There’s a hilarious playthrough of King’s Quest V that brings it all back to me online somewhere - god, I’d forgotten how damned arbitrary and random and cruel those games used to be.
Heh, makes me think of Final Fantasy 8. The TV commercials were basically a splice of those 3 famous FMVs of the game : the duel between Squall and Seifer, the grand ball, and what’shername in a flower field. It looked gorgeous.
Boy was the actual game a shock 
I still have all of my old computer games proudly displayed in a bookcase*, including the entire Ultima series (except Ultima I, I only have the '86 re-release of that one). I just took at look at my collection, to see which boxes are the largest, and as I suspected: Might And Magic IV & V. 11" x 9 1/2" x 2 1/8".
*Why, yes, I am single. How did you know?
There was a period where games retained the big box, but stopped coming with awesome extras. So you just had one jewel case and maybe a quickstart guide rattling around in a giant box. So it’s not the giant boxes I miss, it’s all the cool extra stuff.
I remember my copy of Jane’s Longbow came with 3 manuals. One on helicopter flight dynamics and general piloting concepts, a giant one that covered in detail every avionics and weapons system on the apache, and one that had pictures and a writeup on the capabilities of pretty much every vehicle in the Soviet arsenal. I’m pretty sure after reading through those manuals, in a pinch, I could fly an Apache and take out a significant chunk of the Canadian army.
My last cool feely was from Silent Hunter 3 from 2005. I got a post-sized map of convoy routes and air coverages across the north Atlantic.
Yeah, I remember. I still remember when PC games came on 5 1/4 inch diskettes (sometimes it would be a whole bundle of the things) too. Anyone remember playing Wizardry 1 where you had to boot the several disks and save to another diskette? Or Bards Tale, the original D&D gold box stuff or the old InfoCom games?
sigh
-XT
I actually remember when I was really little I had a game that came in what must have been code or something (it was on shiny thick paper, kind of like what flash cards are printed on), I remember having to type out long strings of stuff to run it, and given that there was no disc and I had no proto-internet in my house code is really the only thing it could have been. I don’t even remember what it WAS, too much effort to play.
ETA: Though it’s entirely plausible I’m partially misremembering.
I remember when they came on cassette!
Yeah, I do too. My first ‘real’ computer was an Atari 400, though I used TSR-80’s before that (and even terminals before that). I remember loading Chop Lifter (something like that) on tape, and having it blow up half way through. Also, does anyone else remember getting computer gaming magazines with source code inside and trying to type the code into basic to run the game?
-XT
I have a copy of OS/2 Warp on 23 1.44 ‘Floppies’
hmph, I no longer have a floppy drive…which is saying somethign, there’s 7 or 8 computers in the house!
I actually still have a copy of Netware 2.0a about somewhere. Don’t think I have the key card anymore though…but it’s like 20-30 5 1/4 inch diskettes, plus you needed several diskettes to compile the OS too while doing the installation. And gods help you if one of the diskettes went bad during the install…
-XT
For some reason I had a different perspective on the reasons behind the boxes and the switch. As a retail employee, I was under the belief that the large boxes made them harder to shoplift; but with the advent of the magnetic strips that tripped the alarms, they went to smaller boxes to make production cheaper and conserve materials. Could all have been in my head, though!
I also miss all the “extras”- like the incredibly detailed manuals for simulator games- that you used to get. As you say, you could sit down and RTFM and feel like you probably could actually fly an AH-64 or a KA-50 if Your Country Needed You To Save The Day™ on short notice.
The little novellas were pretty cool, too… IIRC Alpha Centauri (already a pretty in-depth game to begin with) had quite a good one in the manual which really set the tone for the rest of the game. It’s kind of a shame they don’t really do that sort of thing anymore, but I think individual computer games used to be more of a Big Deal back in the late '90s in some ways.
I was involved in the Computer Gaming Industry at the time and my understanding was that it was about “building value”- computer games in New Zealand frequently cost $120-$150 (A lot of money, in other words, especially compared to what a game costs nowadays). The ability to put games in an oversized CD Jewel case had been around for years but it wasn’t done because consumers just couldn’t see $120+ worth of item in a CD Jewel Case. But a large box with interesting cover art and a massive manual and some feelies? Suddenly it wasn’t such an outrageous sum of money for your gaming experience.
Commodore magazine had programs that you entered as raw hex data, with a checksum at the end of each string to make sure you hadn’t made a mistake.
Exactly. I remember the hex code machine language programs as well. There were even more of a pain in the ass than the 500 line basic code ones, since it was easier to transpose or screw up hex alpha numerics. Basic was also a bit more user friendly, especially if you knew the syntax…and a hell of a lot easier to troubleshoot.
-XT
Those were the days! I remember fondly the Infocom boxes and the goodies they held, such as the pocket fluff, black peril-sensitive “sunglasses” and “Don’t Panic” button from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the smell-o-vision card (or whatever it was called) from Leather Goddesses of Phobos, the pretty blue velveteen bag from Plundered Hearts, among others. And they all came with copies of The New Zork Times (before the NYT got angry with the parody or something).
Good times.
You needed all that space to show the great 256 pixel graphics.
Some didn’t come with more than a slip of paper explaining that yes, these were CD-ROMS!
When I picked up the Doom collection back in the late 90s, it came in a box the size of a small cereal packet. Inside were 3 cds and an A5 slip of paper :dubious:
Best of all were the LucasArts collections (best picture at short notice), that had an opening flap that let you peek in at the six cds snuggled inside. A handy distraction from exams at school coming up to Christmas or birthdays.
Maxis’ stuff was always the best…huge manuals, not only loaded with information on how to PLAY the game, but on the science, biology, and theory involved in the simulation as well. Gorgeous box art, too…
I always thought it was because the computer software stores had started selling console games as well, and so there was less shelf space.