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bobrpggamer

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Clever Title eh.

 

Anyway if you had an Atari 2600 or an Intelevision when you were a pup then this site may be able to bring back some memories of the Video Game Golden Age. The site has a good group of guys and I have been with them since 2008 or something, if you think this is not appropriate for some reason let me know.

 


http://www.pleasuredome.org.uk/

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For me it was DOS computer. I cannot say which model, as it was the work computer of my father and I was too young to know anything about it. One thing I remeber, is that it had 16 MHz (with a turbo to 33 MHz :D ) and we were not allowed to plug in a joystick, as my father always said that computers are no toys. The first games I can remember to have played myself (and not just watched my siblings playing) was the Commander Keen series. Even now, I play them now and then on DOSBox. Good old times ;)

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Amiga 1200 for me, that machine is still useful even in this day and age. Especially with the upcoming FPGA based 680XX accelerators coming out, the A500/600 models are already out -

I started with a C64 and got addicted to role playing games Might and Magic 1, Ultima 3, wasteland. Then to an Amiga 500, I have C64 Emulators and the lovely Winuae now and about every game ever made for them, funnt thing is I really wanted a 286 at the time of my C64 purchase but I got the C64 used and a boatload of games instead.

 

I am surprised there are no retro console guys around, but I myself was always the computer over consoles to. MAME is a good emulator as many console emulators, but like Destined I use Dosbox and Winuae for RPG's.

Edited by bobrpggamer
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For most people probably depends at which point in life one had more free time, periods such as childhood. I never had a console but various friends owned Play Station 1, Sega mega drive and the original Xbox.

What I appreciated with console exclusives was the sheer amount of really creative titles such as Silent Hill, Far Cry Instincts and some others that slip my thoughts right now.

There were definitely enough games that can't be called addictive, but compelling. Ones that gave you something so that you could have some food for thought. Games that respect you and your time. Not things that abuse your subconscious like these MMORPG stories that give video games a bad rep.

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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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What I appreciated with console exclusives was the sheer amount of really creative titles such as Silent Hill, Far Cry Instincts and some others that slip my thoughts right now.

There were definitely enough games that can't be called addictive, but compelling. Ones that gave you something so that you could have some food for thought. Games that respect you and your time. Not things that abuse your subconscious like these MMORPG stories that give video games a bad rep.

The main addiction part of RPGs for me was I would play for up to 8 hours straight and then It would be so hard to stop before I go to town 1 and sell that new Sword and set of Gauntlets I found in a chest and buy that Ring of Protection +1 that I have wanted - but I get that ring and after I leave the store I run into a group of enemies with a large fight on my hands or maybe I just want to go to town 2 and save the game at the inn in that town, and then I will call it a night, and this is how the addiction starts and then you cannot wait to get back to the whatever forest and fight that giant that you believe has a large amount of gold in his chest the next day.

 

Some tactical strategy games (Jagged Alliance 2 - Fallout Tactics) with large amounts of guns and ammo types can be addicting just to get the micromanagement done. Such as collect the M4s and some 5.56 AP rounds at a store in sector A2 (in these games seem to be literal real hours of day when you run into new fights) and buy some more Kevlar vests and don't forget 10 guys in sector D4 need some 7.62 rounds or more grenades, and maybe I should split Squad D with 6 Mercs. into 2 groups of 2 and 4, Mercs each then send 2 to sector F5 and keep 4 in town 1 to defend it.

 

The addiction is "I will just do this and then do that and quit, but wait I still have that to do, oh and I need to get this done as well". Like "Ill' kick tomorrow I swear or just 2 more days and i will kick. (Sorry for the obvious drug reference). I've known a few of them here and there.

 

FPS, Sims, Sports and Racing games I can pick up for an hour or two and then play some more the next day.

 

As far as consoles I am "Sonic The Hedgehog" and "Super Mario World" vets, but other than football games and these they are "not complicated enough" to keep my attention. I hated Diablo for the just click-click-click thing and the Weird map changing and re-spawning after a visit to the store.

Edited by bobrpggamer
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I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum with these two games on cassette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGU-Nx6VONQ&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyLfipiR9tg

And a first person 3D maze game my dad programmed for me (by taking and improving a simpler design). They were simpler times.

 

Some time later, however, I got Mike Singleton's The Lords of Midnight, and it completely blew me away with its continuous eight-directional movement and complexity even though I could not make heads nor tails of it. But just the idea that this was something really big and rich was enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n251r73JIxY

The game actually holds up very well (there is a 2013 remake), and has never been completely replicated. Plus I still consider it a miracle of software engineering. All of that is on a single cassette with 48 kbytes of memory, which is smaller than your average cat picture.

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Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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For me, it started off in 1983 with a Tandy TRS-80 clone. The only programs were a cassette to load in Basic so you could make your own programs, or two games.

The pixel size on this was 3mm x 1mm (that's millimeter lol). Of the games, one was a star wars type thing, and the other a game called

Galactic Trader (this is the apple version in colour, mine was green screen lol)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waxrpG-19jM

 

A year later I upgraded to an IBM-XT PC a whole 4.2 Mhz and 640kb of Ram vs the 16kb of the Tandy clone lol

Games in that were Flight Simulator by Sublogic (which was bought out by Microsoft). It looked like this.

 

This is an Apple version of the same game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvvfJ60gIf0

 

By the 90's I had an IBM-AT twice the speed, and ran a BBS called Flightline (Flight Simulator based). Then I created a

network across Australia, New Zealand and America, which was also flight sim based. That turned into a business,

called Modem Media

 

The business side was selling Advertising on the BBS's in the Network which they got a good cut of the ad revenue. Worked out well,

I was also making scenery for Flight sim at the time as well. Cost me $25 to make and sell the ad, and I got $600 from it,

of which the BBS"s got $200. It's funny how quickly ppl found space for advertisements on their BBS's

 

Early computers were just so much fun, however I would take todays computers over them any day of the week.

 

Back when I had this network and business (Modem Media) I also was trying to get some software written that would allow

you to play full screen games like F1 racing online. It was doable, but it was going to cost $30,000 to pay someone to write the

software, so it never did get up which was a bugger. lol

Edited by NeonsStyle
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I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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When consoles and computers became somewhat mainstream in the '70/'80, I didn't care much. Occasional Pong game with a buddy, but nothing serious. My first machine was an Schneider (Amstrad) CPC 128, but I don't recall playing games on it. This changed somewhat with the Atari ST and went downhill from there ;)

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Hi Melan I can go back one further machine than the Sinclair Spectrum to my very first computer which was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1k of memory!!!!

 

Later on I added a 16k plug in pack which allowed so much more programming. I did a large amount of programming but I still came back to the old tapes as it saved the brain power!!.

 

Like you, I think Lords of Midnight was one of the best along with Doomsdarks Revenge and in fact I am running Lords of Midnight 2013 remake currently

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I gots the usual story: C64, then Amiga500, then 486 PC. Many of the boys around the neighbourhood did not have computers, but early game consoles like Nintendo and Sega, so I got to mess around with them as well.

 

For the younger people here imagine the era: you buy a computer magazine from the shop, which contains BASIC program listing, which you copy from the magazine pages by typing it into your C64 to get some software. Then you save it on a C-cassette. Amazing times!

 

C64 had tons of cool games. I've also played Lord of Midnight but my young age and poor english made it utterly incomprehensible to me.. Favourites were games like Ikari Warriors, Commando and Bubble Bobble. If think one can still get them from the net and play them with a C64 emulator.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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When consoles and computers became somewhat mainstream in the '70/'80, I didn't care much. Occasional Pong game with a buddy, but nothing serious. My first machine was an Schneider (Amstrad) CPC 128, but I don't recall playing games on it. This changed somewhat with the Atari ST and went downhill from there ;)

Sounds familiar, when I was in a very disciplined group home in 83 or so we were not allowed to have TVs in our rooms - but get this we were all teens and were allowed to smoke in our rooms, later in life that sounded fairly illegal - there was this nerdy guy in another dorm and at the time I was into sports and things not good for you, he had a C64 and it was hooked up to a TV and I asked how he got his TV in, and he said it was because the C64 was educational, and I told him how stupid it was to look at a flashing square on his TV screen. The cool kids were the ones in the day room with the Atari 2600.

 

Never really appreciated computers until 1988 using a drawing program on a 386.

 

 

I gots the usual story: C64, then Amiga500, then 486 PC. Many of the boys around the neighbourhood did not have computers, but early game consoles like Nintendo and Sega, so I got to mess around with them as well.

Men of a certain age, and we all pretty much had the same experience, but the real reason for the topic was to let a small few of many that may not be familiar with emulators and abandonnedware ROMS that these games are free and the emulators are great to use. Imagine having 20,000 C64, 4,000 Amiga and 20,000 MS-DOS games at your disposal back then.

 

I only found out about this in 2007 when I did I was more exited than I had ever been in a long while, I was printing manuals and making lists and collecting and configuring these games - that back then I could afford 1 or maybe 2 a month.

 

post-3455-0-95264800-1501974351_thumb.jpg

post-3455-0-15392400-1501974364_thumb.jpg

 

As far as the legality - I bought legal Amiga kickstarts. I use DosBox without a frontend so no screens of the massive amount of games there.

 

You can find some retro gaming content here http://www.pleasuredome.org.uk/

 

Emulators, frontends and other things for these games are just a google away.

 

 

By the 90's I had an IBM-AT twice the speed, and ran a BBS called Flightline (Flight Simulator based). Then I created a

network across Australia, New Zealand and America, which was also flight sim based. That turned into a business,

called Modem Media

 

The business side was selling Advertising on the BBS's in the Network which they got a good cut of the ad revenue. Worked out well,

I was also making scenery for Flight sim at the time as well. Cost me $25 to make and sell the ad, and I got $600 from it,

of which the BBS"s got $200. It's funny how quickly ppl found space for advertisements on their BBS's

 

Early computers were just so much fun, however I would take todays computers over them any day of the week.

 

Back when I had this network and business (Modem Media) I also was trying to get some software written that would allow

you to play full screen games like F1 racing online. It was doable, but it was going to cost $30,000 to pay someone to write the

software, so it never did get up which was a bugger. lol

I would imagine you are aware of the American TV show on the AMC channel called Halt and Catch Fire. Your post of your BBS business seems like the heart of the show.

 

Also I have watched this "BBS Documentary - Atari - Apple - Commodore - IBM" I forgot where I got it but YouTube should have it and it is interesting.

Edited by bobrpggamer
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