The Games That Made Me the Gamer I Am Today

This past weekend I watched a movie review show in which the critics outlined the films that had inspired them to become critics. I was reminded that despite the negative connotation often surrounding the word “critic,” ultimately these are most commonly people who have a passion—unhealthy though it may occasionally be—for that which they critique. Criticism, at least the good kind, stems from a source of love and admiration, and though it can be hard edged or even unreasonable, what you often find are people seeking greatness.

I liked this particular episode because the critics were not saying, “Here’s an arbitrary list of what I think are the so-called ‘best’ movies.” They weren’t even saying, “Here’s a list of my favorite movies in some kind of artificial order.” It was a much more intimate and personal accounting. These were films that for one reason or another had shaped them into who they are today.

I immediately began thinking about the games that made me the gamer I am today. Not the best games—in some cases, deeply flawed games—or even always my personal favorites, but the games that shaped me and made me want to become some kind of critic myself. Here, then, in no particular order, is what I think are the games that made me the gamer I have become.

Ultima VII The Black Gate and Serpent Isle – As a boy, I played Ultimas II - IV, and they formed a solid foundation for my love of PC gaming, but then I went through a period of my life spanning more than a half decade where I abandoned video games entirely. The Black Gate was the game that brought me permanently back into the fold, and probably for that reason is the most important game I ever played. Having missed years of evolution, Ultima VII was the first game that showed me the depths that a computer story could tell, beginning with a murder mystery that ends up being entangled in a massive story involving religious fervor, a society in decline and grand fantasy. While I could have picked any number of games from ‘93 or ‘94 to highlight here—including X-Wing, Tie Fighter and Wing Commander: Privateer—this was the one that brought me back.

EverQuest – When I first started to think about this list, I figured that World of Warcraft was a no-brainer, but if the measure is which game made me into the gamer I am today, then EverQuest far and away trumps WoW. I still have a Pavlovian reaction to the jangled sound of leveling up, like a trash can lid being dropped on an electric guitar. Even the background sounds alone of a place like the haunted woods of Kithicor Forest, or of night in the Field of Bone as cackling skeletons cavorted, evokes in every sense of the word an almost physical response. Just as Ultima instilled in me something I’ve never been able to quite get past, or want to, EQ made me a hopeless addict to the MMO treadmill grind, a happy slave.

Deus Ex – Just mentioning this game means that I will inevitably go back to play it again soon. A massively overwritten, convoluted and melodramatic epic tale densely packed with just about every sci-fi cliche and conspiratorial theory one can imagine. Short of JC Denton going back in time to assassinate JFK, there seems to be nothing off limits to the wild tin-foil-hat machinations of Deus Ex. And yet, that’s part of what makes the game such a joy for me. It is so reckless, somehow dancing on the razor-thin edge of self-parody. But, what is really great is that married to this twisted story is a great game mechanic that genuinely provides a sense of augmentation and was among the first of a kind of game that allowed for multiple methods of play.

Front Page Sports Football – This is a personal choice, in part because my unhealthy obsession with the ever declining genre of NFL football games is a direct result of my time with Front Page Sports, and in part because I have fond memories of sculpting my own imaginary team of gridiron heroes. I’m far from thinking this is the best football game I ever played. It was, however, the first, and is the direct source from which my ongoing toxic relationship with Madden stems. Graphically impotent, this was a game that engaged my obsession with statistics. The non-interactivity of actually playing the game made me feel more like a coach than a participant, and as a result created far more of a sense of identity within the game than most sports games have since. Even the weird role-playing aspects of becoming a player that have cropped up in sports titles over the past few years fail to really engage me the way FPS did with its spartan interface and simplistic design.

WarCraft II -–- As long as I live, I’m not sure I will ever quite feel the thrill that came with a cadre of bloodlusted ogres rampaging through an enemy’s base in the realm of real-time strategy. I shouldn’t be surprised that much of this past summer was a complete loss to Starcraft II’s story, multi-player and skirmishes. In many ways the game revisited the simplicity defined by Blizzard ages before in WarCraft II and hearkened back to a design that, for me, emphasized the fun. Though, in many ways, I like Rise of Nations slightly more as the pinnacle of RTS gaming, I discovered more about the genre and the complexities of its play within the tighter, more simply defined realm of Azeroth. Also, it doesn’t hurt that I became pretty damn good at the game.

Alpha Centauri -- Originally I had Civilization II here, and there’s no questions that I hold a deep and special love for the more traditional of Brian Reynolds’ Civ classic, but in thinking about what made Civ great, my mind turned naturally to Reynolds' superior Alpha Centauri, which took all of those elements and added a depth of creativity, inventiveness and sense of wonder. Everything about AC was just more interesting to me, from the leaders, to the setting, to the mindworms to the very nature and ultimately the personality of the planet itself. This is a game that showed me how something already great can be massaged into something even more grand. It is a sacred text, a game that I actually never want to see remade or reimagined.

As I look back over my foundational games, I realize that mine tell the story of an unapologetic and inflexible PC gamer. These games define who I’ve become as a gamer, and I embrace them not as the best games ever made (at least not in all cases) but as the works that hold a special place in the story of me.

Comments

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Great article!

SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Great article!

One of us. One of us. One of us.

Great call on Alpha Centauri, I really need to play that game again, it was so fantastic and captured my imagination and all of my free time when it came out.

I still yearn for the day where a new game can enthrall and enchant me like Alpha Centauri and Civilization II did.

Those were the days where manuals actually meant something and were a joy to read-I read both the Civ2 and AC manuals cover to cover!*

*Note: I am 24, so this does not qualify as a "Get off my lawn" type of comment yet.

Apollo0507 wrote:

Those were the days where manuals actually meant something and were a joy to read-I read both the Civ2 and AC manuals cover to cover!*

Two of my favorite manuals of all time. The Civ IV manual was great as well. For some reason I have no memory of what was in the Civ III manual.

I would actually love to see SMAC remade, or perhaps updated is a better term. The factions and leaders absolutely have to remain the same - they're what gave the game a personality that none of the Civ games has been able to match. Really - a graphical update and the ability to run well on modern systems would be fantastic.

Great nostalgic waxing. I think I was shaped mostly by console games, because I grew up playing them. I didn't play many dedicated PC games until much later on. One that definitely shaped me though was Thief, and to a lesser extent Thief 2. The Thief games were a revelation for me. I never played a game that sucked me into the world and totally immersed me like those games did. A big part of this was probably the reliance on sound and the fact that I like to play them in the dark with headphones on. The absolutely awesome level design and world building also helped. Do yourself a favour and play it like that. It's the way it was intended to be experienced!

Yeesh. Tack on Ultima V, and swap System Shock 2 for Deus Ex and that's pretty damn close to my list.

Oso wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Great article!

One of us. One of us. One of us.

Heh...

But I really thought that when he wrote about FPS Football Pro. this game probably owned more of my time than any other game I've ever played. for months on end I'd have ICQ going as I chatted with members in a league, a speadsheet for following out salary cap, plus an assortment of apps (when they were called utilities) that we used to edit players, plays, as well as create a free agent system that was not present in the game.

We had a program that rad the log files the game generated as we played and generate a real time box score and graphical representation similar to what you see now on ESPN or Yahoo. And it had a chat function that allowed everyone from out league to hang out and chat as games were being simmed. Sunday nights were sim night for us as the commish would run four games at a time and 15-20 of us would trash talk and have a great time watching results. In another league it also worked when we called the plays out selves head-to-head, so others could sit in and watch the game unfold and chat.

Somehow, more than a decade later, EA and 2K still cannot get that functionality into their games. Of course, that was thanks to the "mod" community that grew up around the game and improved the game exponentially.

Then Sierra released FBPro 99, and it was a complete disaster. Such a disaster that instead of trying to patch and fix the game, it was recalled. And while we continued on for a few years with FBPro 98, it eventually wore out it's welcome.

The demise of FBPro and the sight of NFL 2K on the Dreamcast is what brought me back to being a console gamer. The console versions of sports gamer were more shallow, but were great for another set of reasons. I did not actually buy a Dreamcast until after Sega ceased production. I went from the SNES to the Dreamcast, skipping two generations of consoles for PC games.

Oh, and Deus Ex was really awesome, too.

Haha, your post made me jump into my own personal way(way!)back machine and I came up with this list for my major gaming influences (and yes, I'm ancient):

Galaxian (in the arcade): no other game had me so obsessed for so long with high scores and the adrenalin high of dodging a chaotic screen full of dive bombing aliens and bullets. To this day, I still get the best high (and the least stress) from a fast-paced space shooter, including occasionally popping my PSOne Namco Museum discs into my PS3 to relive my mallrat days.

Summer Games (Commodore 64): Endless late nights breaking joysticks with friends at my house (and pissing my parents off to no end) trying to build up sprint speed or execute a high jump on this game. It fed my compulsively competitive nature and acclimated me to multiplayer gaming, despite my (at the time) extreme shyness.

Diablo (PS): action-RPGs (and anything that feeds my D&D/swords & sorcery itch) still makes up the bulk of my gaming choices today.

DorkmasterFlek wrote:

I think I was shaped mostly by console games, because I grew up playing them. I didn't play many dedicated PC games until much later on. One that definitely shaped me though was Thief, and to a lesser extent Thief 2. The Thief games were a revelation for me. I never played a game that sucked me into the world and totally immersed me like those games did. A big part of this was probably the reliance on sound and the fact that I like to play them in the dark with headphones on. The absolutely awesome level design and world building also helped.

This all the way for myself. There was a thread around about games you wished you'd played, and I regret that I missed the CRPGs of the '90s, namely the Ultima series. I wish I had been on the ground floor for them and been shaped by them. Instead I had FFVI and Chrono Trigger, which are no bad thing, but a very different philosophy.

SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Yeah, this too. I've even bought two copies over the last couple years, need a spare?

Gravey wrote:

There was a thread around about games you wished you'd played, and I regret that I missed the CRPGs of the '90s, namely the Ultima series. I wish I had been on the ground floor for them and been shaped by them.

Yeah, I missed out on the Ultima games as well...

Starcross -- An old Infocom interactive fiction game that my Aunt got me hooked on one Thanksgiving. This game was not only my intro into computer gaming, but showed me how a game (with no graphics no less!) could be this immersive story-based experience. Prior to that, I was playing Atari 2600 games and making up my own stories while swapping out different cartridges. ("Now I'm in my spaceship!" [slaps in 'Starmaster'] "Now I'm exploring the alien planet!" [yanks cartridge; slaps in 'Jungle Hunt']

King's Quest 2 -- The first graphic adventure I played. I have since become an adventure game addict and collector playing just about all of the Infocom, Sierra and Lucararts classics as well as many other greats.

X-Wing -- The perfect marriage of flight sims and my love of Star Wars. This was the first game that truly immersed me in another universe. The first time I remember feeling that "I" was involved in the story.

Dark Forces -- My first truly immersive fps experience. It again took the Star Wars universe and a good story to do what Wolfenstein and Doom couldn't.

Fallout -- I was never a big RPG guy back in the day. Then I saw Fallout in a store and it reminded me of a game called 'Wasteland' that I used to play with a kid down the street that had awesome descriptions of battles such as turning enemies into "gooey red paste." Although different from the adventure games I was accustomed to, the sense of open world and story has stuck with me through all of the great RPG games that I've played since.

(Honorable mentions: Half-Life, Deus Ex, Thief, Morrowind, System Shock 2. First-person games that changed or re-defined the fps 'shoot everything that moves' mechanic).

This may be a subject of another thread, but some day a developer will make my dream game which is a first-person sci-fi open-world action rpg with an epic story, complex quests with adventure puzzle elements that don't hold your hand and a vehicle mechanic where you can hop into a spaceship and travel to different worlds seamlessly. All in first person...

Wing Commander: Privateer... man, I love that game so much I could lick it.

As much as I enjoy the writing here, I'm surprised that my personal list and this list has an intersection of one:

Warcraft II

My others would be:
Q-Bert
Mappy
Super Mario Kart
Tetris
Legend of Zelda
Goldeneye
GTA

I should prune then explain that list, but I'm on my phone.

So many people who have aspirations of playing Deus Ex, isn't the imminent prequel any motivation to see what all the fuss is about?

Scratched wrote:

So many people who have aspirations of playing Deus Ex, isn't the imminent prequel any motivation to see what all the fuss is about?

Add me to that list. I picked it up in the winter Steam sale, and I'll eventually get around to it.

Gravey wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Yeah, this too. I've even bought two copies over the last couple years, need a spare?

Sure - we could play them through together and compare notes!

Rogue and the numerous varients that followed. Running my little "@" and getting killed constantly while sneaking into the nearby university's computer labs on a slightly grey high school account was one of my great foundations of gaming. My buddy and I would play through the night, and since the campus was literally on the other side of the block, it was considered safe by our parents.

"Shoot, a troll got me!" When it was really a "T" was evoking a sense of adventure beyond graphics. One that made Diablo a bit disappointing when it finally released due to the complete lack of cool, special items - different potions and scrolls and rings and looming defeat made for an excellent gameplay experience.

The Heroes of Might & Magic series also swallowed hours of my life. Just one more turn happened endless, because I have the level beat, but needed to complete my domination. Loved every minute of it.

Going back even futher, Time Pilot in the arcades always drew my quarters. It began my devotion to shooters, even though my reflexes failed me every time. Even if I see a Time Pilot machine now (a rare event) I have the need to drop a quarter in and fire in eight directions.

Majora's Mask A game that is just plain good. It pieced together dozens of tiny vignettes and gave personality to the many characters that populated Termina. Moreso than any other game, I felt that the people living in these towns weren't just typical NPCs. They had lives of their own and often times sad, cathartic tales.

Alpha Centauri My first Civ game. It opened my eyes to how fun a game can be when you have a robust diplomacy system. Coordinating attacks, backstabing allies, trading knowledge, and voting on things that would change rules of the game. It not only opened my eyes about the Civ franchise, but also board games and email type games.

X-Com My love for strategy games, rpgs, and dungeon hacks probably stems from this game. I could probably cite Fallout or Diablo or even Warcraft 2 here, but this was the first game that got me fussing over character stats, resource management and loot whoring.

Kirby's Dreamland I didn't get to play this game until 2-3 years after its release. And now that I think of it, This was the game that really softened me on the whole belief that games should be for the hardcore only. It was one of the first NES games that didn't punish me heavily for not memorizing lots of enemy patterns and telegraphed attacks. It opened my little heart to lots more "casual" games.

Dragon's Lair I know this article is kind of uplifting and such, but isn't there a flip side to all this? For every good game there has to be a couple rotten eggs that really makes you turn away from certain games. For me, Dragon Lair is probably the one game that embeded an irrational scowl for every game that followed in its footsteps.

When I played this arcade game as a kid (with very limited allowance and super poor reflexes), I couldn't help but feel cheated when I actually tried out the game and was quickly parted of 3 whole dollars. Its comical in retrospect, but part of me still feels cheated whenever I see a quick time event pop up screaming "Press X not to die!"

mousepad42 wrote:

For every good game there has to be a couple rotten eggs that really makes you turn away from certain games. For me, Dragon Lair is probably the one game that embeded a disgust for every game that followed in its footsteps.

There was a game in the arcades around the time of Dragon's Lair that was very similar. It had anime style animation that started with two guys running (I think they were robbing a bank?) and you had to jump over objects (I think the game actually yelled at you to "jump"). Then they would get in a car and you had dodge other cars. I tried this game several times and was only able to play for about 12 seconds each time. Absolutely hated games like that!

Anyone know what the heck I'm thinking of?

SallyNasty wrote:
Gravey wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Yeah, this too. I've even bought two copies over the last couple years, need a spare?

Sure - we could play them through together and compare notes!

That's good! But one of the copies is the PS2 port. That's bad. But it's physical media, so it can be shared. That's good! But the PS2 port is also cursed. That's bad.

Curse of the Azure Bonds
Mechwarrior 2
Quake
Diablo
Age of Kings
World of Warcraft

Sorry I can't put UO or EQ in there because as I look back at them, though I played them a lot and have a lot of classic memories from playing them, there was a lot of chore, fumbling with UI, death penalties, trains, camping and aimless wandering that nostalgia so quickly forgets. So I reason that I played EQ or UO for 2 years a piece but only enjoyed 6 months of each. Whereas WoW I've played since launch with only a ~9 month break and enjoyed 4.75 years out of the 5.5 years.

Ooh.. yeah, Azure Bonds is another one for me.

Gravey wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
Gravey wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I really need to play Deus Ex one of these days.

Yeah, this too. I've even bought two copies over the last couple years, need a spare?

Sure - we could play them through together and compare notes!

That's good! But one of the copies is the PS2 port. That's bad. But it's physical media, so it can be shared. That's good! But the PS2 port is also cursed. That's bad.

Or i could just spend the 5 bucks on steam to pick it up and we can be game-buddies. I can't handle the ancient voodoo curse of the PS2 ports.

Another great article. For me it'd have to be:

Road Rash 2 - I never owned a Megadrive growing up, only the lesser Master System. It was at the mercy of friends that I was able to get access to that superior hardware and more importantly Road Rash 2. 17 or 18 years on I still find snippets of the soundtrack playing in my head and wonder if I'd be able to beat it now that I'm a "seasoned" gamer.

Championship Manager - It was a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet based simulation of football. It didn't matter. For whole weekends a friend an I would battle it out, me in charge of Chelsea him at the head of Arsenal. We never won, we were always fighting for 6 or 7th in the table (much like the respective clubs at the time, so I guess it was an accurate simulation if nothing else). I haven't played a sports management sim of any kind in well over a decade, but I can still remember that you definitely wanted to pick up Walter Paz from the Argentinian youth squad. Oh, and that taking over at Chelsea released Ruud Gullit on a free transfer and that you'd do well to snap him up.

Street Fighter 3- Third Strike - One of the main contributors to my lack-lustre academic performance. This along with Power Stone 2 on the Dreamcast pretty much ruined the chances of anyone living in my flat of having a career in academia. 9 years on, we still play Street Fighter (although more commonly the fourth one) when we get together, but I think we're all yet to use anything we learned at University

Fallout 2 - Dogmeat (if you were lucky), Marcus and Goris. It remains the benchmark by which I measure my RPG experiences. Nothing has engrossed me in quite the same way as it managed some ten or so years ago.

PaladinTom wrote:

Starcross

Amen to the Infocom games. Anyone who genuinely figured out how to get the babelfish in their ear without resorting to hints knows what it is like to conquer adversity. They were tough and unrelenting and required the user to use REAL LIFE tools like pencil and paper and imagination.

Myst and the clones that came thereafter were pretty important too, not least because I played them over long weekends with the woman-who-was-to-become-my-wife.

Marathon - Anyone who reviews my posts will know that this was a big one for me - in many ways much better than Halo. Deep, moody, and with plenty of FPS gore and text instead of cutscenes.

Nathaniel wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

Starcross

Amen to the Infocom games. Anyone who genuinely figured out how to get the babelfish in their ear without resorting to hints knows what it is like to conquer adversity. They were tough and unrelenting and required the user to use REAL LIFE tools like pencil and paper and imagination.

Myst and the clones that came thereafter were pretty important too, not least because I played them over long weekends with the woman-who-was-to-become-my-wife.

Marathon - Anyone who reviews my posts will know that this was a big one for me - in many ways much better than Halo. Deep, moody, and with plenty of FPS gore and text instead of cutscenes.

The babel fish puzzle was just cruel, if you didn't already know rule #1 of adventure games: 'pick up *everything*'. Getting the mail at the beginning of the game was a step so easy to miss.

krev82 wrote:

And probably most importantly (now I'm REALLY showing my age) a few bbs games;

Legend of the red dragon

Falcon's Eye

Man I miss falcon's eye and LORD, sure some websites try to emulate the old bbs days but it's just not the same.

Oh man, you are right to bring those up. It's easy to neglect BBS games since they have zero visible (visible!) impact on current gaming—even old school adventure gaming has got a bit of a renaissance lately—but no one's revisiting LoRD or Toril. (MMOs are the evolution, but they obviously don't have the look or feel of MUDs, which were only a fraction of BBS games.)

My go-to BBS games were Usurper and The Pit, and it would be criminal of me to forget how they've shaped the gamer I am now. Gameplay aside, their other lasting effect was inspiring the desire to write my own games. I could go to school and program my own small text- and ANSI-based games in Turbo Pascal that looked or played just like the BBS games I had been playing the night before. That kind of creative emulation and generally getting my hands dirty mucking about with the guts of games, on a tech level that let me have a finished product that looked like the "real" thing, was really affecting in how I consider video games.

PaladinTom wrote:
mousepad42 wrote:

For every good game there has to be a couple rotten eggs that really makes you turn away from certain games. For me, Dragon Lair is probably the one game that embeded a disgust for every game that followed in its footsteps.

There was a game in the arcades around the time of Dragon's Lair that was very similar. It had anime style animation that started with two guys running (I think they were robbing a bank?) and you had to jump over objects (I think the game actually yelled at you to "jump"). Then they would get in a car and you had dodge other cars. I tried this game several times and was only able to play for about 12 seconds each time. Absolutely hated games like that!

Anyone know what the heck I'm thinking of?

Cliff Hanger. I only remember because it used clips from Lupin III.

doublepost

Gravey wrote:
krev82 wrote:

And probably most importantly (now I'm REALLY showing my age) a few bbs games;

Legend of the red dragon

Falcon's Eye

Man I miss falcon's eye and LORD, sure some websites try to emulate the old bbs days but it's just not the same.

Oh man, you are right to bring those up. It's easy to neglect BBS games since they have zero visible (visible!) impact on current gaming—even old school adventure gaming has got a bit of a renaissance lately—but no one's revisiting LoRD or Toril. (MMOs are the evolution, but they obviously don't have the look or feel of MUDs, which were only a fraction of BBS games.)

My go-to BBS games were Usurper and The Pit, and it would be criminal of me to forget how they've shaped the gamer I am now. Gameplay aside, their other lasting effect was inspiring the desire to write my own games. I could go to school and program my own small text- and ANSI-based games in Turbo Pascal that looked or played just like the BBS games I had been playing the night before. That kind of creative emulation and generally getting my hands dirty mucking about with the guts of games, on a tech level that let me have a finished product that looked like the "real" thing, was really affecting in how I consider video games.

Yup, that BBS scene was incredibly vibrant and open; my go-to games were LORD, TW2002 and TeleArena.