My first ever computer was a laptop powered by an AMD SX-25 CPU running the MS-DOS 5.0 operating system. More importantly DOS 5 included 2 games programmed in BASIC: Nibbles and Gorilla, which were the first computer games I ever played.
I hadn’t thought about this at all for many years until I was chatting with some technology journalist friends and the conversation turned to the first games we’d ever played. When I reached home that night I found the original MS-DOS 5.0 installation disks so I could take a photo of them.
The first commercial games I played were Stunts by Broderbund and Dune II by Westwood Studios.
Stunts certainly wasn’t realistic but the game offered a great soundtrack, sound effects, excellent control of your car, replay mode to relive huge crashes and a secret track editor so you could create your very own tracks with all the features you wanted.
Dune II is my all time favourite RTS (real time strategy) game. I played it for so many hours I can still recall the opening words and music from the game menu:
“Dune: The Building Of A Dynasty. The planet Arrakis, known as Dune. Land of sand; home of the Spice Melange. The Spice controls the Empire. Whoever controls Dune controls the Spice”
A search of Youtube shows that many other people are also nostalgic about the first MS-DOS games they ever played, sharing footage of Nibbles, Gorilla, Stunts, Dune II and many other classic games:
In the early 1990’s I remember one of the kids down the street bought the new SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) so that was the first games console I ever played on. Obviously the first game I played on the SNES was the classic Super Mario World but I can’t remember the name of the 2nd game, all I recall was that it involved helicopters on a mission flying up the screen.
In early 2009 Good Game had a look back at the SNES. Whether you’re a young or old gamer … serious or casual gamer … I suggest you watch Good Game, a TV show made by gamers for gamers broadcast by Australia’s ABC TV but also very popular with online viewers.
What was your first computer game and what features did it have that you recall fondly?
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