Which game made you a gamer, and what technology made you a lifelong enthusiast?

[Julio Franco]

Most of us weren't born tech enthusiasts. Somewhere along the way, a game, a gadget, a PC upgrade, or a new technology grabbed our attention and we never really let go.

For some, it was a classic game that consumed countless afternoons and sparked a lifelong love of gaming. For others, it might have been opening up a computer for the first time, installing a new graphics card, adding more RAM, overclocking a CPU, getting online through a dial-up modem, or witnessing one of those rare technological leaps that made the future feel like it had arrived overnight.

Looking back, I can point to several games that left a lasting impression. Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Diablo II all stand out, but the broader transition into the 3D graphics era is what really changed things for me. Seeing what hardware-accelerated graphics could do made me want to understand the technology behind the games as much as the games themselves.

I had already been tinkering with PCs before then, but that period turned a casual interest into a genuine passion. That curiosity eventually led to a small personal website focused on PC technology and graphics, which would later evolve into TechSpot.

Of course, everyone's story is different. Some readers may trace it back to an Atari, Commodore, or NES. Others might point to Windows 95, Linux, broadband internet, a Raspberry Pi, or the first PC they built with their own hands.

So we're curious: Which game made you a gamer, and what technology made you a lifelong enthusiast? Tell us what it was, when it happened, and why it left such a lasting impression.

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Which game made you a gamer, and what technology made you a lifelong enthusiast?

 

[J95qRP7]

Crash Bandicoot for gaming and C&C Generals for PC. Man I loved that Generals

 

[pietklerckx]

The MSX and Commodore Amiga did and I still play with those incredible machines to this day. I am 52 years young.

 

[yRaz]

Freespace 2. And there wasn't a single technology, it was watching how rapidly technology was evolving that kept me excited. From basically 98-2007 there was always some new, ground breaking thing coming out every few months. Now everything is so streamlined and optimized that I barely look up. Last game I legitimately got excited about and stayed excited about was Baldur's Gate 3

 

[noel24]

It's all murky by now, but Red Alert 2. Or maybe seeing GTA3 at friend's house two years later and wanting better PC. For tech, probably slamming active cooler from some faulty GPU onto something like passive ATI 9??0 and boosting the clocks into 2 tier higher GPU.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

Recoil (1999)

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The early days a definitely a haze.

In the literal sense, Mario Bros on the NES.

From a PC gaming perspective it was kinda a whats what of the mid to late 90's mash-up: Command & Conquer, Half Life, Fallout, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Total Annihilation, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 1&2... it really was a golden age of PC gaming.

 

[NumberNine]

Super Mario Bros.
Tearing my toys apart to see how they worked got me into both technology and trouble.

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Arcade classics such as Ghosts 'n Goblins, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Final Fight, Splatterhouse and the whole beat' em up family (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Soul Edge, ...) made me a gamer.

Then came my first home console, the Mattel Intellivision, where I spent countless Sundays playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (terrific game) and a few other titles. My first PC, a 286, turned me into a computer-obsessed nerd, which I still am to this day. On the 286, I used to play cinematic platformers and a few CRPGs such as Eye of the Beholder. After putting my hands on a Pentium 4, my obsession finally became Diablo II. After that: Half-Life 2, and Prince of Persia SoT, and....

Then came emulation. Being able to properly play the original Ghouls 'n Ghosts experience made me cry.

And I could go on for thousands of pages :-D

 

[occsdude]

Tomb Raider (1996) was probably the game that made me fall in love with games the most. The music, the atmosphere, the smooth animation and gorgeous environments (for the time), the grand sense of adventure.

Pokemon Blue, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Mega Man X, and Super Mario World were also pretty influential. Some not PC games of course, but they did help lead me into the PC gaming space. Edit: I also remember MegaRace (1993), Treasure MathStorm (1992), MotoRacer (1997), and some others. Not as influential but in their time gave me some interest in games.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Terminal Velocity (1995)

Yes I am old!

 

[axiomatic13]

Dungeon for the Commodore 64.

 

[SRB]

The floor of our dorm in college got together with the only guy on the floor with a PC and played the original Rogue on a CGA 286. It was one of the first games I bought for my Amiga, which at the time was light years ahead of the PC and Mac for gaming. What keeps me in it is the ability to build my own PC. Starting with my first Pentium I to my current Threadripper super tower with dual custom hard line cooling loops, the ability to make the PC that suits my needs while also allows me to explore different uses for it, be it video, audio, games, etc., keeps me from getting bored, aside from just play with hardware and software. Although not doing much for my bank account.

 

[gingerbill]

ZX Spectrum was my first home gaming but Dungeon master on the Amiga was the first game that blew my mind and I kept replaying .

 

[Kirby1]

BF1942

 

[Antias]

Played all sorts before these but what got me focused on gaming was HEXEN and HERETIC in 94 & 95. Because I'd been playing classic tabletop Dungeons and Dragons since 1987 the magic theme of these games played into my passion for fantasy more so than SciFi etc...
As far as being the PC hardware enthusiast goes, it was really the advent of the DVD Burner that kicked me into high gear... lets just say I rented a LOT from the local video store and ripped a rather embaressingly large library of my own over the course of a number of years. (at least until the download era, since then it's all about the PLEX server now...)

 

[Daihard]

Started with an Atari 800. Would program games by typing codes from magazines in machine code and saving on the 5 1/4" floppy. Bought a Packard Bell with the Intel 8088, the 286, and eventually the 486. Would stay up to early morning playing Counterstrike Beta 5. I was happy when they fixed that dumb jumping hack. Had the awesome opportunity to play Doom, online with creator John Romero with his username in all caps.

 

[Hellbishop]

The MSX and Commodore Amiga did and I still play with those incredible machines to this day. I am 52 years young.

Commodore Amiga 500 here way back in 1989 as soon as I saw BATTLTECH THE CRESCENT HAWK'S INCEPTION available for it. Before that I was playing the tabletop version of BATTLETECH, CAR WARS and I believe it was called NAPOLEON AT WATERLOO which was my very first tabletop wargame which amazed me how it used modifiers, dice rolls and a beautiful thick cardboard map with all sorts of details which meant something bringing the experience of Napoleonic warfare alive in my head. After a few years of playing wargames and dungeon games like EYE OF THE BEHOLDER/BLACK KRYPT on the Amiga 500 I moved over to a Intel 486/DX33 with my very first games for it being THE ELDER SCROLLS ARENA, RAVENLOFT STRADH'S POSSESSION. A few months later I was playing the free demo for DOOM Its been nonstop pc gaming ever since. I learned right away from my brother inlaw who worked in IT that having a pc one or two generations back from the top of line stuff was more than enough to enjoy all the games currently available.

 

[Skully]

Doom. Bought a $3,200 Xeos Pentium 66 just to play it. I still play Doom/Doom2 with gzdoom, both the originals and custom wads.

 

[Skully]

Doom. Bought a $3,200 Zeos Pentium 66 just to play it. I still play Doom/Doom2 with gzdoom, both the originals and custom wads.

 

[RudyBob]

Doom.

 

[Tytus]

A-10 Attack!

 

[godrilla]

The single threaded game that became a brute forced meme for decades.

 

[toooooot]

I have been a life long fan of realistic graphics. Everything that makes graphics more realistic is exciting to me. I remember when water in game began to resemble real water. Btw, did you know in a flopped game called Atlas uses NVIDIA WaveWorks 2.0 for its water simulation? That was probably one of the main reasons I sank so many hours in that mediocre game.
I am still waiting for the moment I will look at a picture from a game and will not be able
to tell if it is real. I mean we got so close, but every next step requires such insane resources in terms of processing and storage that most people long forgot about playing AAA games on high graphic settings.
We are almost there, but pricing makes the majority ask if it is worth it.
I think the most exiting moments I experienced when I saw water in SoT, and sky in Ark Surival.
These days, more and more games have realistic water and almost every AAA game has a realistic sky using specific assets or plugins.

 

[Megalomaniac]

Ironically, the game that got me into PC building and PC gaming was a game that never ever saw the light of day.

Babylon 5 space combat simulator was the game that I got my first computer with specs designed to meet.

I had a Hewlett-Packard pavilion 8570C

That is a Pentium III 450 MHz processor with 96 MB ram, 20 GB hard drive and integrated graphics.

So sure enough I rushed out to buy a 3-D accelerator in anticipation of the space combat simulator, but I also ended up needing the 3-D accelerator to play alien versus predator. I bought a Voodoo 3 3000 AGO - and if I had it to do all over again I probably would’ve sprung extra for the 3500 TV AGP.

I am extremely disappointed that the Babylon 5 space combat simulator never came out. Sierra in all of their stupidity, decided to simply cancel it.

I had a lot of fun with my computer right up until it became outdated. Soldier of Fortune II was coming and my computer was not able to handle its minimum requirements but I ended up buying an Xbox so that I could get that game. Xbox had a lot of great games early on such as Halo, gears of war, splinter cell, etc.. Xbox took me away from PC gaming for a while. I was even spending a large amount of time playing Counterstrike on Xbox.