Gaming

I do vaguely remember something wireframe-ish but I can't recall if that was just an option or a different game I also tried googling for this game I "remember" and nothing looks anything like it. Everything has like... backgrounds. Roads. I just remember these red and possibly also blue cars and a pitch black background and maybe some markers of some sort and I guess maybe there was something to show where the heck the ground was. Or maybe one couldn't "tilt" the view. Anyway, simpler and more basic than anything I can find images of.

I remember Stunt Car Racer, the framerate was terrible even on an accelerated Amiga, but it was still pretty entertaining.

We didn't have an amiga. Dad had macs up until a few computers ago. And the games were all free demos on his computer (or stuff he got from co-workers). I didn't get my own computer until 1998 (at uni).

The only game I remember the name of was "Pathways into Darkness". Oh, no! There was a Star Wars demo but that was fairly late - it had anakin and zebulba in it. Or at least Zebulba, I guess you were kind of Anakin... (Pod racer) - and I remember Dink Smallwood, which I later also got on my own computer.

The first game I played on my own computer was Molar Maul on the Spectrum. Or was it Jumping Jack? Or maybe Ah, Diddums. The Spectrum came with a bundle of terrible games.
But I had played other better games before on other people's machines, like Match Day and Spy Hunter, and eventually I got my own copies of them too.
(EDIT: No, I did not have "Ah, Diddums". I've just watched it on YouTube and I don't recall that. I must be thinking of something else. Definitely did have the others though. )

Tonight, however, I've just been struggling with Alien Isolation.
"Seal off the stairwell!" the voice tells me.
Erm... How, exactly?
Map isn't helpful so I spend half an hour running up and down the stairs avoiding the Working Joe and the Alien trying to find the correct glowing green thing to do the job.
At least I've got the flame thrower that spooks the Alien away. Sometimes.
Now what?
"Get to the server farm... quietly," a different voice tells me.

The Alien is in the doorway!
And now it doesn't want to run away from the fire for some reason.

When was the last savepoint? That far back. Lovely.

Spectrum.... Spectre! That was the name of the car game! Not that it looks familiar now that I did a search... but it existed so it must be the one.

I'm not certain what the first game I played on my own computer was, but it was possibly Mazogs for the ZX81



After several ZX81s died they were replaced by a Spectrum and the first game I played on that was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which came with the Fighting Fantasy book of the same name but had nothing to do with the book.



It was in fact a clone of Mazogs with better graphics, which was funny because I also had Maziacs on the Spectrum which was also the same as Mazogs.

 

I also never had any of those games Valence mentioned with my Spectrum (though I think I did at some point get Molar Maul and Spy Hunter).

I'm so glad games have advanced...

Charlotte wrote:

I'm so glad games have advanced...

...and got easier. Trying to do pixel-perfect jumps every time is not something I'd find fun today.

They advanced to the point where they are often completely broken on release and need several patches before they are even playable