Nice little stories in here, it makes me remember my own golden gaming days.
I got my very first computer in summer of 2001 (I bought it second-hand, I knew nothing about PC's back then, I only wanted one for PC games). It was a VIA C3 733Mhz with some unknown motherboard and on-board sound, it also had a very basic on-board video chip, I can't remember its name. It played basically no games until I figured I needed a "video card". So the same month I went out to my local Future Shop and I bought a GeForce 4 MX440-SE 64MB PCI, there was an AGP version of that card but I discovered that only one or two years later, I knew nothing about PC's anyway, I thought that thing was "hot", it did played most of my games though, some lots of slow downs, although I mostly played OpenGL games.
The very first game I bought was S.W.A.T. 3, since I wanted to play with a friend, which we did, but my Internet connection back then was 56K, then I moved on to 128K the same year, and then 512K (I think, not sure about that one, but it was much faster overall) the next year in January 2002, which is when my on-line gaming started for real (technically speaking I started playing on-line games with my Dreamcast, even accessing the Internet with some browser that came with it, I played Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Phantasy Star Online, which was for me the very catalyst for my interests in PC gaming and on-line gaming). As soon as I got that new connection I was starting to look at new games to play on-line, and the so I bought some off-line and on-line games, which included Command & Conquer and Red Alert, along with Diablo II and Lord of Destruction, and then I played them for months.
And while I had that computer I was still playing Console games as well, I really didn't "quit" Console gaming until mid-2004 or so. And so that first computer lasted until I learned enough about PC's in general, and for some time between mid-2003 until September of the same year I planned on building my very first own PC mostly dedicated to play games. And so it was in November 2003 when I finally bought all of my components and came back home and built it myself, it was my beloved Pentium 4C 2.4Ghz with a Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB, which I replaced soon after in February 2004 I believe with a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (couldn't afford the 256MB version back then). With the Radeon 9800 Pro and my new games I found myself playing mostly on the PC and leaving my Consoles games behind (three Consoles with around thirty games total).
So in terms of PC gaming I'm quite new to the party, but when it comes to gaming in general I started playing with a NES when I was around ten years-old with Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt (on the same cartridge). That was in late 1992 if I remember correctly. I haven't stopped even a single year ever since to play video games, of course within the other life obligations and occupations I had in between the whole gaming passion (school, obviously, then jobs). But I can say that I've been playing games since those days and not for a single year I've deprived myself of games. It's a passion, but thankfully one I control well enough. Those days were good, very good, and I ain't blinded by nostalgia. I still play some emulated games of those days and I'm still having fun today with them despite the photo-realistic big budget games we're getting in the current gaming age.
My first first-person-shooter game for PC, ever, was DOOM (I actually learned of the existence of Wolf 3D quite later). My first strategy game was the original Command & Conquer, which I also owned on the PlayStation before. And my first RPG (or action-RPG, whatever you want to call it) was Diablo II. My first game which really focused on on-line gaming was Quake III Arena, and then later came Unreal Tournament GOTY Edition, which I bought for a great price. I actually played the original Half-Life sometime in the summer of 2005 or so I think, although I actually knew about its existence many years before that, I just never really got interested enough to either see it nor buy it. It was the same for a couple of other "old" games which I discovered later, such as Quake (which I learned about and played after Quake III Arena) and its sequel.
And the story goes on and passing by two other completely different computer builds after my Pentium 4C (one with an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and the one after being an AMD X2 4400+, and then the one I have right now, being my fourth build). Those golden days (which I'd say started with Console gaming in the early 1990's until around 2000, a very good decade for gaming I'd say for many obvious reasons including Sega and Nintendo duking it out and spitting the very best that Console gaming ever had and ever will have to offer) are behind now. Now we're seeing something quite different, and not as fun nor as addictive as before, there's only a very thin number of gaming companies which were around back then and are still there today giving us decent or sometimes good games. I can see how things have changed and changed they certainly have.
For me the golden days lasted a good eight years, and I do miss them. I must say to conclude this that if it wouldn't have been for the Sega Dreamcast resembling more of a poor-man's personal computer than anything else I don't think I'd honestly have tried to get into PC gaming until much later instead of starting in 2001. For me Console gaming had much more in common even back then with the PC one of my friend had which I used to play on when I went to his place. The more I played with my Dreamcast and the less I became interested in actual gaming and started to spend a lot of time on the web and chatting with the built-in IRC capabilities. I even bought the DC's keyboard, mouse and microphone. So thanks to Sega to a large extent I'm now a passionate PC gamer (at least thanks to them I became so much earlier than I would ever had become by myself).
D) only to find an interesting title called Quake. WOWOWOW!!!:shocked:
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