What Game Really got you into PC gaming?

[Duke John]

Sopwith!

This game was great! You can still download it here!

I guess I was 8 years or so. And my farther had one of the earliest laptops on which we played it. It was like a 70x60cm luggage/suitcase and weighed a ton. The keyboard could be removed from a side which then showed a 10" monocolour monitor. Ah, the old days...

[econ21]

Elite on the C-64 was my first taste of computer gaming. An amazing game. One feature was you could press a button for a "rearview mirror" button to check if you were being pursued by alien craft etc. I played it so much I remember taking a driving lesson, looking in the rear mirror and seeing a black galaxy with white stars. Scarey.

I did not play much else until my son got a Super Nintendo. He had a Japanese language WW2 game that was a very like prototype for Panzer General, my first real PC game and the game that really got me into PC gaming. The combination of historical units and scenarios, very easy but fun gameplay and a wonderful campaign hook was incredibly addictive.

I also got into CRPGs, the SNES Secret of Mana being a first taste and my first CRPG proper Might and Magic VI being a jaw-dropping discovery. Graphically it recreated a plausible world so vividly it was like finding a world in a bottle.

[R'as al Ghul]

Sopwith!

This game was great! You can still download it here!

I guess I was 8 years or so. And my farther had one of the earliest laptops on which we played it. It was like a 70x60cm luggage/suitcase and weighed a ton. The keyboard could be removed from a side which then showed a 10" monocolour monitor. Ah, the old days...

Ahhh, those were the days. I followed your link and could relate to more than 50% of the gametitles. It also started with the C-64 for me. Hanging out at a friends and playing a simple "platform-jumping" game I don't remember the title of.....Ah yes "Jumpman".
From there on I played so much C-64 games that I would say "I've seen them all". Elite was the first game I modded with a Hex-Editor. Defender of the Crown took some lifetime fom me but Pirates! even topped that. If you add all those hours I played Pirates it would sum to months. After that the Amiga 500 was purchased and we were exchanging copies of the newest games on the schoolyard. From there on I constantly upgraded. Now, at least 20 years later, I have a 1.8 Ghz etc. and am still playing but much lesser than before.
I sometimes run an Amiga-emulator on my PC to play those old gems. A few days ago I felt the urge to play Air-Ace. Downloaded it and sucked majorly. Without the old "Competition Pro II" Joystick it's not the same.

R'as

[AlexPeters]

Competition Pro-Joysticks - they've been the best - i think i've broken three or four while playing the winter-/summer-olympics (Biathlon and 100m races, nothing for couch potatoes). Oh those days - i started playing games on a friends Commodore 16+4 with a tapedrive, a motorcycle racing game i can't remember the name.
My first computer was a C64 - i bought it with my first earned money - and played so much on it that i still don't understand how i managed to pass school. Pirates and Defender of the Crown were my favorite games. The next machine has been an Amiga 500 (remembering Ghengis Khan ?) and then the first PC, a 386, 4MB Ram, 40MB Rom and i was so proud of it

[The Tuffen]

I have to say that doom, civ 2 and C+C red alert were the first games that got me into pc gaming.