Gaming

One of my all-time favourites is Freelancer, 2003. Just a really fun arcade space sandbox with an engaging campaign and great multiplayer and modding scene.

I'm going to go waaay back to a gem of a '90s CRPG: Betrayal at Krondor.

The main quest-line was engaging, the combat was cool, and the puzzle boxes were fun, but I remember being blown away by the size of the world. You could wander for literally hours, exploring new terrain, and discovering additional characters and bonus quest-lines. Its world was expansive and immersive, and it felt alive, like nothing else playable on a 386sx ever had been before.

The next time I felt that sense of aliveness - but better - in a video game was about a decade later, when I took my first Wyvern ride in World of Warcraft, and realized that everything I was seeing below me was really happening. This wasn't a teleport: if you saw someone fighting something down below you, it was because another player was really fighting something down there. Mind-blowing!

Final Fantasy IX is my all time favorite game.

Wesnoth is a GPL turn-based strategy game from 2005 which has been installed on every computer I've owned since its debut. The pixel art, sound effects, music, and gameplay depth are wonderful yet it's very easy to learn! There are hundreds of campaigns available for solo play and it has both local and online multiplayer. Team based multiplayer with friends against AI's is a lot of fun and no one gets their feelings hurt if they lose!

Right now I'm playing the white chamber which is a freeware indie horror point and click adventure game from 2005 with a female protagonist. So far it's doing really well at creating a creepy, suspenseful mystery in a foreboding environment. I haven't finished it yet but it's been fun!

As others have mentioned, Neverwinter Nights from 2002 is still unchallenged for community created storytelling and worldbuilding! If you haven't played it then take a look at what's available on The Neverwinter Vault and some of the online realms. A Dance with Rogues is my favorite module and would on its own be one of my favorite games!

Thank you to everyone else who's shared some of their favorites!

• Doom and Doom II: Hell on Earth
• Choplifter
• Duke Nukem 3D
• X-Wing
• Quake III Arena
• MechWarrior
• GoldenEye 007
• Rogue Squadron
• Shadows of the Empire
• Metal Gear Solid
• Siphon Filter
• Ein Händer
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Colony Wars
• Colony Wars II: Vengeance
• Counter-Strike
• Half-Life
• Oni
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Total Annihilation
• Dune 2000
• Star Control III
• Delta Force
• Deus Ex

So many great games from my childhood.

In addition to the many amazing games already mentioned, I'll throw in the 1995 gem "Ascendancy" from The Logic Factory. The user interface is a bit rough by modern standards but, for its time, it was a fascinating 4X turn-based strategy game (despite the broken "AI") with an impressive array of alien races with unique art and music for each. It's been in-and-out of the "abandonware" classification over the years, so there may not currently be any legitimate way to acquire a copy of the game--which is a real shame for those who might want to experience a nearly 30-year-old game that I think was groundbreaking for its time.

In my old party days circa 2000, I had a nice party house in the hood. The neighborhood wasn't all that great, but it was a nice big house for cheap rent. Lots of rooms and space. I was young and had more knowledge of computers than money, and this meant I could bus to work instead of driving and paying to park.

I worked at a large engineering company. They upgraded their computers for the Y2K bug. This left them with an extraordinary amount of old PC's they had to actually pay to dispose of properly. To save money, they yanked the hard drives and raffled them off to the employees. We're talking nearly 400 PCs. 386's, 486's and even some (then highly coveted) 486-dx2's.

A few people that won just gave me their PC. They didn't want it since it wasn't usable without a hard drive but knew I did. I cashed in a few favors here and there to get a few of those choice 486-dx2's from those that won them where I could. In all, I made (6) pretty decent Dell PC's and set them up in various rooms in the house. I also had my cadd workstation and my roommate had his PC as well. I put Windows 98SE, VNC and Twisted Metal 2 on each.

I lan'd together all (8) PC's into a home network using a partial reel of CAT6 cable that I got from another friend in exchange for devising and assembling his wife a new PC for her birthday. He was in the IBEW and the cable was scrap surplus from construction at a major airport. He gave me some speaker wire as well. In hindsight, it was for a public address system and was not the best for musical range but it did work. I borrowed a crimper and helped myself to some RJ45 connectors from our IT department. I ran the lan cables to network the PC's. I placed a speaker in every room and wired them into the home stereo. Mono, but I only had so many speakers. I then converted my workstation to more of a home theater, running a video out to the TV. PC audio was outputted to the home stereo as auxiliary.

It made for a kick ass home theater system for the year 2000. In it's day, it was pretty hip. We had some great multiplayer games for years to come and nearly everyone had their own room to play in. TM2 was really neat in that it could take up to 8 players.

VNC gave you control over any computer from any computer. You could watch a movie on the Home Theater in any room you want to, or all of em even. Kick on winamp with milkdrop and just jam out. Put on 'The cat sitter' and get the cat all riled up. Ahh, good times.

In all, and not accounting for any time spent or software licenses, I may have invested 30 dollars for a new corded drill (which I still have today). Beer was probably the highest total expenditure for the project. There were some wire coat hangers that got away fishing the wires through the walls that are probably still there.

Also, I totally agree with you on Chrono Trigger. It has another title set in that same world that can be tricky to find called Chrono Cross. I personally think Trigger was the better of the two titles but Cross is play worthy.