The first "good" old PC games you remember playing.

[tahrey]

ACTUAL "PCs", as in x86-based vaguely-IBM-compatibles? Or just any home ("personal") computer?

First home computer game I remember playing that was worth a bean is Daley Thompson's Decathlon on the Sinclair Spectrum 48k. My tiny infant mind was overwhelmed. COLOURS! SHAPES! BLERPY NOISES! SQUIDGY KEYS YOU HAD TO HAMMER AT SPEED! It was like being on acid.

At school there's some vague memories of playing some putatively educational rubbish on an RM Nimbus (an actual PC... sort of... even though it was a 186 (aka, "an x86 based Micro-controller") based semi-PC semi-XT semi-PCjr thingamajig with custom graphics and sound hardware)... and a formative time spent playing Donkey Kong on the Atari 800 which was our teacher's replacement for gold stars.

First game on a computer a/ we owned, b/ wasn't embarassingly crap was, pretty much in order, Xenon, Buggy Boy, and Star Wars on the Atari ST. The first one was what the guy selling it used to demo the machine to us, and left it in the drive. The others were on the next disc we pulled out on getting it home and hitting "game over" on that. We got lucky in that all three are actually pretty good games and I'd happily play them today. The system had its share of dreck in-between, but those are solid.

First actual "PC" game (other than Granny's Garden and that)... probably Halloween Harry or Wolfenstein. As my dad brought home a 386 laptop (size of a house, almost) at one point with a few Apogee shareware titles on it. We got to mess about with it for a bit. It was cool and all, but not particularly inspiring - the black & white screen, poor CPU speed and fairly basic nature of the games left us with an impression of "may as well have an ST Book, really".

Then we eventually got our own 486 (the high school PCs had an impressively locked-down network, considering it was 3.11fwg based, so not even minesweeper was available) and a few magazines with demo floppies and CDs on ... Screamer, Tempest 2000, Doom (and its variants), Command and Conquer, Descent... all these, in rather limited form, almost immediately opened up to us. Decidedly a step up at last. It was amazing. Again, we got lucky in that our first experiences in this regard were stone cold classics of the era...

 

[teh_Canape]

Edit: my mistake, first one was the original Prince of Persia when I was 4

Quake, back when I was about 5 or 6

then came Quake 2

then Doom

then Doom 2

then Unreal

then Quake 3

and so on =P

 

[tahrey]

Quake, back when I was about 5 or 6

then came Quake 2

then Doom

Methinks yon timeline is a bit messed up, young 'prentice.
So that would make you... about... 18 now?
Old enough to buy your own house...

But still in Kindergarten when Doom II was out, and just moving up to Elementary when the PSX hit.

This hurts my brain

 

[teh_Canape]

Quake, back when I was about 5 or 6

then came Quake 2

then Doom

Methinks yon timeline is a bit messed up, young 'prentice.
So that would make you... about... 18 now?
Old enough to buy your own house...

But still in Kindergarten when Doom II was out.

This hurts my brain

I'm 19

but that's the order I played it

and no, I won't be buying my own house =P

staying at my parent's until I finish university

because I just had to pick a really expensive career, didn't I? T-T

 

[Dwachak]

First game I remember playing is the original Prince of Persia 2D game. I was probably around 5 and it was awesome back then. Have revisited it, but it doesn't capture me quite as much now, though it still holds up

Edit: Come to think about it, I had more likely just turned 4 when I played it, cuz I was 5 when I got my gameboy for Christmas, and that was before school, and Prince is right on the edge of my memory.. so yea 4

 

[plugav]

Goblins 3. I remember it because of the awesome music and the funny sounds [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_DSExNsvYI] the characters made when they talked. The bastards changed both of them when they adapted the game to current generation computers (all the previous games were released on the Goblins 4 DVD). It's is still weird and funny, though.

Oh, yeah, and I've played the original Prince of Persia, too, on a school computer. I've only had a Commodore 64 back then (which had a few memorable games of its own).

 

[tahrey]

Old enough to buy your own house...
But still in Kindergarten when Doom II was out.
This hurts my brain

I'm 19
but that's the order I played it
and no, I won't be buying my own house =P
staying at my parent's until I finish university
because I just had to pick a really expensive career, didn't I? T-T

Heh, wierd thing is, I'm only just at the house buying stage... at 29. Shoulda been more like 25-26 (like what my bro is), but had some career hiccups on the way. I also infer that you're possibly American... our (UK) universities aren't THAT expensive... yet... you can still afford to live away. I did for 3 years, though it took working hard through the summers to fund it.

I did kind of mean that you'd be fully able and legally allowed to, if you had the money and/or suitable employment to fund it. Age of majority and all that. Though possibly not drinking yet

I do also know some other people who started uni this year so it's not really that big a deal or a surprise, I just like to muse on it. Must be reaching "that age".

 

[teh_Canape]

snip

actually, I'm argentinian

and it's not that I actually have to pay my classes, but rather that the materials required for my classes (you know, A4 paper, china ink and shit), despite being cheap, I'm constantly buying them to replenish my stock =P

and to be able to have my own house, I think I must be over 21 yrs old

and I do have a job, but just part time, on Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoon

 

[tahrey]

(blar)

Fair enough then. I can only extrapolate from my own limited knowledge ... can be difficult to keep in mind that this is actually a global affair rather than having just 4 or 5 main countries involved (because they're the best represented). Basically you can do pretty much whatever the hell you like here at 16, other than drink/smoke, drive anything more than a moped or watch/participate in pornography and watch some other X-rated movies.

I'll have to spread the word around about the cheap/free university and you'll see an influx of British exchange students next year

(China ink? You doing art, then? Or just choosing to write with an old skool kind of pen?)

 

[teh_Canape]

(blar)

Fair enough then. I can only extrapolate from my own limited knowledge ... can be difficult to keep in mind that this is actually a global affair rather than having just 4 or 5 main countries involved (because they're the best represented). Basically you can do pretty much whatever the hell you like here at 16, other than drink/smoke, drive anything more than a moped or watch/participate in pornography and watch some other X-rated movies.

I'll have to spread the word around about the cheap/free university and you'll see an influx of British exchange students next year

(China ink? You doing art, then? Or just choosing to write with an old skool kind of pen?)

university assignment, yes
hand drawn calligraphy with old alphabets

Spoiler: you know, this kind of shit

and, well, you can do pretty much whatever you want at 18 here, it's just that you can only emancipate from your parents at 21 =P

 

[Chemical Alia]

The first game I enjoyed on the PC and made me take computer games seriously was Commander Keen. Followed shortly after by Wolfenstein. I guess my mom had the shareware versions and let me play them.

 

[Taekro]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. It was the first game my parents bought for me, I was 9 at the time, and boy, was it awesome. I remember getting every single collectible and task in that game, and maxing out every single skater, including the secret ones (Darth Maul, eh eh)...

Good times...

 

[Rooster893]

Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 2, Half Life 1, Worms Armaggedon, and Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2.

I had a great childhood.

 

[Kizo18]

Heroes of Might & Magic 3 and Starcraft. I'm still playing them to this day.