I was in college and a hardcore PC gamer!

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I started college the year after. Lost a good deal of my freshman year to Quake. Oh boy, I miss those days. Only one fps that people played, and it was amazing.

*promote the good 'ol days.

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Ah yeah. I remember qtest86 in a small computer lab on a Linux desktop machine with no audio. Haha. It was cool! I think I was a sophomore back then. Also, I remember QuakeWorld and playable on crappy dial-up modems on crappy GTE phone lines (could never get full speeds too).

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*quality

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I was 13/14, games back then were magical. Anytime I was on a plane or in the car I was reading PC Gamer or CGM drooling over the demos (or shareware!), ads, previews and reviews. Remember those days? When information on gaming was largely through print?! I still remember those Dark Forces previews, I could have shot a load. PC gaming at that point really was fucking cutting edge.

1997 & 1998 also hold a special flame in gaming for me - 1997: Ultima Online (actually learned HTML and had a website for UO cuz I was a NERD), Fallout, GTA, Age of Empires, Dungeon Keeper, Quake II, Myth (incredible multiplayer component probably even still).

1998: Starcraft, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Thief, Grim Fandango, Fallout 2, Tribes, THIEF, Unreal, Commandos.... so many innovative games back then. Now we just build on them over and over and over again

About 10 years ago I threw all those old Demo CDs/Disks out. I kind of wish I hadn't, even though I'd been lugging around years of them.

So yeah, I do remember those days! I miss PCGamer demodiscs, and the 90's gaming scene in general! Good times.

Yeah, I had to get rid of a lot of comics and discarded my magazines as well since then. And I do regret it for sure, but they were such a pain taking up space.

I definitely miss those days but I also am an avid PC gamer still. I think what I miss most about those days were the developers... I mean the studios out there back then were ahead of their time and most fell by the wayside due to publisher problems or what not. I really miss Looking Glass Studios, Black Isle & Bullfrog (& to some degree Bungie releasing something that I actually like). Those studios were irreplaceable, but again - it's all about time and place - even those publishers would have probably hit a sour note at some point and at least we never saw those notes! I remember for example that people really got tired & complained about the Infinity engine from Black Isle/Bioware games. And now look - these days we have games trying to emulate the look & feel (Pillars of Eternity)!

I have had the honor of working with some people from both BlackIsle and LookingGlass. You can find BlackIsle folk split between InXile and Obsidian Entertainment, and you can find a new LookingGlass-inspired studio (with a lot of the old crew) at Otherside Entertainment.
It's interesting to see how the right combination of people can produce such magic, because it's not like those developers have gone anywhere. But hopefully that's good news if you follow some developers for the sake of pedigree.

Yeah, I've played games from Obsidian and InXile... I'm hoping the next Planescape game lives up to it's potential. Both Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity were good but definitely not classics. Baldur's Gate 2 is still such a monolithic classic.

Otherside just announced System Shock 3 so that should be interesting, also the Ultima Underworld game sounds very exciting. It'd be cool if they could get the rights to Thief since no one has been able to come up with one as good as 1&2.