Let's reminisce about the olden days.

[SunnyD]

TRS80 Model III and IV (my cousin had the IV). My dad wrote some simple games for me in basic when I was like 3 years old. Later on, I remember playing Valkrye on the model IV, among other games. This was back in the early 80's. I also had a Vic20, but never really played games on that.

Stepping up to our first PC - 8088 clone with 8MHz "Turbo" switch... we ended up getting an 8087 for it because we did some things that could use math. It had EGA graphics and monitor. I saved my pennies and bought one of the original Soundblaster cards for it. Among various shareware games, my notable first game was Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter. I also bough Airborne Ranger, Civilization and Silent Service II. I also ended up with Ikari Warriors too somewhere along the way.

I think the next machine we got was a 386SX - either 16 or 25MHz I can't remember for sure, and I ended up upgrading it to 4MB ram. I think I played Wing Commander on it, and Ultima VII. The next machine was a 486SX, where I played Wing Commander II and Ultima VII - Serpents Isle and Ultima VIII on it. That was about the time I also discovered BBS's. Somewhere in there I also discovered LucasArts' X-Wing.

If I recall, it was about that point where I started building my own computers as well, saving my pennies in high school, buying VLB cards, discovering how much I sucked at FPS's. Then RTS's came and I would spend hours playing them. The rest is pretty common with modern day from there.

 

[acheron]

One thing I never did was use anything other than what they used to call "IBM compatible" -- never had a C64 or TRS-80 or anything. I mentioned the XT clone earlier (actually by Epson, they made computers for awhile), but even earlier than that I used one of those old "portable" PCs, similar to the original Compaq. It was portable in the same sense that a big suitcase full of bricks was portable. I don't think it even had a graphics mode, at least not that I remember. There was a disk of ASCII clones of arcade games though; Frogger is the one I remember most vividly (IIRC they called it "Hopper"), but I think there was a Pac-man and some others.

After the XT I had a 25MHz 386.. I think a DX but it might have been an SX. 4 MB of RAM, 80 MB hard drive. I still think upgrading from the XT to the 386 is my favorite upgrade of all time: VGA graphics! Never did get a sound card for it, though, so my memories of that time include a lot of PC speaker music.

 

[TidusZ]

My fav gaming moment #2 was playing duke nukem 3d modem games on my 486 sx 33mhz against a friend on his pentium 100. I had sluggish frames playing with the screen about 2 inches in diameter while he had silky smooth full screen action - I just couldn't beat him, but it was close. Then on March 1st, 1997, a day that will forever live on in my memory, my parents bought a pentium 150, and I literally whooped this kid. He bragged so much before, and it felt great to own him, he actually quit the game in anger. I really loved that pc.

We got into playing Warcraft 2 shortly after and I can proudly say that he never beat me, nor did his cocky friend, or any of my friends. Only game I ever lost was to my brother's friend, 5 years my senior who was pretty competitive with it. /bragend

 

[apoppin]

My first console was Pong

my first PC was Atari 800XL and my favorite game was Miner2049er

i still use my RIVA-64 TNT PCI card to troubleshoot PC graphics

i like modern PC gaming a hell of a lot better; but i am glad i got in on the beginning of it; i learned back then that i did not want to write code

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: apoppin
My first console was Pong

my first PC was Atari 800XL and my favorite game was Miner2049er

i still use my RIVA-64 TNT PCI card to troubleshoot PC graphics

i like modern PC gaming a hell of a lot better; but i am glad i got in on the beginning of it; i learned back then that i did not want to write code

I remember getting Indian Jones on the Atari. Couldn't get past a certain point so I wrote into the distributor/developer. Ended up getting a walkthrough, map and some other things for my trouble.

 

[stag3]

commodore 64 ftw
bruce lee
spy vs spy
archon
zork

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: nosfe
i remember when i was still playing cs1.6 competitively, we went to a lan party. It was somewhere during september/october in a city known for its cold winters. We go there expecting it to be held in some building only to find out that it was held in a tent of all the places. Not only that, but there was a tear in the area where we were playing so the wind kept gushing in right over our keyboards, it was colder inside than it was outside, and outside was snowing :laugh: When we complained about the cold the organizers said that we were lucky because the starcraft competition was held before the cs one with the finals ending at 5 in the morning. I don't even want to think about the cold they had to endure

Dude that is just outrageous!:laugh:

Originally posted by: apoppin



i still use my RIVA-64 TNT PCI card to troubleshoot PC graphics

i like modern PC gaming a hell of a lot better; but i am glad i got in on the beginning of it; i learned back then that i did not want to write code

I use a Rage3d pci card.
I can't say I like modern gaming any better. I remember playing Commander Keen and a star Trek game(can't remember what it was called)on my 286 and just being amazed that my computer would play games at all.
I can't say I have any more fun now than I did then.

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: rivan
My first games were consoles on the Atari 2600, and my first computer was a C64. Eventually I got a disk drive and a 300 baud modem. BBS calls were long distance, so I didn't have as much time with them on that system as I'd have liked. Karateka, Spelunker, California Games (RIP, Epyx!), Archon, and a couple dozen others.

I moved up to a hand-me-down 286 after several years, and shortly thereafter built my first Cyrix-based 386 - BBS'd a ton in those days. It's all been downhill since

This sounds exactly like me, except I moved to an Amiga, not a 286. Those were the days. Archon is the shiznit.

I don't miss 300 baud though. I could read the text faster than it came down to my screen.

 

[acheron]

Originally posted by: Pheran
I don't miss 300 baud though. I could read the text faster than it came down to my screen.

Hell, I could do that at 2400 bps too. Getting a 14400 bps modem was awesome since the entire screen of the BBS loaded almost instantly!

 

[IdaGno]

CRPG's always make me feel like I'm playing Color Forms coupled with an Excel Spread sheet.

If I ever create a CRPG I'm gonna call it Level Grind.

 

[HeXploiT]

All this talk about modems got me thinking about my first experience online. The first time I was online was in 1996 in collage. I sat down and started using the internet and after a few minutes I felt so powerful I honestly though campus security was going to rush in at any minute and arrest me. I remember thinking to myself that it just didn't seem normal for an average human being to be allotted so much power and that perhaps I wasn't actually "allowed" to be using the browser.:shocked:

Then later in the year at home I signed up for my first internet provider. I had a 2800 baud modem(I was poor) and the lady told me I should be using at least 33.6 of course I couldn't afford this. Websites would start loading at something like 900bps and slowly go down until they would just die and go to zero. :laugh:
I would normally have to wait 10 minutes for a page to load and if there was a picture it would take a half hour and 20 refreshes. But I would wait and wait and wait as the excitement and anticipation filled my veins.
For the first 48 hours you couldn't pry me from my computer chair.

 

[shortylickens]

My first REAL pc game (not nibbles or gorillas) was Elvira II, Jaws of Cerberus. AWESOME! It was a tradtional computer RPG and Graphic Adventure all-in-one. Loads of fun except for having a complicated copy-protection system. Never did beat it. Will check out the underdogs to see if they have it.

I dont want to say anymore. I might get depressed.


OK guys. What the hell happened to The Underdogs? I cant find it.

 

[jRaskell]

First things first. The best thing about the good old days... is that they're gone.

With that out of the way. I first started gaming on a C64 as well. Spy vs. Spy, Archon, Bards Tale, and one game in particular that I spent many a nights playing was Roadwar 2000!

Then I got a NES system, and a SNES system after that. My next PC was a Pentium 75mhz, it was from Quantex, one of the many computer manufacturers out there back then. I continually upgraded that PC for the next few years, which led into building my first PC from the ground up, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

I still play the console systems as well. Even pulled an all-nighter outside Sears to get one of the first PS2 systems, mostly because a buddy wanted one, but didn't want to wait by himself out there with all the 'freaks'. Turned out to be a rather enjoyable evening to be honest. Him and I were 4th and 5th in line. By the time the store opened, there were over 100 people waiting, and they got 26 systems in. Most of the people beyond about 20 or 30 had only been there a couple hours tops, so everyone that had been there all night left with a system in hand.

 

[acheron]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
My first REAL pc game (not nibbles or gorillas) was Elvira II, Jaws of Cerberus. AWESOME! It was a tradtional computer RPG and Graphic Adventure all-in-one. Loads of fun except for having a complicated copy-protection system. Never did beat it. Will check out the underdogs to see if they have it.

I dont want to say anymore. I might get depressed.


OK guys. What the hell happened to The Underdogs? I cant find it.

It's dead. Google for Abandonia, that's not a bad site, though they don't have as much as the Underdogs did.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: acheron

Originally posted by: shortylickens
OK guys. What the hell happened to The Underdogs? I cant find it.

It's dead. Google for Abandonia, that's not a bad site, though they don't have as much as the Underdogs did.

Nooooo

 

[cronos]

Originally posted by: Red Irish
Elite on a BBC. 3D Death Maze on a Sinclair ZX81. Jesus, I'm old.

Hehe I had a ZX81 (well technically my dad did). I can't remember the name of the games I played on it though. All I remember is that all applications need to be loaded from casette tapes to run

 

[BladeVenom]

In the good old days, I could actually beat my computers at chess.

 

[mindcycle]

Modem to modem games of Rise of the Triad. We'd record our own little audio blurbs and then trigger them using hotkeys. It was pretty funny.

 

[Via]

Originally posted by: Red Irish
Elite on a BBC. 3D Death Maze on a Sinclair ZX81. Jesus, I'm old.

You're the first person I know that remembers Deathmaze 5000 (I think that's what it was called).

When I was tiny my dad came up with a TRS-80 model one from somewhere and it had a cassette (!) of that game. I was too young to get it completely, but I loved running around in that 3d world.

My dad helped me solve most of it, but I don't think we ever finished it. If I remember correctly you started on the 5th floor of a building and had to escape. Maybe we made it to the ground floor, but never out. I would remember that.

Is there an emulator for that game? Maybe I can finally finish the damn thing.

 

[jersiq]

Wow some memories being brought back here.
I can recall playing Jordan vs. Bird on a TRS-80 I think, which was the first video game I ever played. I also think I played football on it too, but I can't totally remember. It was my friends computer so I didn't get to play that much.

A few years later my folks ponied up for a Commodore 64 and I played Gateway to Apshai, Bruce Lee, Transformers, California Games, Summer and Winter Games (Olympics), F-15 Strike Eagle, lode runner, balderdash, and burgertime. Oh and how I pined for Flight Simulator but never got it. I can vividly remember skipping school for a week at a time to stay home and play games.

Went to consoles for a while, then bought a 486 something something and played Quake2, Quake2, and more Quake2. CTF with offhand grapple was the best.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: jersiq
F-15 Strike Eagle, lode runner, balderdash,

Man, all three of those were just awesome. :thumbsup:

I had another game that I've never been able to recall the name of (to search for). My brother and I played it nonstop it seemed. It was a primitive resource management game - you had a kingdom and managed the production of grain to feed your troops, but you also had to buy ferrets to fend of rats who'd eat your grain. You could build a hall/palace/whatever, purchasing a room at a time. I remember you needed an absolutely insane number of ferrets after a while, and recall holding down the 'Buy Ferret' button with a heavy, crystal ashtray for the repeat to take care of buying them all.

 

[chizow]

Lots of good memories for me, here's a few I enjoyed the most:

Wing Commander with Special Ops 1 and 2 and Speech Packs. First game that sold me on the PC's capabilities, versatility, expandability with regard to both hardware and software flexibility. Tweaking the autoconfig and config.sys with Himem.sys and i386 to enable extended RAM addressing which boosted performance and added eye-candy (more stars, debris, dynamic hand representation, wingmen portraits etc). Adding the original Sound Blaster and being blown away at real sound and music on the PC and not just beeps and buzzes from the internal speaker. Adding the Speech Packs and being blown away by real voice acting.

Original MultiPlayer BattleTech on GEnie (often referred to as EGA BattleTech). Built using Activision's original MechWarrior engine (great game in itself), this was one of the first graphic-based MMOs. Much of the planetary/resource management system was still heavily text-based, like a MUD, but there were nice visual borders, insignia representations, and color differentiation to make it all look a bit nicer. Basically it was a fully functioning planetary resource system that allowed users to form their own units, purchase mechs, manage funds, and launch missions. There were also some bots mixed in, and most launches consisted of humans vs. bots with 4v4 max. Incorporated many of the "clan" or "guild" elements you see in games today with ranks, promotions, fund and mech resource management. Truly a game ahead of its time, but really expensive at something like $15 an hour heh.

SSI Gold Box games and Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2. These games helped build AD&D's reputation on the PC long before BG1 and 2. The original NWN was actually based on the SSI Gold Box code though. Long hours spend exploring and mapping every bit of those SSI games. EOB 1 and 2 were a great mix of first person action, puzzle solving and RPG character development.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: Via

Originally posted by: Red Irish
Elite on a BBC. 3D Death Maze on a Sinclair ZX81. Jesus, I'm old.

You're the first person I know that remembers Deathmaze 5000 (I think that's what it was called).

When I was tiny my dad came up with a TRS-80 model one from somewhere and it had a cassette (!) of that game. I was too young to get it completely, but I loved running around in that 3d world.

My dad helped me solve most of it, but I don't think we ever finished it. If I remember correctly you started on the 5th floor of a building and had to escape. Maybe we made it to the ground floor, but never out. I would remember that.

Is there an emulator for that game? Maybe I can finally finish the damn thing.

Hi Via, no I was thinking of the maze where you were chased by a T-Rex. It might have been this:

http://www.clive.nl/image/49253/9697

 

[ShawnD1]

Commodore 64!

That thing was awesome. My parents suck with computers so we didn't have any useful programs; just games. This one game called Gateway to Apshai was awesome. There was also a donkey kong like game called Jump Man. It was awesome.

 

[Red Irish]

Manic Miner, Jetset Willy; Sabre Wulf, Underworld, Knightlore; Chuckie Egg, Pyjamarama, Skooldaze...

The list goes on. I do miss my Spectrum and whilst games have become infinitely more sophisticated in terms of graphics and content, there does seem to be an ever-increasing tendency to stick to a limited number of formulae, much in the manner of Holywood blockbusters. Imagination is sadly missing, but I suppose that in the "old days" the user was required to bring a large dosis of imagination in order to compensate for graphic content back then.