How old were you when you played the codex acclaimed RPGs for the first time?

[SwiftRider]

Lesse, of all the games listed, I bought the following separately: QFG 1+2+5, EOB1, Ultima 4 (Sega Master System), and Might and Magic 6. Gold Box, Wolrds of Xeen and some of the Ultimas were from compilations, the rest were found lying around..... On the internet, ahem.

I did play EOB3, but it was, as you said, shit. Well, at least not as nice as the other two, I got bored quickly anyhow. Same thing with Ultimas 8+9 and the later Might and Magics. That, or I'd jsut lost interest after playing the others.

I don't wish to see you're room then, because I'm guessing there's going to be game boxes, manuals and cartridges all over the place. The only thing I liked about EOB3 was the opening music at the beginning, especially when the cloaked figure approaches you and a 90s techno theme blasts in the background. Another surprising aspect of the game is that it has the best subtitle of any CRPG, which is 'Assault On Myth Drannor' and it really got me in the mood to attack and take down the evil within this city. What a shame the final result wasn't very good.

 

[Saxon1974]

For me it was ultima 3 in 1983 when I was 9 years old. Completely blew me away I spent an entire summer in solaria.

Hard to say if I would like more recent rpgs if I started with them, probably not. The newness of those classics and innovation at the time was very exciting. They have a feel that just files the imagination that more modern rpgs mostly lack.

And turn based combat

 

[Insane Psychic]

I don't wish to see you're room then, because I'm guessing there's going to be game boxes, manuals and cartridges all over the place. The only thing I liked about EOB3 was the opening music at the beginning, especially when the cloaked figure approaches you and a 90s techno theme blasts in the background. Another surprising aspect of the game is that it has the best subtitle of any CRPG, which is 'Assault On Myth Drannor' and it really got me in the mood to attack and take down the evil within this city. What a shame the final result wasn't very good.

Eh, you'd be surprised then. Most of it is either lost or in a couple of boxes in the basement. I never had the perverted fascination with game boxes to be honest. They're neat enough, but not something I display.

I don't know about the subtitle. I've never really been too keen on the whole FR "Elves were once totally awesome, and have magical ruins everywhere."

 

[godsend1989]

I remember playing Bloodlines with 10 min loading screen but it was worth it because it was that good, at first i was not even in vampire games at all i had my expectation pretty low but damn that game was so badass.

 

[SwiftRider]

Eh, you'd be surprised then. Most of it is either lost or in a couple of boxes in the basement. I never had the perverted fascination with game boxes to be honest. They're neat enough, but not something I display.

I don't know about the subtitle. I've never really been too keen on the whole FR "Elves were once totally awesome, and have magical ruins everywhere."

I tend to keep all my game boxes in a place out of view, and since I don't have many, this isn't a major problem. As for the subtitle, I think it's a nice feature to have one, it gets the person ready for the adventure that lies ahead. Regards.

 

[SwiftRider]

I remember playing Bloodlines with 10 min loading screen but it was worth it because it was that good, at first i was not even in vampire games at all i had my expectation pretty low but damn that game was so badass.

"Don't open it" That's the only thing I can say about that game, and if you've finished it, you'll know what those words mean.

 

[DalekFlay]

Anyone who denies that the year they were born influences the style of media they like to a massive degree is a complete fucking idiot.

That said, outliers can rise above.

 

[sser]

Ultima Underworld was the first "RPG" I ever played -- somewhere around the time it came out.

I found the game to be really terrifying.


Most RPGs I played a while after they came out because TBS games were my genre of choice for much of the 90s. They were just superior in every way as far as I was concerned. Their prominence was curtailed after that decade, though, which is when I really started changing genres. The only RPGs I remember playing near their release dates were Diablo and the two Baldur's Gate games. I was really captured by how unique Diablo was, but never bothered with its sequel. BG/BG2 have never done it for me, though I can see where others find greatness in either one. The only game I truly regret missing at release is Fallout 2. I first played that in the 2000s and was utterly blown away. I think if I played that when it released I would have been more active in seeking out RPGs in the 90s.

 

[SwiftRider]

Anyone who denies that the year they were born influences the style of media they like to a massive degree is a complete fucking idiot.

That said, outliers can rise above.

The majority of members on this forum are living, breathing examples of how that statement is complete and utter dogsh*t.

 

[imweasel]

I played shit loads of JRPGs on the NES and SNES as a kid.

I got my first PC in '96 and picked up a copy of Fallout, which completely blew me away.

 

[DalekFlay]

The majority of members on this forum are living, breathing examples of how that statement is complete and utter dogsh*t.

The rise above part? You're right, this forum is not a good example.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Let me see, deep in the shadows lost in time, in a dark age where the internet was dial-up and I often had to live on the horrour called "Sunday Noon TV".

I was born in April 1991, so I'm one of the younger Codexers.

I think, the first RPG-like game I ever played was Diablo, in... 2000 or so. I was nine or ten, don't remember. A demo amongst a PC Expert CD bundle of demos who had the theme of being games of horrour and grimdark (it also came with one original game: Stargunner, any BRBRBRBR remembers this one?).

Then, while perusing one of my brother (or was it mine?) CDs, I saw a Top Games CD (it was Top Games 7, if I remember right) with cool games like Legal Crime* and Fallout demo. Played the Fallout demo, was too young and knew no english so I mostly shot at random people until my bullets ended, which often meant I died soon. That said, game's graphics, style and sounds blew me away. There was even a demo of the never-released WildC.A.T.S game I got a original pirated Diablo about the same time, which I played like crazy.

Anyway, I returned to the Fallout demo once again in 2002, this time with some comprehension of English. Then, one day, while I was in a local shopping, I found a box of the original Fallout. Some time later, on Christmas, dad asked me what I wanted, and I told him to get me Fallout. He did and I was hooked. Interestingly enough, for some strange reason (combination of soundtrack + atmosphere + mood?), the game creeped the fuck out of me, I got shivers and felt weird, so I had to stop and play later. Don't feel it anymore, through. I do feel a good shiver in my back everytime I finish a good RPG, through.

Some time later, after I had finished Fallout once (lol no patch), dad phoned home and told me he found Fallout 2 on a magazine in a newspaper stand. I think it was 2003. He asked me if I wanted it, I said yes. He got Fallout 2, which had a portuguese manual in PDF, even. Soon after I started using the internet for realz and found a Fallout forum in Portuguese: the ancient Fallout Resources, as well as the classic Fallout2 HP.

Lemee see if I remember the others...

 

[Night Goat]

I remember playing Diablo when I was in eighth grade, but I think it was tenth or eleventh when I started getting into the Infinity Engine games, Deus Ex, Morrowind and the like. Good times. Wait, no, they were horrible times, but at least I had some good games.

 

[Blonsky]

I spent most of my younger years playing Warcraft 1/2 and c&c, but when i was around 15 years old a frend gave me a compilation cd with riped games on it, there was Fallout 1(with no sound, no NPC animation), M&M6(no sound, and it crashed when entering some temples), GTA:London(no sound) and KKND(no sound,no mission briefing animation).
I tried Fallout and didnt think it was anything special, without sound it was not the same felling as the one when i played full Fallout 2 much later, the game i played the most from the compilation was M&M6 and really strated looking for simular games after that.

 

[Dreaad]

Another important question that goes well with this thread is: How many games have you played more than once and is there any games that you have played 7+ times?

 

[DalekFlay]

To answer the original question... born in 1980, started PC gaming in 1990 or so with adventure games through my mother, who was a big Sierra fan. Started playing RPGs with Betrayal at Krondor, but the first one I really loved and finished was Fallout. Fallout, Fallout 2 and the IE games are what cemented my love of RPGs. I do find it hard to play ones from a lot earlier than that, especially grid-based first-person ones, sadly.

Another important question that goes well with this thread is: How many games have you played more than once and is there any games that you have played 7+ times?

Seven is a random number there. I would guess Morrowind, Fallout, Fallout 2 and several Lucasarts adventure games all qualify for me though.

Ones I have played a few times at least... Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, pretty much any RPG I really liked (IE games, Gothics, etc.).

 

[TripJack]

started with pools of radiance when i was 6, or 7, or 8? who knows

didn't like rpgs much then, like them a lot less now

 

[SwiftRider]

didn't like rpgs much then, like them a lot less now

So you don't like role-playing games? A strange thing to say on a forum devoted to them o_O.

 

[Johannes]

I really don't remember. First RPG for me might've been either Areena 4 or Hurvana 2, decent Finnish shareware games. Maybe around 10 years old then or little less, on the latter half of 90's. I remember playing Nethergate demo for one around the time when it came out, and then playing Blades of Exile afterwards as an early English RPG. Also Betrayal at Krondor I remember playing and finishing too around that age. "Codex Trinity" games I didn't touch until much later.

 

[TripJack]

So you don't like role-playing games?

oh i like a few, but the rpg genre has always been pretty on quality games

codexers just love the nostalgia glasses

pools of radiance and the goldbox games for example, yeah i played some of them back then but i would never touch that shit again...

 

[Nutmeg]

So you don't like role-playing games?

oh i like a few, but the rpg genre has always been pretty on quality games

codexers just love the nostalgia glasses

pools of radiance and the goldbox games for example, yeah i played some of them back then but i would never touch that shit again...

That's funny, I played Pools of radiance for the first time two years ago and I thought it was great. Conversely I really tried to like Planescape: Torment and Arcanum, which I played around 2006, but immensely disliked them. So at least in my case, the nostalgia glasses don't seem to work.

 

[Keldryn]

The first computer RPG that I played was The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate after my cousin gave me his old Commodore 64 in 1989. I was 15 years old. I absolutely loved the game, and having just discovered D&D a couple of years previously, I played pretty much every CRPG that I could get my hands on. That same year, I also played and completed Wasteland, AD&D Pool of Radiance, AD&D Curse of the Azure Bonds, Might & Magic I, and Ultima IV.

The following year, we got our first IBM-compatible PC. It was a 4.77/8 MHz Turbo XT with a whopping 640k of RAM and green Hercules monochrome display. We got Hero's Quest: So You Want to be a Hero, Ultima V, and Dragon Wars for it and I played them a bit, but the green monochrome and crappy PC speaker were rather large barriers when I could play games on my C-64 or NES instead. My dad got tired of me laughing at his computer and by the summer, we had a 12 MHz 80286 with 1MB RAM, 40 MB hard drive, SVGA display, and a Sound Blaster card. My C-64 suddenly seemed incredibly lame. I never did spend much time playing Ultima V, as Ultima VI came out right around the time that we upgraded.

I spent most of the summer that I was 16 indoors, playing Ultima VI virtually every minute that I could. That single game redefined for me what a CRPG could and should be. The entire world existed on a single, continuous map. Every NPC had a unique portrait and unique conversations. The environments were not simply "digital paintings" -- virtually every object could be moved or interacted with in some way. NPCs followed daily routines. The story was great and genuinely surprised me at the time. I still have a notebook full of my hand-written notes from that summer!

The year that I turned 17, I played Quest for Glory II, Might & Magic III, Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams, and Wizardry VI. I decided to give the Gold Box games another go with Gateway to the Savage Frontier, but I got bored with it quickly.

When I was 18, the two-year wait that seemed like forever was finally over and I got to play Ultima VII. I would spend pretty much all of my waking hours on weeknights and weekends shut away in my room playing that game. I think I finished it in about 3 weeks, which I found disappointing at the time, as it had taken me a good 3 months to get through Ultima VI. However, I not only had some marathon 16-hour play sessions with VII, I also now had a modem and could access walkthroughs and hints for the game when I got stuck instead of finding tips here and there in print magazines. That same year, I also played through Ultima Underworld and Might & Magic: Clouds of Xeen. I tried to like Wizardry VII, but just found it boring. I spent an incredible amount of time that year playing Civilization.

I'm not going to continue going year-by-year at this point. From 1992 through 1999, I was still primarily a PC gamer and I played most of the major RPG releases around when they came out. I was 19 when I played Betrayal at Krondor and Ultima VII Part 2, and 23 when the much-anticipated Fallout arrived. I was 24 when I played Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate. I was 25 when I experienced the amazing depth of Planescape: Torment and the complete and utter disappointment that was Ultima IX.

In 2001, when I was 27, I started to suffer from repetitive strain injuries in my arms and back due to excessive computer use at home and at work, so I had to dramatically back off on my PC gaming. I also moved into a new apartment with my girlfriend-at-the-time, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in free time for gaming. I bought Arcanum and Gothic when they came out, but never really got to spend much time playing either one.

I haven't spent much time with PC RPGs released over the past 12 years or so. I picked up VtM: Bloodlines on clearance around 2006 or 2007 and gave it a whirl, but I didn't really grab me (it didn't run well on my PC, and the interface just felt clunky). I also tried out Temple of Elemental Evil a couple of years ago (with the Circle of Eight mods), but it was still crash-prone and after a good 6 hours or so failed to capture my interest. I had far, far more patience for trying different things to get a game to run when I was younger.

My opinion of these games has changed quite dramatically over time. I would find many of the early titles mind-numbingly tedious to play today -- mapping dungeons by hand while fighting random battles got old very quickly. Ultima VI and VII became the standards to which I measured all other CRPGs, and by 1992 I'd pretty much left behind the Gold Box, Wizardry, and Bard's Tale type of games. I find that Ultima VII still holds up very well today, as do Fallout, Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment. Arcanum probably does as well, but I've had nothing but trouble trying to get it to run properly on my current PC (a notebook purchasedin 2009), so I can't say much about it.

I was fascinated by electronic games ever since I first discovered them. I remember getting an Intellivision for Christmas in 1982, which I had been constantly asking my parents for after having played one at my cousin's house. Whenever I had the chance to play a game on one my my school's five Apple IIe computers, I would play The Hobbit or Oregon Trail. I was beyond excited when my family was able to buy an NES. I'm certain that my fascination with many of the early games was due to the fact that they were still novel experiences, that I was a teenager, and that games like Ultima VI/VII and The Legend of Zelda hadn't raised the bar for what I expect out of a game.

I grew up with the original Star Wars movies and watching movies at home was a special treat when we'd rent a VCR for a weekend for someone's birthday. I watched TV commercials dissing the Atari 2600 and proclaiming that the Intellivision was "the closest thing to the real thing." There will never be a movie that will have the same impact on me as did the original Star Wars. There will never be a video game that will captivate me the same way that the original Legend of Zelda did. I will never play another CRPG that will consume me the way that Ultima VI did that one summer. There will never be another album that knocks me out with its sheer awesomeness as did ...And Justice For All. We're all products of the era in which we grew up. If I was born around 1999-2000, I would probably be reminiscing about Pokemon rather than Ultima, and wishing that there was a Final Fantasy XIII-3 in production. I probably wouldn't have come to electronic RPGs from tabletop RPGs, and I probably wouldn't have much patience for turn-based combat.

 

[dumuh]

I was 9 when I first played PST, my dad had bought the game and he never got into it. I got to the Clerk's ward but never got to Ravel. Got back into it a few years later and beat it. Other RPGs followed.

 

[Infinitron]

Keldryn That's quite a story. You got to experience the early 90s Golden Age as it happened. How would you say it compared with the games of the late 90s?

 

[NewFag]

Around 18 is when I discovered the Codex Classics. And it wasn't until I was 20 did I discover this prestigious magazine.

It's a tale of shame. Fallout 3 was being released around the time I was 18. It looked pretty cool to me at that time, but I noticed it had a "3". I have a bit of OCD and got curious about the previous titles, so I "acquired" Fallout 1 and 2. I played through those games in the months before F3 was released. When I finally played F3 I realized my life had changed. It was complete shit compared to the experience I had with F1 and F2. Eventually I discovered about the infinity engine games, troika, etc... So in a sick and twisted way, I owe Bethesda my enlightenment.