What was the first PC game?

S

steve723

Member
Lets see. The PC came out the same year that John Glenn and Robert Crippen flew the Space Shuttle Columbia Orbiter OV 103 on the maiden voyage/mission of NASA's new Space Transportation System or STS. So I am guessing, Break Out?
 
Last edited:
First, we've got to define what we mean by 'PC'. Are we talking IBM PC, or are we including 'home computers' like the Apple, Commodore PET, Atari 800, etc.? Are we including 'kit' computers, like the Altair 8800, Ohio Scientific Model 600, or the Heathkit H8?

Any of them could be a 'PC' in the sense of a 'personal computer' since they were all designed to be something that could be afforded by the hobbyist (ok, granted, the early efforts would have required a well-heeled hobbyist, but in an era when only governments and universities and large corporations had REAL computers, they were FAR cheaper).
 
Ok, so what was the first PC game for each of those systems?

The first PC game I played was California Games. Then I saw Wolfenstein 3D and was completely amazed at the 3D world.
After that, my friend hooked me on Doom II and Heretic. There was no stopping me after that.
In college I had an old PC (Windows, but not sure of what OS) but only wrote papers on it. I didn't realize I could have been playing games on it...
My senior year I joined a PC game design team as concept artist. They built a cheap PC for me and I was playing Return to Monkey Island on it.
When I got married in 2003 I had a friend help me build my first brand new computer:
  • Intel Albatron Motherboard
  • Pentium 4
  • DDR 400 RAM
  • GeForce 440 MX
  • Windows 98
I started buying PC games like Battlefield 1942 and was hooked ever since.
 
Speaking of Commodore, I read in a 2007, 2008 (I can't remember exactly when) that some one got the Linux 2.0 kernel to run on a 2nd generation Commodore 64! Lets see then Linux Kernel 1.0 came out in 1993 and the commodore 64 came out in 198x!
 
My very first PC game was Mamba back in the early 90s. But my firest real PC game which I played intensively was Stronghold a few years later. That was the beginning of my PC gaming career. Before I only played console games on my Nintendo and later on my PS One.
 
I am not sure what my first PC game was. I recall playing some old rpg's on Amiga back in the late 80's and early 90's. I did play Eye of the Beholder on Amiga, as well as the very first release of Quest for Glory 1. Back then QFG1 was actually released under Hero's Quest, but they had to change the name shortly after initial release since another game had already used the name Hero Quest.

My first proper PC gaming started on Windows 95, playing a lot of Doom and Star Wars: Dark Forces

Edit: I want to point out that when I played Eye of the Beholder and QFG1 initially, I was too young to play them properly and didn't understand much english either. So I mostly just goofed around.
 
Oooh Dark Forces! Another classic... you could actually look up, look down and crouch.
The only other old games I played was on my super nintendo...
Mostly Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct.
Horrible ports by Nintendo
 
My first experience with a gaming counsel was my brother's 16 bit Nintendo. Mario wasn't open world. It was just a side scroller. My first Nintendo was the 64 bit super NES. After that Nintendo decided that the future was with cartridges. Witch it might be since SSDs are now over 1 Terra byte! However at that time it was obvious to most of the industry that the immediate future was DVD and later Blue Ray. I switched to Sony’s playstation and got their new grey play station - a few years later they changed to a white version and renamed it the Playstation one. Which I didn't buy since I essentially already had it. - . Later I got a PS2 and an Xbox. I currently own an Xbox 360 and A PS3. Since PC gaming is currently taking over and Counsel games aren’t doing as well as they used to, then I am not getting the new generation of counsels. I will stick with PC gaming for now.
 
Good choice Steve!
I never invested in consoles because I didn't like most of the games. I played consoles a bit because I always had a friend who owned one, but I always wanted more...
PC Gaming hooked me in because I could use my PC for graphics, 3D modelling, audio recording, website design and much much more....
Consoles just can't do it and never will.
If your console can do all the things PC's can do, then its not a console, its a computer :rolling:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top