This is part of a short series about computer games I've played.
Part 1: Arcades
Part 2: BBC Micro
Part 3: Movie time
Part 4: Amiga
As previously detailed I was very into the Amiga for some years. There were several magazines about it and an active on-line community. Unfortunately Commodore, the company behind it, were struggling. The Windows PC had become the computer of choice and was getting all the attention. The Mac was doing pretty well, but was an expensive option. In 1994 Commodore filed for bankruptcy and were bought by Escom. I remember them having a local store where you could see Amigas, but there was no real marketing effort. Escom went bust a few years later and the Amiga brand has been pretty much dead since then.
I got this card at the CeBIT computer show in Hannover in 1989.
So I eventually gave in and bought a Windows PC. It was a 350MHz Pentium III with Matrox graphics and Windows 98. This was the first of many PCs, but the only one I bought ready-built. The rest I put together from parts to get exactly what I wanted. I’ve had the current one for a few years now. It has an AMD A8 processor and 8GB of memory. I’ve not installed a fancy graphics card as I don’t play games much.
Before I had my own PC I did play some PC games. I worked in a software company where we could get away with playing games in our lunch break. We played a lot of Duke Nukem 3D and a bit of Quake. I never had a sound card there, so I didn’t get the full experience.
I played a few games on my own Windows PC, but the one that stands out is Half Life. This was fairly ground-breaking in its time. I spent many hours working through the levels, but I gave up eventually when action moved to an alien planet and it just got too hard.
I never got into the on-line multi-player games that came after this. About 10 years ago I switched to using Linux. I have played a few games on that, including good old Doom. My kids enjoyed some of the free games I could get such as a clone of Mario Kart. Later on my son used Steam on Linux to play a few games.
My gaming kicked off again when we got a Nintendo Wii. This was great for playing as a family. I just found I was having less time for games and drifted away from it. My son has kept interested in them and has had a PS4 for a couple of years now. He spends a lot of time playing games with his friends, but I’ve hardly used it at all.
As you will have seen in this series I have been involved in gaming through their infancy and into the start of modern 3D games, but now I hardly play them at all. I expect I could get back into them, but there are other things I want to do. The main one is making music. I want to be a better guitarist and that takes a lot of my time. I just need to reduce the time I spend on Steemit really. It can be addictive, but it has also helped my music by encouraging me to do performances for the contests. I’ve also written a few songs about Steemit.
I still see some gaming news and hear about the rise of E-sports. Gaming has come a long way from Pong. Games are more like movies, with production costs to match. I know a lot of people my age are still keen gamers and a new generation has been raised on amazing games. There’s certainly lots of interest in games on Steemit. That’s great if it brings more people here. Please don’t feel I’m dismissing games as a pastime, but we each have to choose how we want to use our valuable spare time. Do whatever you find fun.
I hope this series has been fun for some of you and maybe stirred a few memories.
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