Little did the SNES know however, a real giant of gaming was about to dethrone it, and every future console. (continued from part 2)

During the last few months of the SNES’ run, something had caught my interest, and I was chasing it as rapidly as a whippet does a fake rabbit.

The PC.

The PC seemed all powerful, yet mystical at the same time.  It had the utility of the Amiga/a computer, yet it also appeared to have better games than the SNES.  How had a home device gotten better gaming than a SNES without me knowing about it?

Well, nobody knew about PCs.  There wasn’t many PC mags at the time, and you sure as hell didn’t see PCs in yer average store.  Home PCs were in their infancy, as was PC gaming.

So, the X-mas when I was 10 (3 parts and i’m only 10?), I got my first PC.

Now, I was a master of present guessing.  One look, or worst case scenario, one shake of a wrapped goodie, and i’d tell you exactly what it was, or certainly in the ball park.  Knowing this, my parents made me sleep next door X-Mas eve at my best friends.  Talk about shit?  Who wants to sleep at someone else’s house on Christmas?

I knew something was afoot, and afoot it was.  The PC was so epicly large, one huge box for the flatbed, and 1 huge box for the monitor, that i’d have smelled the PC without even seeing it had they put it under the tree.. or rather, put the tree on top of the PC.

So, on X-mas morning, I opened the 1 present they’ve given to take with me.  It was a PC magazine, so I was super stoked knowing a shiny PC was awaiting me next door.

Then a thought occurred to me.  You’ll remember in a previous part, where I said my Dad always made me have 1 pc/console at once, not multiple.  If I wanted something else, I sold/traded my old thing to go towards it (which is fair enough imo).  So I thought, “What about the Amiga?” (this was probably the first time i’d thought about it in over a year).

It was at this point, I noticed some of the presents under next door’s tree.  Some of the shapes looked familiar.. real familiar.  Disk box familiar.

My brow raised, having almost pieced together the puzzle/fate of the Amiga.  It was going to my friend, who’d grown weary of the Amiga at the same time I had (due to him being round my house a lot during those years), and would not have been amazingly stoked to be getting my old computer, let alone when I now had a PC.

I’ll never forget how it went down.

He started opening one of the disk boxes, and I could tell he had his suspicions by now as well.

“You havn’t.. you havn’t.” he said, peeling more paper away, until he saw my disk box full of games, labeled in my hand writing.

“You have.” was the disheartened sentence upon full realisation.

An old Amiga, with a printer that barely had enough ink left to print a page or two, and though a staggering library of games, they had been played to death long since.

One of, if not THE best X-Mas for me, was one of his worst, through no fault of mine, though certainly connected.

I say it was one of his worst X-Mas’, because the poor guy had a worse one (off topic much?).

The X-Mas previous, he got a lamp.  A bit harsh for a kid for sure, but what was even harsher was our school teacher.

The teacher was going around the class, asking what we’d gotten for Christmas.  Everyone said their thing, until it got to his turn.  Originally he refused to say, but the teacher forced it outta him.

“I got a lamp.”

The class lol’d, and I outright pissed myself (rotten ass kids) at that point, barely struggling to contain myself during the inquisition already due to knowing the answer/probable result.

“No, what was your main or best present.”  she continued.

“I just got a lamp.” he replied.

At this point, the teacher was furious.  The guy had already annoyed her daily, being a bit of a class joker and all, and she saw this as yet another joke to get a laugh outta the class, and promptly told him to get out the class so she could yell the shit outta him in the corridor.

I’ll always be the first to admit, I had a lucky/great childhood.

To get back on topic, I rushed around to my house as soon as they’d let me, to find the two monstrously sized boxes containing the PC, and a couple of games.

Just put in the game and it’ll play right?  WRONG.

It’d been a while since i’d handled a computer requiring long winded/complex commands (the Amstrad) to get anything running.  Everything since the NES/Amiga days had just been ‘put the game in and play’.

I spent the first day fumbling around in DOS, barely managing to get games to run.  Thank god the PC magazine had demo disks, and instructions on running them, otherwise i’d have been clueless.

It got to the second day, and my Mum was curious to the new device, and sat down to give it a try.

To this day, i’ve no idea what she did, or what happened, but that PC never turned on again.  I don’t think there was anything she could have done to cause that, and was probably just a hardware problem.

Either way, the PC went back, and I spent a few days awaiting a new one.

It was worth the wait (kinda), as the new PC was a 486 Packard Bell (yuck), compared to the original 386 no brand.

That Packard Bell was problematic from start to finish.  It had to go back to the shop like 3-4 times during it’s life, and made my parents comment on how they’d never have got me a PC if they’d have known the trouble it’d be.

Fair enough, it was a pain in the ass for sure, and Packard Bell were just useless/clueless.  Even to this day, i’d steer anyone that asks me away from a Packard Bell.

The PC was seriously powerful by the way.  We’re talking 400 MB hard drive and 2 meg of RAM powerful, with just a disk drive (no CD drive) and PC speaker sound!  Awesome stuff, but I knew no better at the time, nor was there much better.

Games were handled entirely in DOS, even though Windows 3.11 had come in.  Windows was loaded only for file management and the odd other task, and wasn’t really that useful for a gamer yet.

DOS, though I have nostalgic fondness of, was an utter nightmare at the time.  Running games/navigating around became second nature, but certain things, such as needing a specific amount of a specific type of memory (EMS/XMS) was a real bastard.  Setting up hardware, such as a mouse, or sound card, wasn’t a 5 second task either.

These days for me were the slow start of something that still dominates my daily life today.

I’d spend a lot of the time on the PC, but my SNES still had a place, as even though games like DooM and such were awesome, the overall polish (sound, control, visual quality) wasn’t quite there yet.

I started reading about CD-ROMs (lol), and how they were like 600+ meg compared to the meagre 1.4 meg diskette, and so games could be put entirely on to one CD (as opposed to like 10+ disks), as well as being much larger/better.

Sound cards were also kicking off, with cards like the Sound Blaster 16 decimating the competition/sound cardless PCs.

So one day, my Mum took me to a shop, and bought me what is probably the best overall bundle of stuff i’ve ever had.

It was some kinda Creative mega pack, containing a Sound Blaster 16, a 2x CD-ROM drive (TWICE as fast as old CD-ROM drives!), a PC joystick, and about 7 games.  The price?  200 quid, or so my Dad was told.  It was actually 300 quid, EX VAT.  You can get a full quad core pc for that nowadays ;)

In one instant, i’d gone from multiple disk, restricted in quality games, to FMV sporting/power game CDs.  It’d also brought me from PC speaker beeps and boops, to full blown 16 bit music/sound.

PC gaming had now not only caught up the SNES, but hugely surpassed it at the same time.  The sound was the same/better, the graphic capability was already superior, and it now had CDs, with fancy cut scenes and completely unique games the SNES could only dream of/fail to replicate properly (Theme Park for example).

The SNES had followed the same path as the Amiga, and was packed away until it was eventually donated.  The Gameboy followed the same donation path, except after the SNES strangely.

The PC had got me good now.  It’s fangs had sunk deep, and it’s jaw was made of the strongest steel.. it was never gonna release it’s grip.  17 years later, and it’s only become tighter.

I could go through a history of my PCs.. the jump from 486s to Pentiums, the advent of 3D acceleration in games, the glory days of Quake leading into online gaming, as well as all the consoles i’ve had during the years and even gaming sponsorships.

The article however, as the title says, is the beginning of the end.  Everything prior to the PC, was setting up a stage and nurturing a fascination of computers and gaming.  Once the PC came, the show had both started, and finished at the same time.  Never again would I look elsewhere for my primary entertainment, not even the newest released consoles, which were usually bought only for very specific and a very low number of games.

PC gaming today is stronger than it’s ever been, and even with piracy and companies preferring consoles, it’s not going anywhere soon.  Even if PC gaming does decline, the function of a PC overall will not.

That’s why I love the PC more than I can ever love a console.  It doesn’t just give me the best of gaming, it gives functions than consoles can only dream about, and I don’t just mean web browsing (which still isn’t great on a console).  There’s a list of functions a PC can do, that’s not only long, but doesn’t need me to spam.

A person will get as much out of a PC as they want to get.  I’ve always strived to get as much as I can alongside of a gaming passion, which is thanks to my Dad.  Without him, i’d not be writing this, I wouldn’t have bothered to find different ways to utilize the PC (video making/etc) and you’d have never met me.  My life would have been different in ways I can’t even imagine, other than the fact everything I am, everyone I know, and everything i’ve done wouldn’t be the same or even close.

I suspect there’s something about me that naturally draws me to gaming and computers, but my Dad’s hindsight to nurture that, has given me my current lives entertainment, intelligence, some morals and a creative outlet.

I’d thank him for that, and shake his hand if I could, as you can’t be given better, or more, from a parent.

Here’s to another 23 years of gaming!  It wouldn’t surprise me :]

I love lamp! :(

Quite inspiring Lliam. I’ll admit I didn’t really get into PC gaming until I got into MMOs around 04. Now I much prefer gaming on my PC than any console, and if my Xbox hadn’t kicked the bucket and you hadn’t inspired me to make my own videos I probably would have never looked at my PC as my main source of gaming :)

man that was long, and yea, if it wasnt for your father, we’d of never of met OTG :o

Wait… So if OTG = god, then who’s OTG’s dad…?

DOS….gah. I remember using that a fair bit to get some games to run. Luckily it was only to get games to run mostly..

I didn’t REALLY get into PC gaming until around 2003 when my PC was finally good enough to play “newer than 10 years ago” games :P
Started with HL2 and started to totally love the FPS genre (even now, it’s still “meh” on consoles to me). Orange box came out soon later and I was hooked on everything that PC gaming offered me. With various other games on PC with mods and such – well, let’s just say I’m currently enjoying PC gaming. :)
I’ve pretty much skipped over the current-gen consoles because I’ve got almost all the good ones on my PC instead (or could if I had the money).
For me, there’s barely any PS3/360/Wii games I truly want. Actually, most of the ones I wanted to play that aren’t on PC, they’re on the PS3 I think.

=] cheers indeed Lliam. *raises glass*

The ending was sweet :)

Was listening to “Hey Soul Sister” by Train while I was reading this. I thought it was touching. I wish I can shake my father’s hand as well. Why do the good have to go first…..

@HatTheTurtle – god squared ;D

Wow that is a lot of time on the PC. I found your story very interesting , very personal, and overall good. I also have a question about the ending what do you mean by “I’d thank him for that, and shake his hand if I could”?

Aw James…..You could do the math can’t you?
I may be wrong sbout my presumption.@JamesR713 -

Really nice and touching story OTG. I didn’t really get into PC gaming until recently ( I still have a bit of trouble playing a FPS on a mouse and keyboard) I was always more of a console man.

@ MapLock I was thinking the same thing but I don’t want to assume and be wrong about something like that.