran a website (The Gates of Covenant) for it, won some tournies, etc. and is the reason I fell in love with Bungie.
Click to expand...

Yep, Myth TFL was off the hook. I first played it on a Mac LC. Along with that I played Tomb Raider and some Star Wars game for the Mac. Upon graduating to a PC I bought Myth: The Total Codex as soon as it was available.

I then moved on to all of the biggies like Quake, Doom, UT, and another personal favorite- Giants: Citizen Kabuto. It was a bit buggy at first, but they eventially got it ironed out. Another game that I really enjoyed was Operation Flashpoint. There's a pretty big mod community OFP, or at least there used to be.

Some of my faves:

Myth
UT
Giants
OFP
and last but certainly not least, RTCW. I'm a total RTCW homer. :)
 
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