One
The first computer I used regularly was a Zeos 386. Before that, there was an AT&T (at the time, they had not yet figured out that PCs weren't telephones), but I was too young for it. The Zeos' primary OS was MS-DOS - I don't know which version - and you could also get to Windows 3.11 by typing 'win'.
My dad was a member of a club of sorts, where every month a 5.25" diskette would come with samplings of various shareware games. Most of these were knockoffs of arcade games - I remember a Tetris clone called "D-BLOCKS", and a port of Pac-Man, among others. My dad would copy his favorites of the games from the diskettes to our massive several-megabyte hard drive, and I'd play them or fool around rearranging the icons in Win3.11's Program Manager.
The first "real" game I played on the Zeos was Wing Comander: Privateer. To date, it's still one of the best games I've ever seen. Totally open-ended - you basically just flew around space and did whatever you wanted. There was a quasi-realistic economy - agricultural planets had cheap food, manufacturing planets had cheap electronics, etc etc, and you could earn money by buying things one place and selling them after a few hyperspace jumps. (You could also smuggle illicit goods for the Space Pirates, but then the militia would hunt you down.) Money was used to upgrade your ship and keep it fueled and heavily armed. To an 8-year old, the possibilities were really and truly magical.
Some people cherish a toy, a doll, a blanket; I had video games. (To this day, I am still trying to get Privateer to run under XP or 98.)
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Comments
I remember the first Wing Commander. By the time Privateer came out I was already jaded, and never bought it.
My most cherished computer game memories are for games like Starlight and Starflight 2, hands down the best space-adventure games ever; for Neuromanver, the best computer-gamization of a book ever; and the old Sierra games like Space Quest, Police Quest, and Heroes’ Quest.
God I miss those games!
Posted by Jim at September 17, 2002 1:21 PM :: LinkJim:
Never played Starflight, nor Neuromancer (although I loved the book - Gibson is awesome. Neal Stephenson is my favorite author of all time.); you played Space Quest, Police Quest, and Heroes’ Quest, but not King’s Quest?
Posted by Aa at September 17, 2002 3:24 PM :: LinkFeh. Kings Quest was awful. Quest For Glory (the renamed Heroes Quest after Milton Bradley [I think] threatened to sue). I still play QFG and Space Quest to this day. Mmmm… Sierra nostalgia…
Posted by Ben at September 17, 2002 7:35 PM :: LinkYeah, I hated King’s Quest for some reason. I can’t explain it. But all the other quests I loved. :)
Neal Stephenson kicks ass.
Posted by Jim at September 19, 2002 7:39 PM :: LinkPost a comment
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Aaah, Wing Commander.. I don’t know if they did this to Privateer, but Origin remade the first three WCs and made them windows-friendly. It didn’t sell, so Origin pulled it, and now it’s a rare collectors item usually sold for about 50 bucks on Ebay.
You can also search for a windows friendly version of ‘Elite’ which Privateer was primarily influenced by.
Posted by Ben at September 16, 2002 12:58 PM :: Link