What game made you a PC Gamer?

As with a few other people, the Sierra adventure games. My parents were completely against ever allowing us to have an NES, but for some reason, no one cared about computer games.

But I do remember, in the early 80s, I was upset when my parents decided to buy an IBM PC over the Commodore 64. The C64 had ALL the best games after all.
 
Nytegard said:
As with a few other people, the Sierra adventure games. My parents were completely against ever allowing us to have an NES, but for some reason, no one cared about computer games.

But I do remember, in the early 80s, I was upset when my parents decided to buy an IBM PC over the Commodore 64. The C64 had ALL the best games after all.
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My parents were the same way. No Nintendo. C64 and PC were fine as I would learn computer skills (which I did).
 
I played a lot of games growing up, so I've always been a gamer. However, it was Doom that got me into PC gaming and I think it was Descent that gave me my obsession with hardware as I was always chasing more performance in that game. Then of course, Quake was a huge leap forward and during its hey day is when the 3D accelerators became a thing.
 
I think it was Star Raiders if we're counting the 800XL as PC gaming. If we're not counting those, then I'd say it was Suspended on the... Apple II? Those early apple boxes are all a blur to me in the late 70s/early 80s. Wing Commander later on moved it from incredibly enthusiastic to hopelessly addicted.
 
relapse808 said:
My parents were the same way. No Nintendo. C64 and PC were fine as I would learn computer skills (which I did).
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That's why I bought my own. After 2 summers of mowing lawns, washing cars and weeding gardens, I had enough to buy the $89 version that had no gun , no pad, just SMB.

The parental units did buy me an A-B switch for the old B&W in the spare bedroom though. They were mighty pissed and impressed at the same time by my dedication to own a NES.
 
Half life (original)
Counter strike

Up until that point i had mostly been a N64 player(golden eye and perfect dark)
After that it was a dive into any fps/rts i could get my hand on, i built my first from scratch pc to play half life 2 and farcry.
 
Civilization. I was instantly addicted. I would play until it became stutter hell, completely unplayable. Then start all over again, until my eyeballs were ready to fall out of my head. Can't help but grin thinking about it :) It was joyous!
 
I was (and still am) mainly a console gamer. That being said, I have had stints in PC gaming from time to time. One of those stints was when I discovered PC Lemmings in the mid 90's, I just absolutely fell in love with that game and that was one of the few things that could pull me away from my N64. Another experience that really got me into PC gaming in a serious way, around 2003, was PC Halo. My friend had an XBox while I had a Gamecube at the time and I was always jealous over Halo and I was so excited when I realized that I could play Halo on my parent's new PC that they got that year. The problem is that my parents, as it turned out, bought some cheap computer from Best Buy with a bottom feeder graphics card and so I had to play Halo with visuals turned way down, that was when I started getting interested in PC hardware. The next summer I got a Radeon 9600XT and after that I started building my own PC's and developed an interest in hardware enthusiasm.

Halo was definitely the big motivator for me to get seriously into PC gaming and I even walked away from console gaming completely for a time. The single player campaign in Halo was amazing but I discovered later what really made the game a gem was Blood Gulch Capture the Flag online multiplayer. I had never experienced anything like that before having only played offline fps games like Goldeneye on the N64 prior to that. I blew a whole summer playing Halo CTF in 2004. It was truly something that you couldn't experience on a Nintendo console at the time and, for me, it opened up a whole new world of gaming.
 
"Command & Conquer" was the game for me, followed by "Command & Conquer: Red Alert" as well as "Total Annihilation". Those dominated my PC gaming in the late 90's. Prior to that I mainly played games on console (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and N64). But playing Command & Conquer on my friend's computer was the #1 reason why I got a modern PC. Prior to that I used a mixture of old Macintosh computers (Apple IIcx running OS 7) and old PC computers (2 386 computers running Windows 3.1). All were Internet capable via AOL, which is what I used at the time, but none were fast enough to play Command & Conquer. I got a Pentium 133 running Windows 95 basically just to play Command & Conquer. I never bought another console again; the N64 was my last.

I also enjoyed games like Doom, Doom 2, Quake, etc, but the RTS games like Total Annihilation are where I would have marathon 8+ hour gaming sessions. Most of the time when I played first-person shooters, it was in multi-player scenarios like LAN Parties.
 
For me it was a combination of the SSI Dungeons and Dragons games and the various point + click adventure games from the early 90's. I was a big fan of action/arcade titles from that era, and frankly, the PC ports for those games straight up suuuuucked if you weren't rocking an Amiga or Atari ST. I gave up on playing anything quick, but got hooked on slower paced titles since my junky Packard Bell 486 could run 'em.
Shooters like Wolfenstein and Doom got my attention later, but for a long time I played fast/twitchy games on consoles and slower-paced games on my computer.
 
Half-Life and Counterstrike. I got my first computer from an employer where I was working helpdesk for a dial-up ISP. Was a junior or senior in high school. The company got bought out and said "take whatever you want. " I took my helpdesk computer. When I got to college a guy I didn't know was talking about some game he wanted me to try. He said my computer wouldn't play it and then gave me a video card and a game. That game was Counterstrike and it almost caused me to fail out of college.
 
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The game that stands out in my mind as converted me to PC gaming was StarCraft, but I did play a lot of other games before that.
 
Doom, Quake and C&C were early draws but the way people talk about star wars impacting their early teen years is what Total Annihilation did for me.
 
Doom is what originally interested me in PC gaming, but my primary focus did not shift to PC gaming from console gaming until Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike Source.
 
Quake III is what got me into PC games. I was a bit late to PC gaming.


Never left the consoles, though. Its all good ;)
 
When I programmed a game on my TI-99/4A and saved it to a tape drive, I knew I was in heaven. I got my first PC in 1991 and Mechwarrior was my jam. Jenner God.

Oh who can forget the old school MUD games. Those text adventures were an absolute riot to play.
 
I started with PC gaming so nothing made me become one...the earliest game I remember playing was when my friend gave me Diablo...my other friend than loaned me one of his Red Alert 2 discs so we could play multiplayer (my first MP experience)
 
I played the original sim city on Mac back in middle school computer class and then xcom ufo defense at a friends house for hours on end.
 
TangledThornz said:
Starflight 1 cemented me as a PC gamer.
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Neat. Looks like it had a lot of character.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/starflight_1_2

In Starflight 1 you embark on a mission to save the galaxy’s future by discovering the secrets of its past. With over 800 unique planets in 270 systems to explore, you never know what might lurk behind the next star. Each newly explored system might lead to a powerful artifact, a mysterious alien race, or another piece of the puzzle that will unravel the ultimate mystery. And that's the really great thing about this game: the feeling of exploration and fulfilling that deep human need that drives us towards the unknown.

Starflight 2 keeps all the great gameplay of its predecessor, but makes everything bigger and better. Many aspects of the game were vastly enhanced: the game’s diplomacy, the size of the galaxy, and the number of alien races you can interact with are all improved the second time out. The gameplay—if not the graphics—are reminiscent of another classic game in our catalog where you wander around the galaxy exploring stars and chatting with humorous aliens who want to control the galaxy. The plot starts you out in a standard science fiction mode, but it builds to a fascinating and satisfying climax at the end. Basically, if you enjoyed Starflight 1, the sequel will be right up your alley.
  • A milestone in the history of space opera adventure, the elements of which are used in games to this day.
  • Wonderful story with absolutely non-linear gameplay and an entire galaxy to explore.
  • Unique alien races, each with its own individual (and sometimes comical) personality, behavior, and values.
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(This one might be from starflight 2 idk)

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When I was younger I didn't really separate PC gaming from console gaming. I always saw them as simply different means to the same ends which had different pros and cons.
That was even more pronounced back in the 90's console generations. SNES/N64 had "instant loading times" and games optimized for controllers. But that didn't stop me from playing PC stuff too. In my youth I definitely played my fair share of both Quake 2 and Goldeneye to name but two formative FPS titles.

That said, the game(s) that made me fall in love with gaming on PC was Fallout and Diablo 1. I also played a lot of Duke3d and ROTT around that time.1995-1997 had a lot of great games.
 
Dang, I had started writing a response, but must have moved on to other things....

So my journey as a PG gamer started in the early 80s on a Commodore 64 playing original Wolfenstein, Microleague Baseball, Zork, and Montezuma's revenge.

Had to get an IBM PS2 for college in 1987, so on that we played the original Elite and Rogue. During college the 3d gaming era began with Wolfenstein 3D. When I graduated, I had more time (for a while) and got into the original Syndicate and Sim City.

Once I was gainfully employed, it was on to the Doom franchise. Ironically, considering the AWFUL state of corporate IT these days, I played the Doom games on the 486 PCs at work, after hours, because they were better than what I had. Incredible.

My real PC gaming chops began in about 1997 when I built my first real gaming rig. The games I played then included the original Dungeon Keeper, the Carmageddon series, and then Half Life. And I was off to the races from there.
 
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Hmm... it's hard to say which "one" game made me a PC gamer.... The top ones for me are: King's Quest VI, Star Control 2, Lands of Lore -- Throne of Chaos, and Day of the Tentacle.
 
The original Doom from 1993. I had a Macintosh at the time and wanted to use my Pa's Gateway2000 to play Doom all the time lol. I eventually got my own Gateway2000 a few years later.
 
In the 8-bit days, I had an Atari 800XL (tape drive) and a TRS-80 Color Computer 3 (tape drive, multi-pak expander with disk drive, Speech/Sound pak, Orchestra-90 synth pak and RS-232 pak). But Might and Magic II; Gates to Another World and Warlords were what motivated me to build my first IBM-compatible PC. The year was 1990, I was in high school and had to work a summer job to pay for the parts to build it myself... my glorious 286-12MHz machine with 1M of RAM, 40M IDE HDD and 16-color EGA compatible card. About a year later, Eye of the Beholder had me needing an AdLib card for sound.

I do wish I had managed to hold on to my CoCo stuff though - it's worth a small fortune today. :)
 
Technically, stuff like Space Goose, Lemmings, and Wacky Wheels on DOS. But later, Doom 2 was one of the first that started me down the FPS path.
 
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Hmm in my case that would have been Duke3D, especially after playing it with a friend via null modem or something or other back then.
 
Mine are pretty well covered here. Ultima series of C64 in the 80s, X Wing mid 90s (most of the early to mid 90s were my college years so parties and chasing girls were more important than gaming). Late 90s after I settled down began my modern era and kicked off with Tribes (my Nick is from this game) and EverQuest. My internet was always terrible living in the country so by late Tribes days everyone was getting DSL and I couldn’t hang.
 
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