Adults and PC Games

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My husband is constantly asking why do I HAVE to have all the latest and greatest PC games. “Well gee, hon, just do”.

I’m 36 years old and a game junkie. There, I said it. I have shelves FULL of games. Some of which I play for hours, some I try and last 10 minutes.

  1. Are there any other addicts (to gaming) out there?
  2. If yes, what are your favorites? Why?
  3. Why do you think adults are huge gamers? PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World (magazines) are specifically geared to adults (25+) and we buy more games than the younger “group”.

Thanks everyone (now I’ll have ammo to present to my husband when Pharoah, Dark Reign 2, The Sims, Sim Theme Park (to name a few) are released in the near future.

My theory: we were exposed to it later in life. Who remembers Atari? Commadore 64? CoCo Colour? Let’s face it Pong on the family TV set is not the same as Sonic the Hedgehog.

2

I am a self professed rabid gamer (yes, I forth at the mouth and everything). I am also a game designer for my own little company (which I guess makes me el presidente as well).

I love turn based strategy games (TBS) and some real time strategy games (RTS). I also enjoy some RPGs (which is what I am currently building btw).

Not including games that I built or are building (none have gone commmercial yet, but some of them were still pretty nifty):

  1. Master of Orion (Master of Oreoes as my darling wife calls it) 1 & 2. I played MOO1 for 4 years (no, not straight but I played it regularly up until the day MOO2 came out).

  2. Half-Life (only 1st person shooter I ever was interested in enough to finish)

  3. Railroad Tycoon 2.

  4. Sid Meier’s Pirates

  5. Civilization 1 (not a big fan of 2, but it was okay)

  6. Alpha Centauri

The answer, I believe, is one of pure entertainment. Humans love to play, and not just kids. Adults require entertainment to have balance in their lives, and game playing is one form of entertainment. Typically, adult gamers are people who when they were kids had very active imaginations, and find great stimulation of their imagination through computer games. This is why I enjoy my job. I don’t see it as just making a bunch of silly games, but rather bringing something to people’s lives that will help make their world a little bit better, and help remove a little bit of the weight that is on their shoulders.

Yup. I played “River Raid” for endless hours.

Wrote my first dungeon hack “The Crimson Wizard” on the C64. As one person who saw it commented “This is surprisingly good for a game made in Basic.” (The secret was a highly modularized program).

What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?

3

My husband should respond to this thread. He has a subscription to Computer Gaming World and spends waaay too much time on the PC… but he’s not a Doper.

I’m not rabid, but I thought I’d respond since I’m 30…

My faves:

  1. Magic: The Gathering - I could play it 24-7.
  2. Civ 2 - I totally suck at it, but I like it.
  3. Yahtzee

Wow, I’m a gaming wimp.

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, dogs are from Pluto. - Anonymous

4

OK. I’ll admit to this one.

  1. Are there any other addicts (to gaming) out there?
    My name is Coldfire, I’m 26 years old and I’m a PC Game Addict.

  2. If yes, what are your favorites? Why?

  • Need for Speed series, especially III
  • MicroProse Grand Prix II (I hear II is coming up and it’s supposedly AWESOME)
  • ToCa2 Touring Car racing
  • Tomb Raider Series
  • the first Leisure Suit Larry (can you say “internal speaker” ?)
  • Doom/Duke Nuke’em kind of games
  1. Why do you think adults are huge gamers?
    Dunno. I’m a gamer, not a psychologist :wink:

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
5

me too.

Big Civ II fan. I can sit for HOURS and play. It’s addictive!

Also, DOOM II, and too a lesser extent, Unreal (amazing graphics).

Caeser II. Railroad Tycoon. SimCity.

Almost any strategy type game, I like.

Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.

6

My favorite games are strategy games. I love:
Civ 1 & 2
Warcraft 1 & 2
Starcraft
MOO2
any Sim game
Gettysberg is ok…but weird
and right now I’m having fun with Driver and any multiplayer game that my college floor can get it’s hands on. We’ve played Half-Life, Rainbow Six and Quake 3 especially.
My personal favorite right now is Hidden and Dangerous…unfortunately it is rather buggy also has problems with NVidia cards and DirectX 7, both of which I have. :frowning: But the gameplay is awesome, the missions are really cool and it’s very realistic.

7

I dunno what the mass appeal of the games is; I just know they’re fun to play. I might have been considered psychologically addicted to them at one point-- I would play for many hours straight, neither eating nor sleeping nor going to class-- but I’m no longer the junkie that I once was.

I’m mostly partial to RPGs and strategy games. Other types have to be pretty special for me to pay attention to them. Some current favorites, off the top of my head:

RPG:
Star Control II
Fallout
Fallout 2
Might & Magic 4 - 7 (#3 sucks)

Strategy:
Dungeon Keeper
Starcraft
Populous
Civilization
Master of Magic

Action:
Duke Nukem 3d (“Hail to the King, baby!”)
Jedi Knight
Tie Fighter
Starsiege Tribes
I had an Atari 2600 when I was a kid. The games I spent the most time on included Pitfall, Yar’s Revenge, and a couple others I can’t recall at the moment. (Maybe I’ll call home and ask Mom to dig up that shoebox full of cartridges.)

Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.

8

Starting way-back-when:

With the Texas Instruments 99-4A:
Parsec
Alpiner

After I made the jump to a 386:
Silent Service 2*
Civilization 1
Task Force 1942
Quest for Glory 1
Railroad Tycoon
SimCity (the real Simcity)

Games I religiously play today:
Silent Service 2
Civ 2
Caesar 3 (great game)
Railroad Tycoon 2
SimCity 3000
Age of Empires 1 and 2
Police Quest (1 - 4)
C&C Red Alert
Pirates! Gold
Master of Orion (not MOO2, just MOO1)
A10 Tank Killer 2
Fighting Steel

I need to get a life.

Jeremy…

I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine - Kurt Vonnegut

9

Lots of the listed games can be played over the Internet. Anybody up for a few good multiplayer games? (It’s been a long time since I had a good deathmatch…)

10
  1. Are there any other addicts (to gaming) out there?

Yup (with hand raised)

  1. If yes, what are your favorites? Why?

Roleplaying and puzzle-solving as to why. My favorites are any that involve those concepts. Starting with Scott Adams, Infocom, the SSI AD&D games, Bard’s Tales, etc way back when. Now I enjoy some of the 3D stuff (especially ones with puzzle-solving), the Fallout games, the current AD&D games, and some of the strategy combat games like AOE.

  1. Why do you think adults are huge gamers? PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World (magazines) are specifically geared to adults (25+) and we buy more games than the younger “group”.

Various reasons I would guess. The near-25 age group had the Atari, C-64, and lots of other electronic game systems (yes I include the C-64 in that category) when we were younger. Games have also evolved since then to keep up with the maturing audience that grew up on them. I don’t know about the rest of you, but often I play computer RPG’s to escape from the real world life of work, stress, etc.

11

I used to be an addict now I play very few and not often.

Alpha Centauri
Civ 2
Pandora’s Box
Age of Empires 2

Magnificent to behold - Greatly to be praised.

12

I rarely get into fancy payware computer games (although I loved Warcraft II). However, I sometimes scare myself with my ability to spend hours and even days on stupid windows games. I am a Minesweeper freak, and I can go into a trance-like state playing Tetris. I could play solitare while the house was on fire. This really worries me sometimes.

13

Oh yeah. Here’s a topic I can comment on.

a. Am I hooked? Take a guess.

b. Why am I hooked? I think the other posters here have covered it. The main thing I remember is that I enjoyed games on the Commodore PC more than the console games at the time (Atari, ColecoVision and Intellivision), because the PC games were a little more strategic overall.

Favorite Atari Games:
River Raid.

Missle Command.

Popeye.

Indiana Jones. The first time I beat this game, I felt like I had just kicked Kasperof’s(sp?) ass.

Several others whose names I can’t remember;Activision made kick ass games for the Atari console.

Favorite Commodore 64 Games:

Gunship. This Apachi simulator was WAY ahead of its time.

Wizard’s Crown and Wizard’s Crown : The Eternal Dagger.

Questron. This game still has one of the best endings of any video game.

M.U.L.E. I got the Commodore emulator just to play this game again.

AD&D’s Pool of Radience and Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Elite. Oh hell yeah.

Favorite PC Games

Duke Nuken 3D.

Strife.

Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2.

Fallout 1 and 2.

Command and Conquer.

Total Annihilation and TA: Core Contingency.

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. How cool is this game? You get to thwack other players with a light saber,use force powers like Speed and Lightning, use cool combos like immobolizing your enemy with Force Grip then shooting them with a rocket launcher…

Wing Commander: Prophecy.

Carmaggedon. Wanna make unwanted guests leave shuddering? Play this little puppy in front of them.

Diablo.

Half Life.

MOO and MOO2.

Master of Magic. From the makers of MOO and MOO2, this game combined cool unit combat with the general building set up of Civilization.

Entrepreneur. Now I know how Bill Gates fills. It’s fun to buy the planet.

Civilization 2.

I think I’m getting over my addiction. I simply can’t play a game for 10 hours straight like I used to.

You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.

14

Ha! I laugh at your attempts to scare guests. Begone before I taunt you for a second time.

Seriously, you want to make them really wonder about you.

  1. Start Carmaggedon.
  2. Play Caramaggeon.
  3. Start giggling softly as you run people over.
  4. Point at the screen exclaiming “Oh, that was a good one” “Did you see him splatter?” “Watch what happens when I do this … ha ha ha!”
  5. Get louder until you are laughing maniacally at the “splutch!” sounds as the pixelated people become red smears on your monitor.

It took me weeks to convince them not to throw me in the loony bin. Those fools. Heh heh … heh heh ha … ha ha ha ha … muwah HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?

15

Hehehehehe…a fellow Carmadeddon fan. Yes, our cult grows!

I really enjoy the Splat Pack. Show someone the race at the Race Track, when you jump your car into the stands and mow down 50 or so spectators in the bleachers. Ooohhh…the stares you get then.

“Heh. Watch me make the crippled old man hobble.”

I saw my friend play C2. In that one, you can nudge the pedestrians, drag them in front of your car, then finally put them out of their misery.

God Lord, I’m a sick bastard.

You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.

16

Anybody remember the game Lemmings? This was a brilliant game. And sooo addicting.

17

And cruelly enough they are coming out with a new Lemmings game. Those evil monsters. Lemmings is far too addictive. It should be regulated by some federal agency.

18

I am a gaming fool and spend a good amount of time playing games.

Why I do it? It is cheap and very entertaining. You pay for the game and then can play it all the time if you like without spending quarter after quarter

Games I play (some are emulators, some are new)
-Fallout 1 and 2
-DungeonKeeper 1 and 2
-Archon (This one…if any have played it against the computer…would make you wish you could punch your computer in the mouth and vow to hate unicorns forever)
-Everquest (I have taken a break but this one would have been called the neverending story if it was not taken)
-Burgertime (I dunno what it is with this game but I got to keep playing it)
-Pirates Gold (PLEASE SID A SEQUEL…I BEG OF YOU)
-Suikidon 1 and 2 (108 different characters you must recruit and tons of fun)
-KaBoom (2600 game and the only one I still play religiously. Its a wrist nightmare but so damn addictive)

19

Would that there never had been HOMMII & III!

Nor they who created them ever create another for as long as they shall dwell upon this earth!

amen

Hell is Other People.

20

Expect it. Development will start in late 2000, maybe early 2001.