This is a good question, because yes, it was a "personal computer", as was the competing Sinclair ZX Spectrum I grew up with through most of the '80s. But most tend to distinguish the "home microcomputer" (as the term was more like back then) from the IBM-compatible PC.
So I'd argue that, purely in semantic terms: computer yes, PC no.
Similar to how we differentiate PCs and Macs now, say, or even PCs and smartphones/tablets etc; all those other things are definitely computers, personal ones even, but not PCs in the typical usage of the term.
It's semantics, I know. I forget if IBM ever had a trademark on the term "PC", as an aside.
It really depends on if you are talking about the marketing term, the colloquial term, or the technical term. Unfortunately everything in the computing sphere is like this.
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
edited May 3
Yeah I learned about networking for games as well. Unreal, AvP, WC3, Quake3, CounterStrike 1.5... Everything about ports and TCP/UDP connections, etc... Stupid firewalls blocking ports for games lol.
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
i had a Cisco Networking class and after we finished our classwork and had 10 minutes left or whatever, everyone would play Counterstrike together (someone had installed it on all the class PCs)
thats where I first learned that you could increase your framerate by lowering your resolution (one of my classmates was doing that to pwn everyone)
I think Zavian's post was pointed at when PC gaming went mainstream and not when it existed.
I mean, I was playing PC games from the ripe age of 3 years old (for reference, we're talking 1986). Oregon Trail, Chess, Star Trek Apple Trek (which was ridiculously good btw), Moon Patrol, Lemonade Stand, and then some dungeon crawler but I couldn't tell you which one. But I also wouldn't call any of those games mainstream, there were no other kids at school, until I think maybe when I was in the 8th grade, who played PC games, and by then it was Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. If it wasn't on their Playstation or N64 it didn't exist.
I so remember getting all my friends at school hooked on Lemonade Stand (since we had a school computer lab). Of course Oregon Trail was the de-facto game to play though (I think most kids loved that hunting part). But you are right that I think I was the only kid who had multiple Apple 2 clones in our house growing up. Not until the x86 line did I have other friends with computers at home.
Fake Edit: Man, I so remember anything that said "MECC" on it was a good educational game.
This is a good question, because yes, it was a "personal computer", as was the competing Sinclair ZX Spectrum I grew up with through most of the '80s. But most tend to distinguish the "home microcomputer" (as the term was more like back then) from the IBM-compatible PC.
So I'd argue that, purely in semantic terms: computer yes, PC no.
Similar to how we differentiate PCs and Macs now, say, or even PCs and smartphones/tablets etc; all those other things are definitely computers, personal ones even, but not PCs in the typical usage of the term.
It's semantics, I know. I forget if IBM ever had a trademark on the term "PC", as an aside.
Tandy 1000s were around a fairly common IIRC but yeah a lot of people had Commodore 64s or apple 2s in the 80s just because they were cheaper. I think back then people mostly talked about “computer gaming” and a PC was purely an IBM or compatible.
The AT (286) came out in 84 IIRC but was expensive and still pretty much limited to 16 colors and not really capable of doing much more from a gaming standpoint to justify its price compared to an Apple 2 or Commodore 64. There were cheaper IBM compatibles based on the older chipsets like the 8088, for example the PCjr and Tandy 1000, but they were even worse. Still Sierra supported them and a lot of RPG makers did too (though Ultima was primarily an apple 2 game until ultima 6).
It was really the PS/2 and its clones that made IBM compatible PCs desirable, with a 286 mated to a VGA video adapter and standard mouse. It came out in 1987, by 1990 clones were ubiquitous, and microsoft had come out with windows 3.0 for non-gaming applications. By the time I was in middle school in 1991 or so just about everyone had a 286 or 386 computer with a mouse and Dos and windows at home. DOOM IIRC was the reason a lot of people finally ditched the PS/2 clones because it wanted a 386 and 4gb of ram. The PS/2 era though was the first time I remember “PC gaming” being a thing in itself as opposed to just computer gaming in general and IBM compatibles being a major force in it.
Jealous Deva on
+4
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
edited May 3
I mean, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, my favorite game of all time, came out in 1991 (1992 for us in the US), so for me gaming was going swell by 1993. As a console game player, just for the SNES there was Star Fox, The Lost Vikings, E.V.O.: Search for Eden, Super Mario All-Stars, The 7th Saga, and of course Secret of Mana, as well as Street Fighter II Turbo, and Mortal Kombat released on consoles that year. I have no idea what was happening in PC gaming, but even the early 90s was a great time to be a video game fan, if not a PC gaming fan.
Hell, I didn't have more than maybe 10 games total for the PC until 2013 . . .
Kalnaur on
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 1 and 2 are pretty playable today honesty.
Fallout 2 is pretty hard and has a bug that spams random encounters at you at insane levels unless you have the unofficial patch or restoration project (which honestly it still spams them at you but its more manageable, outdoorsman skill and the motion detector are your freinds).
Fallout 1 is pretty freeform and completable by any character, by fallout 2 I guess they assumed you know how shit works and expect you to have a decently optimized build.
Also all the infinity engine games with enhanced editions are plenty playable today, as are Neverwinter nights and NWN2. (Stick to the expansions of NWN1 though).
I was just thinking the other day how amazingly similar the controls to NWN2 are to pathfinder:WOTR, except the camera takes a lot more tweaking to get comfortable and it deselects companions for some reason on area transition so you are better off setting them to autofollow or they’ll get left behind.
In a way I feel like Baldurs gate/baldurs gate 2/ planescape torment/NWN2/dragon age origins/Pathfinder:kingmaker/pathfinder:wrath/tyranny/pillars of eternity 1 and 2 are all just progressively updated iterations of the same game with different stories, even though they were made by several different developers.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The game is still super fun. I got through the Namek and Frieza saga, which was fun, fighting Frieza was especially fun when Goku turned SSJ for the first time. You do move faster and hit harder and every bit of feedback they can offer you will really hammer home that you're kicking his ass. Everything also happens much faster in that fight. Super Saiyan looks really awesome in-game, they did a great job with the visuals.
I also really like that while, yes, you can farm z-orbs and deer and chickens and fish and combat exp and whatnot.....you don't need to. If all you do is quests and side-quests, you're fine. And most stuff can be farmed incidentally while travelling to the next quest location. The game gushes resources onto you constantly. At certain points in the game you go to Master Roshi and talk to him and you find out that you've completed like 80 missions he had for you so here have everything. No, here, have more.
Thus far I have only three complaints about the game:
1. I hate how often enemies don't really fight you in this game. As in, they can interrupt your attacks constantly, but simultaneously they can go into super armor mode where you can still hurt them, but soon they'll explode and hit you and stun you for a while so you have to back off. It drains interest in fighting. I wish the fighting portion of the game had a little more parity in how the AI fights, would make the fighting feel more like a thing.
2. Tail fishing. It's upsetting. I really hate it. Goku does it in like the first 10 minutes of the game and I just stared at my screen. Then later, when you're Gohan, he does the same fucking thing! I can only assume that Vegeta does as well. Piccolo, at least, uses a fucking fishing rod! I refuse to fish with anyone but Piccolo as a result.
Here, if you want to see what I'm talking about, but I'm spoilering it because god I don't even know if I can post it, I DON'T KNOW OKAY:
3. Despite the increase in use of swears, they reduced some of the more violent moments in DBZ to offscreen disappearances and dissolving bodies. Like Burter doesn't get his neck crushed by Vegeta, he's just taking a nap from getting punched too hard by Goku, and later is declared dead. I dunno, gets under my skin at times.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
Yeah fallout and Baldur’s gate were hugely influenced by things outside what up to then had been the RPG genre. Adventure games, JRPGs, Star Control 2 (Which would probably be considered an RPG today but wasn’t when it was released), the later games in the Ultima series like 6, 7, and even 8 (which were always a bit of an oddity by previous western RPG standards), etc.
There were antecedents but they weren’t typical or genee defining, and afterwards for a very long time you could divide western computer RPGs into “games that play like fallout”, “games that play like baldurs gate”, and the closest to the old school first person grid games (but still pretty distinct) which was “games that play like morrowind”.
Edit: And also “games that play like diablo” if you want to count action rpgs, which may honestly have been closer to the old idea of RPGs than the narrative RPGs were.
My gungans got screwed being on a Tatooine map, then the seperatists rushed me and I knew it was all over.
Galactic battlegrounds is basically what I really want in terms of afro futurism or afro fantasy. Doesn't have to make me scream, "[AMDAC]," but just deliver a solid experience, with a decent amount of depth, and doesn't turn my pc into a cryptominer
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 1 and 2 are pretty playable today honesty.
Fallout 2 is pretty hard and has a bug that spams random encounters at you at insane levels unless you have the unofficial patch or restoration project (which honestly it still spams them at you but its more manageable, outdoorsman skill and the motion detector are your freinds).
Fallout 1 is pretty freeform and completable by any character, by fallout 2 I guess they assumed you know how shit works and expect you to have a decently optimized build.
Also all the infinity engine games with enhanced editions are plenty playable today, as are Neverwinter nights and NWN2. (Stick to the expansions of NWN1 though).
I was just thinking the other day how amazingly similar the controls to NWN2 are to pathfinder:WOTR, except the camera takes a lot more tweaking to get comfortable and it deselects companions for some reason on area transition so you are better off setting them to autofollow or they’ll get left behind.
In a way I feel like Baldurs gate/baldurs gate 2/ planescape torment/NWN2/dragon age origins/Pathfinder:kingmaker/pathfinder:wrath/tyranny/pillars of eternity 1 and 2 are all just progressively updated iterations of the same game with different stories, even though they were made by several different developers.
Counterpoint to Fallout being playable: can it possibly measure up to the best Fallout 2 Let's Play there is?
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
Been playing D&D since approximately 1980. This is absolutely true.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 1 and 2 are pretty playable today honesty.
Fallout 2 is pretty hard and has a bug that spams random encounters at you at insane levels unless you have the unofficial patch or restoration project (which honestly it still spams them at you but its more manageable, outdoorsman skill and the motion detector are your freinds).
Fallout 1 is pretty freeform and completable by any character, by fallout 2 I guess they assumed you know how shit works and expect you to have a decently optimized build.
Also all the infinity engine games with enhanced editions are plenty playable today, as are Neverwinter nights and NWN2. (Stick to the expansions of NWN1 though).
I was just thinking the other day how amazingly similar the controls to NWN2 are to pathfinder:WOTR, except the camera takes a lot more tweaking to get comfortable and it deselects companions for some reason on area transition so you are better off setting them to autofollow or they’ll get left behind.
In a way I feel like Baldurs gate/baldurs gate 2/ planescape torment/NWN2/dragon age origins/Pathfinder:kingmaker/pathfinder:wrath/tyranny/pillars of eternity 1 and 2 are all just progressively updated iterations of the same game with different stories, even though they were made by several different developers.
Counterpoint to Fallout being playable: can it possibly measure up to the best Fallout 2 Let's Play there is?
Fallout 2 makes me wish for some 40K content that features a loyal astartes engaging in some furious close quarters fisticuffs. The lore has them capable of some incredible things to let me see the cream of the crop flow like water and crush eye sockets.
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
And have, I would argue, improved the entire hobby as a result. I'd much prefer a story campaign with characters and quests and such with a DM that isn't specifically out to kill you vs . . . the original procedurally generated meat grinder dungeon game, apparently?
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
And have, I would argue, improved the entire hobby as a result. I'd much prefer a story campaign with characters and quests and such with a DM that isn't specifically out to kill you vs . . . the original procedurally generated meat grinder dungeon game, apparently?
I envy anyone who got to play Fallout 1 and 2 when they first came out.
Wouldn't slowly start to realize the wonders of western RPGs until Dragon Age Origins. I was always a console kid.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
And have, I would argue, improved the entire hobby as a result. I'd much prefer a story campaign with characters and quests and such with a DM that isn't specifically out to kill you vs . . . the original procedurally generated meat grinder dungeon game, apparently?
It wasn't just the dungeons (though a lot of the original dungeon modules were set up so you'd probably TPK before even reaching an encounter). The original DM's handbook had a section called "taxes" where Gygax explains that the DM should contrive as much as possible to take away any wealth the players accumulate before they can put it to use. He suggests charging taxes and church tithes (in the original guides your alignment was a religion complete with an ancient dead language spoken only by members and used in worship), entry and exit fees from town, passage through random properties on the way to and from dungeons, banking and trade fees in town, and my favorite one, all looted gold is in an ancient non-legal currency so you need to convert it with a hefty exchange fee.
His opinion was that the party should be able to actually afford rations, spell materials, and at most one or two minor purchases after a dungeon and the DM should strive to leave them destitute.
It's the kind of thing that would drive even the most serious table to go 100% murderhobo and install a local puppet governor.
Honestly the whole experience Gygax seemed to describe was just... Shallow in all the ways modern D&D is deep and deep in all the ways modern D&D ignores because it isn't actually fun.
Playing through metal gear rising, half these gears and ugs are shit that should have been in fallout 4, if not the institute then the brotherhood.
Fallout nv and fallout 2 had cyberdogs, ehy didnt fallout 4.
Also, this game just reminded me that TMNT 2:Secrets of the Ooze is 32 years old.
There's all kinds of weird details that make it into the gekko units such as the legs being grown with artificial muscle, coupled with a standard UGV profile in the turret.
It's funny all the media I had seen about fighting, finally getting into the fight she isn't as fan servicsy as I thought she'd be.
Runs closer to bayonetta rather than quiet
Oh Mistral? Yeah she has one of the best themes in the game:
Playing through metal gear rising, half these gears and ugs are shit that should have been in fallout 4, if not the institute then the brotherhood.
Fallout nv and fallout 2 had cyberdogs, ehy didnt fallout 4.
Also, this game just reminded me that TMNT 2:Secrets of the Ooze is 32 years old.
There's all kinds of weird details that make it into the gekko units such as the legs being grown with artificial muscle, coupled with a standard UGV profile in the turret.
It's funny all the media I had seen about fighting, finally getting into the fight she isn't as fan servicsy as I thought she'd be.
Runs closer to bayonetta rather than quiet
Oh Mistral? Yeah she has one of the best themes in the game:
Middle gear solid revengeance, where soundtrack gets more playtime than the actual game And Jetstream Sam helps a lot of people establish their sexual orientation
Fallout 2 makes me wish for some 40K content that features a loyal astartes engaging in some furious close quarters fisticuffs. The lore has them capable of some incredible things to let me see the cream of the crop flow like water and crush eye sockets.
The Space Marine game is basically this but in realtime. Punch Orks In the Face To Death Simulator 40,000 is even getting a sequel soon (with Tyranids this time).
There is a section in the game where you get a Jump Pack and a Thunder Hammer and you basically become Captain Titus, Patron Saint of Turning Orks Into Paste. It's wonderful.
Fallout 2 makes me wish for some 40K content that features a loyal astartes engaging in some furious close quarters fisticuffs. The lore has them capable of some incredible things to let me see the cream of the crop flow like water and crush eye sockets.
The Space Marine game is basically this but in realtime. Punch Orks In the Face To Death Simulator 40,000 is even getting a sequel soon (with Tyranids this time).
There is a section in the game where you get a Jump Pack and a Thunder Hammer and you basically become Captain Titus, Patron Saint of Turning Orks Into Paste. It's wonderful.
And have, I would argue, improved the entire hobby as a result. I'd much prefer a story campaign with characters and quests and such with a DM that isn't specifically out to kill you vs . . . the original procedurally generated meat grinder dungeon game, apparently?
It wasn't just the dungeons (though a lot of the original dungeon modules were set up so you'd probably TPK before even reaching an encounter). The original DM's handbook had a section called "taxes" where Gygax explains that the DM should contrive as much as possible to take away any wealth the players accumulate before they can put it to use. He suggests charging taxes and church tithes (in the original guides your alignment was a religion complete with an ancient dead language spoken only by members and used in worship), entry and exit fees from town, passage through random properties on the way to and from dungeons, banking and trade fees in town, and my favorite one, all looted gold is in an ancient non-legal currency so you need to convert it with a hefty exchange fee.
His opinion was that the party should be able to actually afford rations, spell materials, and at most one or two minor purchases after a dungeon and the DM should strive to leave them destitute.
It's the kind of thing that would drive even the most serious table to go 100% murderhobo and install a local puppet governor.
Honestly the whole experience Gygax seemed to describe was just... Shallow in all the ways modern D&D is deep and deep in all the ways modern D&D ignores because it isn't actually fun.
I have known for a while now that the entire intent Gygax had and what I want out of gaming are two diametrically opposed experiences. I'm sure there's people who would find his version fun, I just can't personally understand how.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Also if you want something closer to the classic Fallouts, Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is great. More X-Com than Fallout really, but difficulty and encounter flow felt closer to Fallout to me. Big part of that was the different way accuracy is handled - where X-Com is "fine until it's suddenly not" Daemonhunters is more "fine as long as this doesn't last more than six more turns."
And it definitely captures the kind of crazy shit Astartes can do. Near the end of the game I had Interceptors capable of 5+ kills per turn and Justicars able to punch holes through dreadnoughts and gunners able to... Shoot one or two guys if they break cover. Really melee-biased game if I'm being honest.
Back in Original and First Edition, going "by the book", you weren't even supposed to declare your own actions; you relayed that through the Caller, a sort of CAPCOM who was the only one technically allowed to speak to the GM. My charitable reading is that this was to reduce noise/cross-chatter at the table and also "take backs" when the DM hit you with the consequences.
A reminder that early D&D evolved out of skirmish-level wargaming, where players took the then-novel step of actually identifying with individual toy soldiers, rather than simply pushing them around the sand table (and into the other player's wood chipper of an army) by squads. The bit above about keeping the PCs destitute was, IMO, half to keep them "hungry for adventure" and half to simplify the combat math, because characters who are resource-poor are easier and faster to adjudicate. Surprise surprise, as time went on people chose having more varied and exciting options than "I hit him again with my sword" over tracking all the modifiers for pole-arms (which had been come up with, and then put down in tables by, serious nerds with an encyclopedic knowledge of stuff that peasants lashed to sticks to make improvised weapons), terrain, or a truly arcane Armor Class system that counted down from 10 to 0 and sometimes into the negatives.
THAC0 was fun. And by fun I mean why does this thing, that we do numerous times per turn, take four steps when everything else that we do a few times a night is just roll, add modifier, see if it's big enough?
Also if you want something closer to the classic Fallouts, Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is great. More X-Com than Fallout really, but difficulty and encounter flow felt closer to Fallout to me. Big part of that was the different way accuracy is handled - where X-Com is "fine until it's suddenly not" Daemonhunters is more "fine as long as this doesn't last more than six more turns."
And it definitely captures the kind of crazy shit Astartes can do. Near the end of the game I had Interceptors capable of 5+ kills per turn and Justicars able to punch holes through dreadnoughts and gunners able to... Shoot one or two guys if they break cover. Really melee-biased game if I'm being honest.
Also, it's the headliner for this month's humble monthly
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This is a good question, because yes, it was a "personal computer", as was the competing Sinclair ZX Spectrum I grew up with through most of the '80s. But most tend to distinguish the "home microcomputer" (as the term was more like back then) from the IBM-compatible PC.
So I'd argue that, purely in semantic terms: computer yes, PC no.
Similar to how we differentiate PCs and Macs now, say, or even PCs and smartphones/tablets etc; all those other things are definitely computers, personal ones even, but not PCs in the typical usage of the term.
It's semantics, I know. I forget if IBM ever had a trademark on the term "PC", as an aside.
Steam | XBL
Steam | XBL
thats where I first learned that you could increase your framerate by lowering your resolution (one of my classmates was doing that to pwn everyone)
I so remember getting all my friends at school hooked on Lemonade Stand (since we had a school computer lab). Of course Oregon Trail was the de-facto game to play though (I think most kids loved that hunting part). But you are right that I think I was the only kid who had multiple Apple 2 clones in our house growing up. Not until the x86 line did I have other friends with computers at home.
Fake Edit: Man, I so remember anything that said "MECC" on it was a good educational game.
Steam: betsuni7
Tandy 1000s were around a fairly common IIRC but yeah a lot of people had Commodore 64s or apple 2s in the 80s just because they were cheaper. I think back then people mostly talked about “computer gaming” and a PC was purely an IBM or compatible.
The AT (286) came out in 84 IIRC but was expensive and still pretty much limited to 16 colors and not really capable of doing much more from a gaming standpoint to justify its price compared to an Apple 2 or Commodore 64. There were cheaper IBM compatibles based on the older chipsets like the 8088, for example the PCjr and Tandy 1000, but they were even worse. Still Sierra supported them and a lot of RPG makers did too (though Ultima was primarily an apple 2 game until ultima 6).
It was really the PS/2 and its clones that made IBM compatible PCs desirable, with a 286 mated to a VGA video adapter and standard mouse. It came out in 1987, by 1990 clones were ubiquitous, and microsoft had come out with windows 3.0 for non-gaming applications. By the time I was in middle school in 1991 or so just about everyone had a 286 or 386 computer with a mouse and Dos and windows at home. DOOM IIRC was the reason a lot of people finally ditched the PS/2 clones because it wanted a 386 and 4gb of ram. The PS/2 era though was the first time I remember “PC gaming” being a thing in itself as opposed to just computer gaming in general and IBM compatibles being a major force in it.
Hell, I didn't have more than maybe 10 games total for the PC until 2013 . . .
Topic shift AoW4 is out and awesome, also runs great on steam deck
Fallout 1 and 2 are pretty playable today honesty.
Fallout 2 is pretty hard and has a bug that spams random encounters at you at insane levels unless you have the unofficial patch or restoration project (which honestly it still spams them at you but its more manageable, outdoorsman skill and the motion detector are your freinds).
Fallout 1 is pretty freeform and completable by any character, by fallout 2 I guess they assumed you know how shit works and expect you to have a decently optimized build.
Also all the infinity engine games with enhanced editions are plenty playable today, as are Neverwinter nights and NWN2. (Stick to the expansions of NWN1 though).
I was just thinking the other day how amazingly similar the controls to NWN2 are to pathfinder:WOTR, except the camera takes a lot more tweaking to get comfortable and it deselects companions for some reason on area transition so you are better off setting them to autofollow or they’ll get left behind.
In a way I feel like Baldurs gate/baldurs gate 2/ planescape torment/NWN2/dragon age origins/Pathfinder:kingmaker/pathfinder:wrath/tyranny/pillars of eternity 1 and 2 are all just progressively updated iterations of the same game with different stories, even though they were made by several different developers.
Fallout 2 war notoriously buggy when it first came out. It also ran really poorly compared to the first game despite not looking any better. It was not a great times on release.
Obviously I still adore the game in case my chosen avatar didn't clue people in, but I trudged through a lot of technical issues to get to the good stuff.
Fallout 1 was pretty mind blowing when it came out though. It was one of my first computer games as a teenager and I'd previously only really played 16-bit console RPGs though not many since I had a Genesis and not an SNES. Even compared to PC RPGs it was very different though. I came in a bit late to really appreciate that at the time. I was mostly really amused that I could shoot someone in the groin to knock them over.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Take your newfangled "doom" thing with you.
The game is still super fun. I got through the Namek and Frieza saga, which was fun, fighting Frieza was especially fun when Goku turned SSJ for the first time. You do move faster and hit harder and every bit of feedback they can offer you will really hammer home that you're kicking his ass. Everything also happens much faster in that fight. Super Saiyan looks really awesome in-game, they did a great job with the visuals.
I also really like that while, yes, you can farm z-orbs and deer and chickens and fish and combat exp and whatnot.....you don't need to. If all you do is quests and side-quests, you're fine. And most stuff can be farmed incidentally while travelling to the next quest location. The game gushes resources onto you constantly. At certain points in the game you go to Master Roshi and talk to him and you find out that you've completed like 80 missions he had for you so here have everything. No, here, have more.
Thus far I have only three complaints about the game:
1. I hate how often enemies don't really fight you in this game. As in, they can interrupt your attacks constantly, but simultaneously they can go into super armor mode where you can still hurt them, but soon they'll explode and hit you and stun you for a while so you have to back off. It drains interest in fighting. I wish the fighting portion of the game had a little more parity in how the AI fights, would make the fighting feel more like a thing.
2. Tail fishing. It's upsetting. I really hate it. Goku does it in like the first 10 minutes of the game and I just stared at my screen. Then later, when you're Gohan, he does the same fucking thing! I can only assume that Vegeta does as well. Piccolo, at least, uses a fucking fishing rod! I refuse to fish with anyone but Piccolo as a result.
Here, if you want to see what I'm talking about, but I'm spoilering it because god I don't even know if I can post it, I DON'T KNOW OKAY:
3. Despite the increase in use of swears, they reduced some of the more violent moments in DBZ to offscreen disappearances and dissolving bodies. Like Burter doesn't get his neck crushed by Vegeta, he's just taking a nap from getting punched too hard by Goku, and later is declared dead. I dunno, gets under my skin at times.
The only thing I can think of on pc prior comparable to fallout was maybe ultima 6 and 7 and their spinoff games?
People say wasteland but that is sort of like comparing eye of the beholder to diablo or icewind dale: the basic back of the envelope premise is similar but the execution is worlds apart.
Edit: For an example of how revolutionary it was, Fallout was literally the first RPG with dialogue trees. It wasn’t the first game ever to have them, but before it was limited to lucasarts games and star control 2.
Wasteland was definitely an inspiration, but more for the setting and tone than how the game actually played as I understand it.
It did mark one of the turning points in the genre given how so many classic RPG series had been much more combat and dungeon focused. I remember when Baldur's Gate 1 came out a few years later that some noted RPG reviewers hated it because it diverged so much from the likes of Might and Magic or the Gold Box D&D games.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Come over to my house after school and we can play that new Space War game.
I recently watched a video of somebody reading through Gary Gygax's original first edition books and it's kind of crazy to think that what people know as D&D now is fundamentally opposed to his ideas.
He basically saw D&D as asymmetrical multiplayer - the players just ran progressively harder dungeons where the DM tries to kill them, and in between go back to a hub town where the DM tries to fleece them for all their gold. All those old RPGs weren't so much simpler, they were what creators of these systems thought people wanted out of them.
Players insisted for so long on playing D&D *wrong* that eventually they just changed what D&D is to fit.
There were antecedents but they weren’t typical or genee defining, and afterwards for a very long time you could divide western computer RPGs into “games that play like fallout”, “games that play like baldurs gate”, and the closest to the old school first person grid games (but still pretty distinct) which was “games that play like morrowind”.
Edit: And also “games that play like diablo” if you want to count action rpgs, which may honestly have been closer to the old idea of RPGs than the narrative RPGs were.
Galactic battlegrounds is basically what I really want in terms of afro futurism or afro fantasy. Doesn't have to make me scream, "[AMDAC]," but just deliver a solid experience, with a decent amount of depth, and doesn't turn my pc into a cryptominer
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Counterpoint to Fallout being playable: can it possibly measure up to the best Fallout 2 Let's Play there is?
https://lparchive.org/Fallout-2/
TROGG
Been playing D&D since approximately 1980. This is absolutely true.
Fallout 2 makes me wish for some 40K content that features a loyal astartes engaging in some furious close quarters fisticuffs. The lore has them capable of some incredible things to let me see the cream of the crop flow like water and crush eye sockets.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
And have, I would argue, improved the entire hobby as a result. I'd much prefer a story campaign with characters and quests and such with a DM that isn't specifically out to kill you vs . . . the original procedurally generated meat grinder dungeon game, apparently?
The real prequel to Dark Souls
It wasn't just the dungeons (though a lot of the original dungeon modules were set up so you'd probably TPK before even reaching an encounter). The original DM's handbook had a section called "taxes" where Gygax explains that the DM should contrive as much as possible to take away any wealth the players accumulate before they can put it to use. He suggests charging taxes and church tithes (in the original guides your alignment was a religion complete with an ancient dead language spoken only by members and used in worship), entry and exit fees from town, passage through random properties on the way to and from dungeons, banking and trade fees in town, and my favorite one, all looted gold is in an ancient non-legal currency so you need to convert it with a hefty exchange fee.
His opinion was that the party should be able to actually afford rations, spell materials, and at most one or two minor purchases after a dungeon and the DM should strive to leave them destitute.
It's the kind of thing that would drive even the most serious table to go 100% murderhobo and install a local puppet governor.
Honestly the whole experience Gygax seemed to describe was just... Shallow in all the ways modern D&D is deep and deep in all the ways modern D&D ignores because it isn't actually fun.
Oh Mistral? Yeah she has one of the best themes in the game:
Can we talk about CatAbyss.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
There are no bad themes in that game. They're all "the best".
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
The Space Marine game is basically this but in realtime. Punch Orks In the Face To Death Simulator 40,000 is even getting a sequel soon (with Tyranids this time).
There is a section in the game where you get a Jump Pack and a Thunder Hammer and you basically become Captain Titus, Patron Saint of Turning Orks Into Paste. It's wonderful.
Did its multiplayer take off or get overshadowed
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I have known for a while now that the entire intent Gygax had and what I want out of gaming are two diametrically opposed experiences. I'm sure there's people who would find his version fun, I just can't personally understand how.
And it definitely captures the kind of crazy shit Astartes can do. Near the end of the game I had Interceptors capable of 5+ kills per turn and Justicars able to punch holes through dreadnoughts and gunners able to... Shoot one or two guys if they break cover. Really melee-biased game if I'm being honest.
A reminder that early D&D evolved out of skirmish-level wargaming, where players took the then-novel step of actually identifying with individual toy soldiers, rather than simply pushing them around the sand table (and into the other player's wood chipper of an army) by squads. The bit above about keeping the PCs destitute was, IMO, half to keep them "hungry for adventure" and half to simplify the combat math, because characters who are resource-poor are easier and faster to adjudicate. Surprise surprise, as time went on people chose having more varied and exciting options than "I hit him again with my sword" over tracking all the modifiers for pole-arms (which had been come up with, and then put down in tables by, serious nerds with an encyclopedic knowledge of stuff that peasants lashed to sticks to make improvised weapons), terrain, or a truly arcane Armor Class system that counted down from 10 to 0 and sometimes into the negatives.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
Also, it's the headliner for this month's humble monthly
And their last
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
It was surprisingly decent! I would’ve preferred a Me3 style coop mode tho, but for what it was it was pretty cool