What Game Really got you into PC gaming?

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Anything loading faster than 45 seconds on the C64 was bugged ;)

Anything loading faster than 3 min on the ZX Spectrum was bugged...

[metatron]

Total Annihilation.

Before that, I had a few, including Duke Nukem 3D, but I was mostly a console player.

[Sp00n]

Homeworld for me, after 6 months of playing it to death I converted to Shogun ah the those were the days.

MizuSp00n

[Togakure]

Console Pong was my first computer game. As home games were slim in my youth, I and my friends spent a lot of time (and quarters) at the local 7-Eleven, playing games like Omega Race, Asteroids, Tempest, Centipede, and Galaga. Before that it was all good ol' pinball.

I think my first PC-based computer game was Doom. My brother had gotten a Commodore 64 and had beaten me to the punch. The only game I can remember him playing on it was called Bard's Tale. Hmm ... maybe that wasn't until he got his Amiga. Anyway, Doom hooked me for good on PC games.

My first strategy PC game was Masters of Magic, followed soon after by Master of Orion and MOO II. All were great games in their time, and I spent hours upon hours playing them.

[UglyandHasty]

memories :)

my first pc game, the one that got me addicted, was civilisation. I spend countless hours playing Civ on a computer at the university informatic lab. Then i quickly shift to the CloseCombat series.

[Rob The Bastard]

The first game that I bought for a PC was Aces over the Pacific... The fact that I couldn't get AOTP for the Amiga 500 was a major influence in my purchasing the PC ( a 386 DX40 )

[dessa14]

Pirates on the commodore 64
thanks,
dessa

[Alrowan]

in 1988 my family got its first computer, i was 5 at the time, and that cristmas we moved to a new town. Here is where i first started playing games, when i was 6, in 1989. First computer, an old microbee somethingorather, first game, pitfall, pacman, all in MONOCHROME BABY!

anyway, 1 year later dad got his first pc, in fact it was the orriginal PC, the IBM 086 XT That introduced me to games like wolfenstien 3D, crystal caves, and many other woderful classics of the XT

The XT kept me entertained whenever my dad would let me use it, eventually intrest faded, and we moved again. This time to sydney. Dad bought a new 286, and once again i played some classic games like goldenaxe, and others. He then upgraded to a 486 with a whopping 66MGhz on turbo, i went threough a phaze of amatuer pirating at the age of 10 and 11, with my friend and the BBS system (yep, long before the internet was publically available)

Then it all changed. Christmas 1995, we got a top of the range pentium, 100 MGhz, and it wasnt for dad, it was for me and my brothers! We also got the game that would change my life forever... Mechwarrior 2. I couldnt get enough of that game, i think i finnished it about 100 x from there i played all the other classics, like doom2, warcraft 2, heroes of might and magic 2... it was an era for 2!!

as i got into my highschool years, PC gaming faded as i concentrated more on studies and friends. However, when my dad once again bought a new PC, a pentium III 660 i returned to the gaming world. games like tony hawkes 2, UT and a few others kept me hooked, then when i finnished highschool i bought my own PC, and havnt gotten off it since :p

actually i have, but this PC has basically evolved form the first specs it had.

Medieval Total War opened me up to the whole online gaming thing, and i havent looked back since

[ah_dut]

My first game was doom at the age of 4 and a half. I actually completed the whole game with no cheats in a matter of weeks. On a 486DX turbo of course. I'm such a newbie to games :sigh:

[Sethik]

I forget what game got me into PC gaming in the first place, but I remember the game that drew me towards strategy: Master of Magic, one of the greatest strategy games of ALL time.

This game is amazing. The basic premise is that you are a powerful wizard. You can choose from two dozen preset wizards or create your own. That is one of the games amazing features and one way it was ahead of its time. The customization available was staggering! After your avatar was selected you can choose from a host of character traits and pick spellbooks from 5 different schools of magic. Each school easily had over hundred spells. Afterwards you pick from around 15-20 races and start the game.

Did I mention that the game maps are generated EACH TIME you play? That's one of the other great things that set it ahead of its time and added infinite replayability. You never played the same game twice. You start off with a city, 2 units, and couple spells. Cities can be built up with dozens of different buildings. You build units, research spells, and eventually kill all your wizard opponents (max of only 4 unfourtantly.)

Combat was also amazing in this game. The mechanics of the combat system were extremely complex. When two stacks of units fought you were taken into a gridbased battle map. On the battlemap your units duked it with the enemies with the help of spells you can cast from your spellbook. Now each unit might have several men/figures in it and each figure's attack is determined SEPERATLY! So if the troll spearmen had 4 men and attacked some war bears (2 figures) the each individual spearmen would have an attack roll! Terrain and the like was also factored in. This was a really, really developed and fleshed out system and was years ahead of its time (1994 game was made.)

This game is amazing and I was still playing it in the beginning of the year (before I found MTW ), but after playing a hundred odd campaigns it doesn't have the same feeling.

This game is like an ancient MTW set to a fantasy theme. The game rocks. I recomend it to everyone. Luckly its abandonware now so you can get it here:

[edit: link removed]

Ninja edit: The game was developed by Microprose, the company responsible for the X-COM series, the Master of Orion series, and many other fantastic games.

Real Edit: In fact, after reviewing some of the games Microprose had produced, I realized this company made dozens of fantastic games. Some of them are real classics and I'm sure you might have heard of them already. Here's a list of their abandonware games: [edit: link removed]


EDIT: No unofficial abandonware please; it's a very dodgy area legally.

Edit: If anyone wants the link pm me.

[Tamur]

err... *cough* Oregon Trail, on a TRS-80. Had to type the code in myself.

Edit: on an up note, that made it *danged* easy to learn the game mechanics

[Rob The Bastard]

Prior to getting a PC I played:

Fort Apocalypse



Battlemech: The Crescent Hawks Inception



Gunship




Red Baron



It's amazing that only 10 - 12 years has past, when you look at the graphics that we have now... ( at least I know what to blame my deteriorating eyesight on. )

[Papewaio]

I remember in that Battlemech game using anti-mech missile launchers as anti-person weapons... very nasty.

[Silianat]

Well me being young my first game that I really remember that made me love teh PC was Warcraft 2. The warcraft games were so cool then, and are still fun to go back and play. There were other games taht i remember playing but I can't recall the names of them right now. There was a fighter jet one and a game that was something like 'dragonwarrior' maybe.

[ToranagaSama]

Pong was the first video game I played, back at the Dairy Queen on Flatbush Avenue, next to Eramus Hall H.S.

I spent 4K on my first PC in the early 90s, a 486. I had taught myself quite a bit re Computers thru work, and wanted my own personal one. Choose a computer over a CAR! I played with it a lot, but had no intention of doing anything as trivial as playing *games*. I intended to improve my knowledge and make some money with it.

One day at a local electronics store a salesman talked my GF and I into purchasing a $60 game, I can't recall the name of. Some sort of Myst type game. We would play it together and she enjoyed it a more than me. Games were still too trivial for my $4K baby.

Several months later I advised a friend on his PC purchase. Included with his purchase was a game. One day he came over to visit, and brought this CD. He said, "...you gotta check this out...." That game was Doom 2! OMG! Soon after, I tried Wolfenstein, again, OMG!

But, the game that truly got me hooked was Descent 2. I tried the Demo, then ran out and bought the game the same day. Then there was Total Annihilation.

It was official, I was a Gamer. Civ2 made me a TBS gamer.

BTW, I never made a dollar with that PC, but I made quite a bit, in the Market, as a result of the knowledge I gained.

[RZST]

command and conquer series was the one game that got me hooked into pc games. ah the good ol times when just massing medium tanks would get the job done... *sigh*

[Lacker]

First PC game I can remember is either Captain Magneto (man that spider was hard to kill) or Carmen Sandiego.

The game that made me NEED a PC with punch was first DOOM, then Heretic. Xcom was probably my first gamming addiction (still play the original version a TON) and I was a big fan of Stunt Island.

A

[spacecadet]

I bought my first PC just to play Shogun TW (also my first online addiction)......although my first PC game played was Doom on my Bro's ancient PC

[Bob the Insane]

Years ago my mother was doing some Open university course that had a technology module and she needed a PC... My uncle worked for Unisys and the next thing you know we have a 286 10MHz VGA PC with 1 MB extended RAM (or was that expanded), massive 20MB hard drive and a 5 1/2 inch floppy drive...

First game, Microprose's F19 in the big purple box... Second game and the one to really get my attention, Wing Commander...

Friend of mine's dad was also a tech freak and had a 286 16MHz PC with an Adlib sound card (remember those...) which was plugged into their big stereo... The world was never quite the same again...

[SwordsMaster]

I got into PC gaming with Age of Empires. The demo came with the Windows 95 cd....

Ah....those old days....

[Vikings]

Well it depend on what kinda of games, RTS would be Total Annihilation; RPG would be Morrowind and Neverwinternights and which i do play Total War series as well.

Wouldnt believe how much money i have wasted on games that i cannot find to be happy with. Some details on packages as well pictures such a show off and you ppls realise that the game itself suck really bad.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Well my first game was pong but thats not really a pc game. My first computer was a C-64. I loved how it could use cartridges.Im surprised they dont still make them for anyother pc systems. Remeber turbo graphics that was the first really powerful console I can remember. My favorite games were the Ultima series and wizardry. Also Pirates was real neat and Mule .

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Leisure Suit Larry and the Forgotten Realms series on the C64 way back in 1991 really hooked me. Before that I played some type of bombing game on the TSR80 in 1981 and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on the Apple II in the mid eighties.