PC Gaming at Christmas

[Karstein]

I picked up a copy of The Complete PC Gamer Reviews Guide recently, and it got me thinking back to gaming of Christmases past.

For me - excluding remembrances of playing Christmas Lemmings et al on borrowed/other peoples' PCs, or games on other non-PC computers - my first real taste of PC gaming over Christmas was in '96 when we picked up our first box. From memory, the games we had were:

Indycar Racing
Day of the Tentacle
A Demo Disk from an issue of PC Attack, which I recall had shareware versions of Terminal Velocity, Lemmings 3D, Hi Octane and some 2D platformer set in prison, for which the name escapes me.

I was probably most excited about Indycar Racing as it looked spectacular, but as I soon found out, it was tough as nails. Nevertheless, it made for a good destruction derby simulator once you'd spun out on the second corner of lap 1. As it happens, Day of the Tentacle turned out to be the best game, which is still one of my favorites.

I also recall we picked up the wonderfully 90s Windows 95 games sampler CD at some stage. The full list of games included are here. Some great memories from just looking back through that list - oh how we could keep entertained by a demo for hours! I particularly remember playing Endorfun and being slightly concerned due to the scaremongering about subliminal messages at the time. Other favorites were Doom (for Windows 95! The future!), Beavis & Butthead, and Battle Beast (despite it being laggy and unresponsive as a sloth in a bath of treacle, the premise and art blew me away). I was also amazed by the AI of Dogz. Yes, they were simpler times...

Moving forward, I have sporadic memories of games I received around Christmas time. Those I recall most fondly were Worms, GTA and of course Half-Life. In the case of Worms, I seem to recall spending the time immediately after the clock struck 12 for the new year punting bombs at my brother across its rocky landscapes instead of doing any kind of partying.

Anyway, it's time to mentally pull up a chair, grab your 2-button mouse of choice and bask in the glow of the 15-inch SVGA monitor. Let's hear your experiences of Christmases past!

 

[96Firebird]

The only game I remember receiving specifically on Christmas was Viper Racing from my uncle. But I played plenty of older games back then. I had a sampler pack from Gateway which included Myst and some others, and I got a demo CD every month from some magazine. Some games I remember playing were NFS II, SimCity 2000, Age of Empires II, and then later on Operation Flashpoint, BF1942, 1nsane, America's Army, etc...

 

[Revolution 11]

This was not specifically on Christmas but close enough. My dad bought my brother and I two different LucasArt game packs. One had Dark Forces, Rebel Assault, Rebel Assault 2, Tie Fighter. The other pack had The Dig, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, and Sam & Max.

Best Christmas purchase ever. Lasted us four full years. Then we got Star Wars: Jedi Knight and SW: Phantom Menace.

 

[shortylickens]

I actually got very few decent games at christmas.
Most of my pleasure has come from summer releases, or at least finding stuff during the summer.


Well, except for my very first game.

Got my NES for Christmas of 86. Best day of my life. Came with Rad Racer and Gradius too.

 

[Raduque]

The 7th Guest was the very first PC game I got as a Christmas gift. It was, incidentally, the only thing I got for Christmas that year, because my parents considered the PC they bought around September or so to be a Christmas gift.

It was a store demo unit that came with dozens of retail and demo games installed, Doom, Flight Sim 5, Megarace, and Bio Menace to name a few.

Most of the games I can remember getting for Christmas are console games. Most Wanted and Perfect Dark for the 360 when they came out, GT4 and GT5 on their respective consoles, etc.

One year though, I remember as a standout year, was the year I got a 4x CD rom drive, a Sound Blaster (ISA) and a massive 24mb ram upgrade for that PC I mentioned above.

 

[networkman]

I've noticed while playing DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) that the Winter Wolves are currently sporting antlers and red noses this season!

http://dnddiehards.blogspot.com/2011/12/dungeons-and-dragons-online-winter.html

 

[acheron]

I strongly remember getting Warcraft II for Christmas (96 right? Or 95?).

 

[Clinkster]

I remember getting Republic Commando & KoToR.

Can't remember any others...

 

[Fallen Kell]

I never received many PC games for Christmas, and as such, do not have as many memories of them. Only one really stands out, and it was Mechwarrior 2. The reason it stands out is because after getting the game, we realized the computer simply could not play it and needed to have the CPU upgraded. I wasn't able to play the game until the next week after performing my very first upgrade to a computer (with my Dad supervising). Back then, you didn't even have heatsinks on the CPU, so it was just a matter of physically removing the old chip, putting in the new one, and setting the jumpers properly on the motherboard for the new chip's speed.

 

[FalseChristian]

Aw, 1997. My 1st PC. It had a 166MHz Pentium MMX, 32MB EDO-DRAM, 2.1GB Hard-drive, 2x CD-ROM drive, 2MB ATI 3D Expression 'GPU' and a 14" SVGA CRT monitor. The 1st game I got into was Doom. It was a magical experience.