Defining Moments in Video Gaming

Inspired by Tom Chick's list of 10 defining moments in video gaming DM Osbon gives us an isight into his own gaming past. While Tom's piece is a generic list of great video game moments DM gives a more personal view and it is in this spirit that I will offer my own contribution.

For me a watershed gaming moment came during the point and click era of the late 1980's. The first point and click I came across was the mildly risque "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards". I was used to mindlessly repetitive button pressing games so the the depth and complexity of this game was a revelation to me. Not having my own PC I stayed late in work one Friday to play Larry on an office computer. When the first rays of dawn sunshine peeped through the window I was still sitting there finishing the game. It was my first gaming all-nighter. Until that moment I hadn't realised how compelling this new medium could be. It was as if I had had a vision of the future. Most of my adult friends at the time were completely unaware of this new phenomenon and would have thought me completely mad to stay up all night playing games but after that moment I knew that I wanted to do more of it.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Thanks for the link-love mbp!

One thing that has struck me since I made the post is that, from the comments left by others, there are a number of classic games that I haven't played...

...is it worth visiting the past?

5:15 pm

mbp said…

Well DM I have recently played some oldies (Age of Empires, Homeworld, System Shock 2, Sacrifice, Freespace) and have enjoyed them very much. They have a creativity and exuberance that is missing from more polished modern titles. On the other hand I have found other classic games (Doom for example) that are too ugly, too awkward and too primitive to still enjoy. For me the watershed is sometime around 1998 about the time that 3D cards became common. Any game after that is still playable I reckon.

5:38 pm

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