Gaming

I first started playing games in 1980 when my father brought one of the first IBM PCs and put the disc in for the Wizard and the Princess by Sierra-online. This got my interest, and since he was working for Control Data Corporation, he began to bring home PLATO terminals and hook into the PCA network via the 300 baud modem. I also remember playing Adventure/Colossal Cave, Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, Rogue, Wizardry, the original King’s quest and more.

This included playing Azteca on the Apple ][e, MULE and Elite on the C64, and other games on the VIC-20. We also had an Intellivision (my favorite game was Tron) and my friend had a Coleco. Of course it’s more fun to play your friend’s game system than your own, besides they had Donkey Kong, and we didn’t!

So I spent the 80’s playing everything I could. While I had friends who played pen and paper D&D, I preferred to play computer games, with Wizardry being the first real “beefy” PC fantasy RPG.

Those were good times!


Played Games

  1. Hi! 😀 I found your site mostly by accident (curious about GD FG character builds). Like you, I have a long gaming history that began when dad took me to where the *new* Melbourne (Tullamarine) Airport was being constructed in the late 60’s. The control Tower was being fitted out & he got permission for me too look at the computer (a big mainframe, I forget what brand). The Tech guy was friendly & was OK with my curiosity. I kept out of his way & didn’t nag him too much. So, after lunch he asked if I’d like to play a game! Well DUH!! It was only tic-tac-toe (naughts & crosses) via paper tape… But I was forever hooked! After that, I played Colossal Caves, Star Trek & a few others via KSR-33 Terminal on PDP-11 & a VAX-750 in College. I created a couple of my own simple games also. I built my own computer from a magazine kit in 1976. Which led me to become an “Industrial Design Engineer” (retired now). I had a BBC B+ (my fave at the time) & loved Elite & others. Also had a C64, TRS-80 & Apple II. Been a serious gamer ever since! Anyway, that’s enough for an intro! Book marked your site & will have fun here I can see. And thanks for the GD FG info. Very useful! 😀 😀 (On Steam & twitter as Kryten42)

  2. Nice to meet you Kryten, and thanks for the comment! Always great to meet an “original school” gamer! Not many of us out there. What games are you currently playing, and do you now prefer ARPGs, MMOGs, FPSs, etc?

  3. You are welcome. I was pleased to find you! I’ve played so many, that a new games doesn’t take long at all to master. The gift of experience! 😉 😀

    If you checked my Steam account, you saw the games I have there. I put off using Steam as long as I could! Until a couple of games I really wanted to play forced me to get an account in 2017. Not I have over 300 there (though most I only got with a heavy discount from places like Humble Bundle, fanatical, GG Deals etc.) Most games today are not worth full price, especially the price of DLC’s! EA is one of the Worst. There have been some good exceptions, mostly from Indi dev’s.

    I am technically retired, so I have a lot of time on my hands. 🙂

    Games I play vary a lot. Currently:
    Neverwinter (I took a year off because it got so buggy it was unplayable! Latest major update – Uprising – seems to have finally fixed those (after Months of New World/ARC blaming my (& all the others complaining) hardware, in spite of many different hardware builds people were using. Just like EA!) Only issue with NW now is that you need to own a Bank to really play it, or have a LOT of patience to grind away.

    * Grim Dawn
    * Destiny 2 (the enemy *AI* is so predictable, it’s fun sometimes to just run around punching them out instead of shooting them! As a bonus, it annoys other players that paid a fortune for the overpriced DLC’s!)
    * Diablo III RoS
    * Dragon Age: Inquisition
    * Mass Effect series (including Andromeda, though it has bugs that EA announced would not be fixed. That’s pathetic (but SOP for EA) for a game that’s barely 2 yrs old! But it was *free* via Origin Access, which is the only way I will get EA games.)
    * Titan Quest: Atlantis,
    * Endless Space 2
    * Starpoint Gemini: Warlords
    * Deus Ex: mankind Divided
    * Glass Masquerade (and GM 2) – Beautiful puzzle game that is very cheap & good for when I just want to take it easy & have fun).

    Others I play now & then:
    * Startopia (old favourite released on Steam & works fine with Win10). YES! 😉
    * Homeworld Remastered
    * Assassin’s Creed IV – Black Flag
    * Torment: Tides of Numenera
    * Middle Earth: Shadow of War
    * Medal of Honor (series)
    * Tropico 4/5

    and several others. I have almost 1,000 games. More if I could my old DOS/Win9x & XP games on CD. Still play Command & Conquer (I got The Ultimate Collection on sale for AU$15 at a local game store) & discovered it was only a code to redeem via Origin Access, which is why I installed their Launcher. Then decided to pay $38/yr for Access (Basic), because it was cheaper than buying the Mass Effect & other series games I wanted).

    I guess if I had a preference… It’s tough, I like a variety of game times. … Maybe Tower Defence type games, by a hair. I just got “Siege of Centauri”, but haven’t really played it seriously yet. Spending time on Neverwinter while I can, just in case they break it again!

    I think that’s more than you probably wanted to know! 😀

    What do you like to play now?

  4. That’s a great list! Right now I’m immersed in Borderlands 3 – probably my favorite franchise, next to Fallout. My favorite ARPG is Path of Exile; I go back to that with every new league. I also really enjoy No Man’s Sky and Grim Dawn. Don’t really play any MMOGs anymore; think I got burned out on them. I try to focus on just 1-2 games at a time. Once I get worn out on Borderlands 3 I’ll probably go back to NMS and PoE 🙂

  5. Oops! Sorry for the typos… I was too lazy to get my glasses in another room! Got then this time. 😉

    I love the BL series! Still play BL2 & The Pre-Sequel now & then. 😀 Haven’t decided on BL3 yet. Mostly because I really have too many others taking up my time now, so it would be a waste of money right now. And Stardock & THQ Nordic have big sales on now. Decided to get Star Control: Origins & SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest. I got No Man’s Sky a couple weeks ago, but haven’t played it yet. Looks good & reviews are positive. It’s on my play list!

    For some reason, I can’t launch Diablo 3. It’s happened before after an update… Usually fixed eventually. Doesn’t happen to everyone. I just seem to be unlucky! *shrug*

    A new GD FG build (Death Night @ lvl 38 – That’s on a stand-alone GOG version. I have GD on Steam also, but not the FG expansion yet.) is also taking up much of my time (and a Paladin build on NW @ lvl 43. Recently joined a Guild after 2 disastrous Guild’s in 2017/18. I swore I wouldn’t, but they want to help new players & wanted some experienced lvl 80 ppl to help. They are also part of an Alliance. So far, it’s been good.) Also helping a couple of newbies get the hang of Destiny 2. I have 3 lvl 30 char’s there.

    Destiny 2 is moving from Battle-Net to Steam soon. Will be interesting to see what happens! (Good I hope). 😉 I wanted to play Season 18 on D3, but can’t launch. Sent the error log, but haven’t heard anything yet. *Shrug*

    Speaking of burn out… I understand that. Same for me on some game types. Probably why I like TD’s now. Haven’t played any since… Defense Grid / DG2 I think. Now I’m playing Siege of Centauri & Deathtrap.

    So yeah… Pretty busy. Gaming is therapy for me in fact. It’s complicated. 😉

    Anyway… Maybe I’ll see you online some time! Been reading your reviews & the games you created “way back when”. I’ve been thinking of creating another, but unsure of what & how serious I want it to be. There was a big sale on Unity last year & I grabbed a license just out of curiosity. Also some discounted tutorial vid’s from experts. Also have UE4. I’ve used UE2 & UE3. A good friend is a graphics artist specializing on 3D gaming models etc. on Renderosity. He keeps nagging me to do it! LOL

    Have fun, whatever you play! And thanks for the chat. 😀

  6. Definitely try No Man’s Sky and check out the guide I wrote – it’ll make a huge difference in the fun factor (and let you really explore and enjoy on your first playthrough).

    Borderlands 3 is awesome; it has a lot of issues, but I love it. I’m putting the finishing touches on a complete review and should have it posted in the next day or two.

    Strange about Diablo 3; Blizzard is usually pretty good about making sure their products actually work LOL. Perhaps it’s time for an OS reinstallation or new PC?

    Let me know if you pursue any game development, and if you try out BL3! I sure wish Unity was available 10 years ago… it would have changed A LOT heh

  7. I decided to do a Destiny 2 run after my post above, it still uses BN until Oct 10. I got an update notice for 2.6.6A (about 150 MB) that fixed: “Several bugs regarding Battle.net Services and Localization have been addressed”. Seems I wasn’t the only one. 😉 D3 works now. That’s pretty much what happened last time. *shrug* Too late to try Season 18. And I’m busy with NW & others anyway.

    I will give NMS a shot this week. Let you know how it goes. 😀

    My system is pretty good IMHO. 😉 I built this one over Xmas 2015 – Feb 2016.) You can see the details here on Overclock:

    https://www.overclock.net/forum/rigbuilder.php?do=rig&action=view&id=6699234

    I was thinking of building a replacement later this year, but it’s working well & has no *hardware issues*. I’m thinking of moving to AMD again, but I’ll wait until their (and Intel’s & Nvidia’s latest) mature, especially the gfx cards. Maybe later in 2020.

    I also have a high-end Dell Precision M6800 Covet Edition w/ Core i7-4940MX & NVIDIA Quadro K5100M + 8GB GDDR5 (that I scored at less than half-price in an Auction from a Gov. lease @ start of 2015. Had an extended 5yr warranty which just expired). I also have a Venue 11 Pro 7140 Tablet I got on eBay, was only 3 Mth’s old. I upgraded the RAM & SSD’s in both. All run W10 & my PC & Notebook dual-boot Linux as well & PC runs W7 in a VMware VM on Linux (better performance than on W10).

    Somewhat surprisingly, several games run better (higher frame-rates & other things) on the M6800. And some I didn’t think would work well, work on the Venue (almost none of the big games of course. Though GD does OK.)

    Well, I’m off to help a newbie in NW for awhile. Thanks again! I’ll look forward to your reviews. I hope you are enjoying your games! 😀

  8. Definitely let me know how your experience with No Man’s Sky goes!

    AMD has definitely come a long ways, but I would still stick with Intel 🙂 I like to build a new system every 2 years, so I’ll probably be making another one next year; by then the 2080 GTX’s should be about 50% of the price they are today and we should have a lot more DX12 games.

    Enjoy and have a great weekend!

  9. Hi David,

    I played NMS for a couple hours on Wednesday, need a few more runs I think to get the feel for it. It’s definitely interesting. So I’m looking forward to getting the hang of it. I played a couple hours of Outpost Zero which is sort of similar (some parts conceptually anyway) now that it’s been released & had a lot of updates since. 🙂

    I got a STEAM notice a couple days ago that Destiny 2 was ready to play. Wasn’t expecting that until Oct. 10. I had to d/l it again, ~90GB! But it’s so different! They expanded it a lot. I am surprised! The first 3 DLC’s are included now (only the two main expansions need to be paid for).

    I bought CONTROL. Install it tomorrow. Looks like my kind of game… Insane! LOL

    Saw your BL3 review. Nice! It’s on my “get” list! Agree with the STEAM vs. Epic. I signed up with Epic earlier this year (I think it was for the Alan Wake series). It’s annoying that I have to have 6 game managers/launchers… But a minor one all things considered. Also saw your NMS review. Helped me get a grip on the game. 🙂

    Take care & have fun gaming! 😀

  10. Nice – let me know what you think of NMS! I might give Destiny 2 a try – we’ll see as BL3 is wearing me out a bit on the FPS thing heh (but it is a great game). A nice patch for NMS came out today – I like how they’re updating it every few weeks. I’ll probably go back to NMS/PoE shortly to take a break from BL3.

  11. I was planning to play NMS on the weekend… But I saw an *impulse buy* on Epic I couldn’t resist!! And it was worth it. 😀

    Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered — I loved the 2009 version & this is much better! That rarely happens. 😉 The original crew (including Annie Potts) reprise their roles & helped with the writing, voices etc. as it represents the 35th anniversary of the Movie. Unfortunately, the AU exchange rate really sux, But it was worth it. 🙂

    And Destiny 2 — The base game is still “free to play” (but I do not know if new players will get the 3 DLC’s or not, that’s a bit vague). Still, there is a lot to keep you busy! I’m pleased with the way my main character build is gaining experience point’s (which relates to farming/getting better gear & more powerful weapons etc.) The improvements are… surprising (given what a frustrating mess the original Destiny was). Plus they increased the base max level from the ridiculous 20 (a bid to force players to buy the DLC’s, Expansions & Seasons Passes to get to the max of 50 for decent gear). Now even the base game can level to 50. 🙂

    IF curious, My D2 info is here:
    https://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/Index/3/4611686018485656025/Kryten42

    My main character, a Warlock, has the best gear (and a new air/space ship). 😉
    https://www.bungie.net/en/Gear/3/4611686018485656025/2305843009410532166

    I’ve been asked by a few newcomers to D2 to make a vidio of a run they’re having problems with. Not sure about that… A decent event/mission run can take 15-25 min’s & I play @ 2k! It would be a BIG vid. Thinking about Twitch maybe.

    I’ve been trying to get a new blog up the bast year, but I have some medical/other issues to deal with (I don’t game 24/7, though it seems I do & I wish I could!) 😀 A “Work In Progress”.

    I will try to get back to NMS sometime this week. Promise! 😉 😀

    Thanks again! And… “Have Fun!”

  12. Nice! I’ve considered playing Destiny 2, but decided to dive back into PoE while I take a break from Borderlands 3 (waiting for balance fixes and the October Event content). It’s one of the most popular streams on Twitch and has good ratings. I’ll let you know if I dive into it – if I do, I’ll certainly be writing an review! 🙂 Let me know your thoughts on NMS, and definitely give BL3 a try – it’s an awesome game!

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