Your Gold Box game. What was it and why?

[Fargull]

I started playing games on a TSR-80 at the local Radio Shack with Pyramid, then on up to Ultima at the local Apple store, but it was the introduction of a C64 into the house that brought gaming to new heights.  I enjoyed the DnD Gold box, but the game that I remember fondest for the RPG experience was Wizards Crown.  The combat was excellent and the character advancement was extremely interesting, another little feature was the ability to take your magic weapon and buy upgrades on it, so soon your group ended up with artifact weapons.  It was damn fun at the time, and have yet to run into a game that had as much fun packaged into it, though Dark Lands was a close second.

[Nebu]

I got into computers pretty early on and actually wrote a decent number of text adventures in Basic.  I would have to say that the game that turned me into a diehard computer game freak would be Star Raiders for the Atari 800.  I had played a number of games prior to this (no small feat as Star Raiders was like 1979) but this is the title that really got me hooked into computer gaming.  Since this title there have been many other games that have fueled my interest, but I'd say that this was my first real computer game infatuation.

[Merusk]

My first PC infatuation was Civs. I didn't have a computer prior to my sophomore year in college, but one of my friends did.  We spent many hours planning the downfall of the evil Indian and Aztec empires.   If you want to include console games, then it had to be Tank! for my old 2600, or Contra after that.

[HaemishM]

A lot of the games I played on the PC early were either stuff I got from my mom, who was the first teacher in our school district to teach computers to Middle schoolers in 8th grade, which was a lot of arcade game rip offs and freeware stuff. I think the first commercial computer game I played heavily was King's Quest 1, then Leisure Suit Larry 1 and Police Quest 1. They were the bomb. I think the first game I bought for the PC was either Wasteland or some volleyball game.

[OcellotJenkins]

The original Sim City and the gold box DnD games (Pool of Radiance maybe?  Eye of the Beholder?) were the first PC games I remember being hooked on.  After getting access to BBS's in the early 90's, I recall playing quite a bit of Captain Keen and other similar shareware titles.

Edit:  Oohh!!!  Does anyone remember Darkseed!?!?  It was a horror adventure game based on H. R. Giger artwork.  There was a Darkseed 2 as well, both were friggin amazing games for their time.

[WayAbvPar]

Good God- I can't remember the first PC game that got me hooked. When we first got our C64 back in the day, I had Omega Race and Moon Landing. Soon after, I started buying games like crazy- Summer Games, One on One (Dr. J v Bird), Mail Order Monsters, Adventure Construction Set ( ). I stumbled onto the joy of renting and pirating games (I was a dumb kid..sue me), and acquired many more, including Racing Destruction Set and Wizard's Crown (which I actually tried to play recently, but couldn't get the emulator running).

My first gold D&D game was Pool of Radiance (not the malware sequel). I played all of them until I went to college and left the computer at home with my brother. In college, a friend had an Amiga and we played the living shit out of Earl Weaver Baseball. One guy even took the time to create enough real MLB players for us to have a draft and play a league. That game was eons ahead of its time.

[Signe]

To answer this question would put me in an age catagory I am no longer comfortable with.  So I won't.

Answer it, I mean.

And whatnot.

[Viin]

I started out with a flight sim-ish game, called Aces of the Pacific.

I still have it in a box somewhere. (Xwing quickly followed Aces of the Pacific in the list of games that got me hooked).

[Nebu]

To answer this question would put me in an age catagory I am no longer comfortable with.  So I won't.

Answer it, I mean.

And whatnot.

I answered it.  I doubt you're older than me.

Be brave!!!

Edit: Summer Games and One on One brought back some fond memories. 

[Dren]

Signe, a slide ruler isn't a game  

My start was with the Vic20.  The games came on cassette or I typed it all in.  The Ram was 8k and I loved it.  I developed a bunch of games using basic and that kept me busy for years.  My best creation was based off of Indiana Jones and the Lost Arc (that should date it well.)

Then my dad got me a Apple 2c and my programming days were pretty much over.  

Oh, yeah, I started my collection of gold boxes with Pools of Radiance.  I eventually grew the collection to something like 13 boxes.  My wife made me sell them in a garage sale about 2 years ago.

[WayAbvPar]

Oh, yeah, I started my collection of gold boxes with Pools of Radiance.  I eventually grew the collection to something like 13 boxes.  My wife made me sell them in a garage sale about 2 years ago.

Where did you hide her body?

[Dren]

Oh, yeah, I started my collection of gold boxes with Pools of Radiance.  I eventually grew the collection to something like 13 boxes.  My wife made me sell them in a garage sale about 2 years ago.

Where did you hide her body?

Heh, I held out for ... *counting* ... 10 years.  She would ask to sell them every damn year.  Finally I caved because I knew I'd never mess with emulators to get the stuff to play right again.  Plus, I looked at the graphics on the back and it made me shudder.  Nostagia is best left to my own memory and imagination.  I use that same theory with UO.

[Soln]

my first ever computer game was on a DEC-10 workstation... "Adventure"!!  ("pick up key", "I don't understand what you are trying to say", "pick up the key", "I don't understand...", "pick up the fucking key", etc.)

had a VIC-20 (space invaders, moon lander), C-64 (DigDug?), Apple2 (wolfenstein, Wizardry!!), 2+, 2C...

Best original and gold box D&D moment was also for me "Pool of Radiance" (also, not the schlock version).  I also had fun for awhile griping over Douglas Adams' HHGTTG adventure game ("pick up pocket fluff", "take analgesic", etc.)

In recent times, however, I think the game that gave me the most WOW factor and the most personally important (I spent several weeks recovering from surgery while starting/finishing it) was "Baldur's Gate" (the original).  I loved how I could wander the entire countryside in the framset and kill random spawing mobs, like I was levelling up as a D&D PC.  Wonderful story line too and was very innovative in UI and some graphics IMO back then.  /peace

[Toast]

Sim City with the god-forsaken red copy protection handout.
I spent many an hour playing Railroad Tycoon in ugly CGA.

Champions of Krynn Gold Box was so beautiful. Man, I loved that game. I can still hum the opening theme to this day.

Death Knights of Krynn was great, too.

[WindupAtheist]

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny on Commodore 64 owned all.

[Krakrok]

Wasteland and Wizardry Bane Of The Cosmic Forge both in CGA. Paragraph book for the win.

[Xanthippe]

The first Civ, the first SimCity and the first Populous for pc.  The first Zelda for console.

I can pick 4, can't I?

[schild]

The first zelda. That's a clever twist on the topic of this thred.

Honestly, I didn't really like any of the old TSR gold box games. The first RPG I truly liked was Final Fantasy IV, but for some reason I kept playing the TSR stuff. Ah, and Ultima. Played them too. But didn't like them. I guess I've been gaming with a grudge since I was 5.

[Morfiend]

I think it was Kings Quest 3 that did it for me. The one where you started as the wizards apprentice, and you had to put him to sleep, and go out and gather ingrediants for potions to get your freedom from him. After that it was Space Quest and Police quest series. I also played all the Kings quests up to 5.

I also loved the TSR gold box games. Pools of Radiance was REALLY hard, but the one that totally sucked me in was Champions of Krynn, as I had just got finished reading the Heros of the Lance trilogy. I think I was around 11 at the time.

[Strazos]

The first PC games I actually owned were Warcraft 2 and Baldur's Gate.

BG is what did it for me. Also, Tribes and TFC once I got my own PC.


EDIT: My console love got started at age 4 with an NES. SMB gave me what the local doctors called, "Nintendo Back."

All the kids were wrenching their backs to "make" Mario jump, hehe.

I also loved the Zelda games, a little-known title called Jackal, and a bunch of others.

[angry.bob]

Conan on our high school's cutting edge Apple IIe. Huzzah!

[Furiously]

Oh the hours I spent playing Zork, Planetfall, Starcross, Scott Adam's adventure games. Starflight and Wasteland are probably the two where I knew I would never stop gaming.

[Pococurante]

Same with me - the text adventures were what really fired my imagination.  But then I played Adventure on the Atari nonstop - that game was made for mushrooms that turn purple when bent.

[Jobu]

<------- Monkey Island 2.

Granted, there were tons of games before that. But that one was my first true love.

[Fargull]

My first PC infatuation was Civs.

I lost a lot of sleep to Civ.  Course, the first damn game I catassed was Diablo.  Group of four of us got it and moved into their dorm for the next few weekends.  Was a fucking blast.  Drank more soda and ate more pizza in that span than I care to contemplate.

[stray]

Defender of the Crown on the Amiga. That game seemed to have a little of everything, and before that, my only experiences were my brother's shitty Vic-20, my friend's Colecovision, and the occassional game of Combat or Pitfall on the 2600.

[jinxer]

Wow, this thread has brought back a flood of beautiful and nostalgic memories.  Dammit Fargull, why did you do this to me?  lol

Ok, the first PC games I ever played were Panzer General, Tie Fighter, and Hell:A CyberPunk Thriller.

I didn't like panzer so much, not really into RTS.  I loved Tie Fighter, what's not to love?

As for Hell, I'd completely forgotten all about it, until I started trying to remember what my first games were.  I had this old ass junky computer, and I totally got engulfed by this game, Hell, and then *blam*, much to my chagrin, my computer kept choking on.  I never even got to finish playing that game, though maybe I should pick it up and try it again, now that it's like 11 years later and I have an alienware.  Then again, maybe it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.    

[HaemishM]

Hell was the last adventure game I think I ever played. Either that or the dark superhero adventure game EA made before EA became a bunch of dogfucking rapists in suits.

[stray]

Hell was great. 92-95 was probably my favorite period for games (when adventure games were everywhere). Panzer General is my first love for TBS (you said RTS though..Hmm...).

Wing Commander owned Tie Fighter though  

EDIT: Was that "Dark" superhero game called Necropolis? Because I had that one too.

[Bunk]

For computer games for me it was all about the C64 - M.U.L.E., Gateway to Apshai, Archon, Sword of Fargoal

Then came the Amiga Age - Civ 1, Empire, and a shareware Battletech sim I played the hell out of with friends

With the PC, the first game that really hooked me - The Bard's Tale. Then Civ 1 , Eye of the Beholder, Earl Weaver Baseball (with friends) and Ultima 7.

[shiznitz]

First PC game was a Broderbund version of Defender on the Apple II my grandmother gave us (me and my brothers) in 1980 or so. The next game was some fight game with a Conan-like character that could do a really cool decapitation move. Then a friend gave me his pirated Ultima II and it was all over. Pool of Radiance made me drool.

[jinxer]

Hell was great. 92-95 was probably my favorite period for games (when adventure games were everywhere). Panzer General is my first love for TBS (you said RTS though..Hmm...).

Wing Commander owned Tie Fighter though  

EDIT: Was that "Dark" superhero game called Necropolis? Because I had that one too.

Oh, Wing Commander, Yes!  I played that after Tie Fighter, though.  *sigh*  Meeee-mo-rieeees......*singing*

Oh yeah, TBS - got my acronym's wrong.  ;)

[Triforcer]

Commander Keen in all his iterations.  Also The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was my first console love.  I FINALLY got Houlihan's room for the first time on my emulator the other day.

[schild]

Alright, I'll give. The game that got my engines running was Tele-Arena.

[Hoax]

Well I feel young...

The PC games that made me a PC gamer was a little known Microsoft title named Outwars whose community was hyped as hell about Tribes1.  Once I started playing Tribes1 I knew I'd never go back to console again.

The PC game that made me realize just how damn cool the interweb could be was Diablo, the first game I played on my dad's computer was the original CnC.

RPG's have always been consoles, I loved FFVII, Chrono Cross and FFIII, I also always really enjoyed Ogre Battle as well as of course every Zelda ever made up to the SNES never owned a n64 or a cube.