Looking back in to my gaming history I found it interesting that, despite not growing up in the 80's, the first computer my family had was a Commodore 64. We eventually progressed to Windows 3.1, although while it was still in use, and then to a computer with Windows 95. But through chance my experience with gaming still mirrored that which the rest of the world had already followed.
Anyway, my experience with the Commodore 64 and its games were not all that great. When we got the Commodore 64 we were limited by games that could be programmed into its memory and those that we had on floppies. There was one game in particular called "Godzilla" that I really liked and that involved a map of Japan, divided into a grid, with each grid containing X number of tanks, planes, or ships (if it was over the ocean). You always had a nuke. Godzilla would roam from square to square and you had to hope that he landed on enough squares with enough tanks or whatever so that you could kill him before he hit Tokyo and cause you to lose the game. If he drifted out far into the Sea of Japan you could chance everything and drop an atomic bomb on him.
There was also a text adventure game available called "Haunted House" which was also my first experience in text-gaming ever. I've never played any other text games to date but, based on what I've heard over the years, that game punished you horribly for doing the wrong thing and generally you only got through by trial and error.
But, after the Commodore 64, what could I have played that someone else here already hasn't? I wasn't a big adventure game fan although I did watch my brother play "Loom" when we got a computer with Windows 3.1. I played Tyrian, which was a pretty sweet top-down flying/shooter (and the music was decent). My first experience with RPGs of any kind, although I always think of it as an adventure game, was Ultima VI: The False Prophet. The only reason I cared about that game at all at first was because of the gargoyles resemblance, vaguely, to the Pinkies from DOOM. Once I got over the fact that the game was nothing like DOOM, although it had a fair amount of blood, I really got into the fact that I go wherever I wanted even if that got me killed. The first air-combat simulator I ever played was on that computer too - and that was a game about aliens invading the earth because they needed slaves to clean their toilets. I think that computer even let me play the first Warcraft...
There was a whole slew of games I played that were fun, at the time, but most I think were "the best" simply because they were also my first. I have tried, and failed, when going back to play many of those games again. The simplest ones, like DOOM or Tyrian, were the the easiest to get back in to. Some of the more complex games, like Ultima, though I understood them better, were much more difficult because of the interface. Sure, that was good when I did nearly everything with a keyboard but about this device they call a mouse...
The HP Desktop we got in 1997 allowed me to move on to games with 3D(!) like SimCopter, Simcity 2000, Earthsiege 2, Warcraft 2, and DOOM. Back in those days, due to less experience and a smaller library, each game was more special. More special, I would argue, because the graphics were more immersive rather than staring at a flat sheet of pixels. Each one was also a challenge in its own way, but I picked up on a lot more details more easily - the music, the sound effects, the story, and the game mechanics. SimCity 2000 was great for just tooling around in and, with SimCopter, great for actually flying around in. Earthsiege 2 was a completely new experience because that was my first 'Mech-type simulation game ever. Sure, I couldn't do any mission requiring a joystick but otherwise I could blast away at giant enemy robots through the keyboard.
Anyway, I'm always surprised to compare my list of old games with others in these threads. It seems as though most everybody else got started on text games. And to that I say: BORING!
Sig.
