PC Nostalgia (Pick a moment in time)

I'm not sure what hardware was around at the time I'd pick (I'd guess the first dual core Athlon CPUs), but towards the end of the time when actually "being online" was a thing. You had to actually actively go online and sit at a terminal, no Facebook or whatsapp, only MSN Messenger (RIP) and Myspace (Not so RIP...). There was something more immersive about the internet back then. Now it's so ingrained in everyday life that I don't ever truly feel offline, therefore I can't ever truly feel online. When I think about it, when I joined here in Jan 2006, that was the time.
 
1997. 4 of us playing Goldeneye after school multiplayer on facility.

Facility.jpg
 
1999, 24hr University PC Labs, we had Quake and Starcraft on 100mb ZipDisks. Napster and a T3 internet connection. I also need the stamina which meant 40 hour gaming sessions were doable.
 
1994 Seeing Microsoft Encarta for the first time. I remember it had a lot of information on films and had video form films like JAWS that you could watch. Before the internet this was amazing.

1995 / 96 playing DooM II Coop and Dike Nuken 3D over serial cable.

1999 Being in HMV and flicking through PC Zone and seeing a game called Half-Life got 96%. Went to the PC games and there it was. I bought it without knowing anything about it other than seeing the score and screenshots. Was blown away.

2000 / 2001 playing Team fortress classic on a Saturday afternoon over modem. Then seeing information of something called CS
 
Around 1995 when I had a Mitac 486 DX2/66 PC, and was amazed by the video graphics on 'Megarace' (which was bundled with the PC) and then a short while later when I played C&C. You can include the late 90's early 2000's with Red Alert 2 : Yuri's Revenge - which, to this day, I think is my favourite game of all time.
 
So many for me -

My Cousin (big gamer and a lot older than me) showing me Turrican for the first time, getting a Country and Western cassette music tape out my dads car to write over it so I could have a copy.
Booting up my Amiga 1200 on Xmas morning, had to go play in my Nan's bedroom as it was the only other TV in the house and she wanted to watch the Queens speech, playing Oscar and Dennis blew me away upgrading from my C64.
My Cousin showing me 3 computer LAN setup at his mates house where they were all playing Red Alert 2 and Total Annihilation. Sleeping over at his house playing Robocop (3d) till 2am.
So many many hours on Cannon Fodder.
Getting my own first Tiny PC from the Tiny shop - and uninstalling sound drivers the very next day not having a clue what I'd done wrong.
Putting a Voodoo 3 graphics card in my Tiny PC.
Building my first PC with SLI 6600gt's in hope to get over 30fps in BF2.

I'm now 34 and a new title I've been following for a while still makes me feel like that 7 year old kid booting it up for the first time. TW3 was the last one to memory to give me the "Turrican feeling". PC gaming is my main hobby in life and always will be, it would probably be the last possession I would get rid of.

Now don't get a lot of time, but makes me smile when my 3 year old climbs to get on my knee so he can press the W key and run up the wings of the plane in the PUBG lobby, makes me wonder if he'll love PC gaming when he's older.
 
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darael said:
The sound of MFM harddrives and being able to watch the actuator turns the clock back for me:
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We had an apricot 386sx with an MFM drive, I remember it having trouble reading the drive when it was too cold :d

One of my favourite times for the PC was probably around the era of System Shock 2, with the first generation of games that made use of both 3d cards AND 3d audio with the old Soundblaster Live, to this day SS2 played in a darkened room with 4.1 speakers is probably still the most atmospheric game I've played (Bioshock is a close second).
The cargo hold with the droids in their crates, and when you first encounter the spider type monsters were excellent examples of the use of audio to enhance the gameplay.
 
Mid/late nineties for me.

Doom 2
Quake
Command & Conquer Red Alert
Unreal
Carmageddon 2
Mech Warrior 2
Blood
XBTF

Was an amazing time to be part of the burgeoning PC/tech gaming world.
 
I remember pulling all nighters at my friends when command and conquer red alert came out, we played that thing to death. Quake also gets a very special mention too as that was what REALLY got me into FPS
 
UTmaniac said:
2000, playing Instagib DM through the night on the uni super-speedy internet at the time, with the original Unreal Tournament. Just as internet gaming was in its infancy.
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Aneskimo said:
I remember pulling all nighters at my friends when command and conquer red alert came out, we played that thing to death. Quake also gets a very special mention too as that was what REALLY got me into FPS
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Not into Champions?
 
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