Interesting! You all mention quite a few games that I'm not familiar with, is there anyone here that also played/plays Dungeons and Dragons?
I am an avid tabletop roleplayer and dungeon master, but all of that came after Baldur's Gate (you might say it was a gateway game). I played D&D 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition, d20 Modern, Pathfinder, various White Wolf titles (mostly Vampire: the Masquerade), a little Gamma World, some Reign, some Forgotten Armies, lots of GURPS 3rd Edition, and I also spent a lot of time refining and playing my own roleplaying system that I would like to publish someday.
I cut my teeth on the old Infocom games, King's Quest, Ultima III Exodus (played the shit out of that one) and some sci fi rpg that I can't remember the name of. Then not much gaming for a long time until after college. Then it was Final Fantasy 7 and 8 and Tomb Raider. Got hooked on Zelda for a good long time. Broke my PS2 controller from playing too much Tiger Woods Golf (still LOVE that game). I did play Baldur's Gate somewhere in there but couldn't wrap my head around it until I picked it up again a couple of years ago. Have been playing pretty much nothing else since (and STILL have not finished BG2!)
Games I played avidly before Baldur's Gate? Hm. I'd need to think about that.
Shattered Steel comes to mind. Pool of Radiance, The NewZealand Story, Discworld (Discworld and Discworld II), P.O.D., Myst (entire series), Legend of Zelda (A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening), Pokémon (Red, Blue, and Yellow), Broken Sword (The Shadow of the Templars and The Smoking Mirror).
There's a bunch more, but I cannot remember them all off the top of my head.
Eye of the Beholder I, II & III Magic Candle I, II & III Ravenloft I & II Savage Frontier I & II Secret of the Silver Blades Pools of Darkness Dungeon Hack Stonekeep
Oh, I remember a few more:
Colonization Heroes of Might and Magic I & II Might and Magic IV, V & VI
A few console games in the late 80s with friends (Mario, Street Fighter). Later a number of hopelessly outdated PC games, no RPGs though. Indiana Jones, Commander Keen were two faves. In the course of the 90s I didn't game a lot. Was more into reading, playing in the woods, exploring the internet, and playing 'soccer' (for the American readers) with my friends every afternoon after school. I know I played a couple of EA Sports games in those years though (FIFA, NHL). Baldur's Gate came in late 1999. It was my first experience with D&D and roleplaying in general. Till this day it's pretty much THE game for me, and I'm fine with that. Gaming a lot makes me feel bad about myself (inner voice telling me I should make better, more productive use of my time).
What game I played avidly before discovering BG was a game called Ultima Online. I also dabbled in Quake 2, Diablo 1, Half Life, and later Counter-Strike. BG was really the only single player game able to rip me away from UO the way it did, which believe me, was quite a feat for a single player game
I had forgotten about the FPSes. Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM 2 were all games I definitely spent some time playing. By the time the graphics started getting really good I discovered that I had more fun with strategy and RPGs... go figure.
Diablo 1 + Hellfire! GTA 1 + 2! Oldies from Win 95, the previous windows (don't remember their name) and MS DOS! Cybermage: Darklight Awakening! Age of Empires 1 + Rome Expansion!
hmm Might and Magic series. Starcraft, Daggerfall, Pac-man, Civilization, age of empires, Fallout, Pokemon, Ghost busters, Mario, Zelda, and about any other game I could get my hands on.
Hm, the spread of answers is quite funny. Some of us are old codgers who got BG1 pretty much on release in 1998, and have on and off 10-15 years of BG time logged. The 'games before' list therefore sounds like ancient history.
Others have just started now with the enhanced editions, so their 'games before' list sounds like last years new releases.
So if I get to add games I've played at the same time as BG, well a fair wack of multiplayer unreal tournament (the first one), all of the deus exes, all 5 of the PC assassins creeds up to 3, mass effect 1&2, and the total wars, shogun 1 & 2, rome, empire, and napoleon. To a lesser extent, Portal 1&2, KotOR 1&2, & Jade empire.
I've also been on a quest for the perfect sailing game (cannons not optional), so Sid Meier's Pirates, age of sail 2, East india company, plus I modded empire total war so I can play the pirate faction, assassin's creed 4 is waiting for the next steam sale, and I'm desparately trying to get a copy of age of pirates 2.
Wizardry 1-6, Bard's Tale 1 & 2, Ultima (all of them starting with 1 until Ultima On-Line), Dungeon Master 1&2 (on my college roommate's Amiga!), all of the Gold Box games starting with Pool of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic 1-6 (lost interest after 6), and Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3 (still like the Heroes games but BG was out before Heroes 4). I also was playing the V for Victory war games and Axis & Allies quite a bit at that time. I'd mention Lode-Runner and Pong but you'd all think I'm a fossil if I did that...
Oh, I lost countless hours the The Bard's Tale! The second game I don't remember, but do recall the third had lost the magic. The key to the formula seemed to be starting with a party of lowly no-hopers, and progressing them through the game so that they totally rocked by the end. The latter games just ramped too quickly, and missed out on that struggle to eke out the low levels, where finding a light wand was a huge win!
Quarantine was the first game I played that had a video sequence between chapters. That was an awesome game as well. (You were a cab driver in a prison city complex in a dark future... Twist at the end was unexpected...)
Civ. Turn based empire building.
X-wing. Took the video cut scene to a whole new level. Great game as well.
Spyhunter on the sega master system... it was a top down Chase hq game. (Hell, Chase hq was based on it...)
Micro machines. 8 player madness on my Amstrad mega-pc.
Lemmings. If your of a certain age, you will have taken a tribe to the side of a cliff and let them all dissolve in acid... on purpose...
Worms. I never knew so much pride could be induced by having one worm commiting suicide and flinging itself across the screen to save his buddies... Many a fond recall of best worm of the match at the end...
...
Those games meant something. Then Baldur's Gate made me a Gnome...
Baldur's Gate 3. In fact, the architecture of modern Peru is going to bear noticeable influence of it. But don't worry. Weird extra-temporal issues will explain themselves as soon as there is time. Well, to be honest, time is already for some time, as you may have noticed already. It just takes its time to explain. Some day, it will. Only you will most certainly be dead by the time it does. So, carry on.
Had a Famiclone for NES games. Contra etc. Mostly the crappy NES games unfortunately.
Then a Genesis/Mega Drive II, played Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Power Rangers, some Disney games.
And then the Playstation. That's when I got serious as a gamer. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Fear Effect, Metal Gear Solid. Played a LOT of games on PS1.
When I got my Playstation, is when I started discovering RPGS. Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Vagrant Story, Breath of Fire. Played most of them.
Then I got my PC, my cousin gave me Neverwinter Nights and I played it a bit. It was fun but I had no idea what I was doing or what was doing what.
Imagine a PC "noob" trying Neverwinter Nights, 3.5E complexity and rules. It took me months to make sense of it.
Then, my cousin told me that he was playing Baldur's Gate and I saw BG2 in a video game magazine review, along with Icewind Dale. Still have that magazine. It got me curious but still had not much of an idea about it. Just that it's a classic and hard as hell.
I decided to get it when I learned some stuff about it.
I started playing for the first time with a Human Druid in the unmodded BG1. I played it for a bit and left it. Then discovered some mods about it and installed EasyTutu and then I played it fully and focused, for the first time.
No offense to the nostalgic people, but BG1 unmodded is unplayable. At least for me. Low resolution, not a fan of the UI, clay-like models, slow and silly animations, buggy and no kits.
Then came Icewind Dale etc etc. Still haven't finished some DnD games that I want to but they're on the list.
No offense to the nostalgic people, but BG1 unmodded is unplayable. At least for me. Low resolution, not a fan of the UI, clay-like models, slow and silly animations, buggy and no kits.
There you get an Agree from me, I recall my original BG1 crashing a lot, and I like BG2's engine a lot more, besides, I could never manage the game from stop closing when I took out the first CD, so, yeah!
TES3: Morrowind. I still do play it avidly, in fact. Favorite game of all time. Probably have logged upwards of 1000 hours into it over the past seven or eight years. Other than that, I can't think of any I logged much more than 100 hours into. (Which is not what I call avid play, considering I play so many RPGs) I logged about 400 hours into my first Pokemon game. (Emerald) The save says 600, but I'm positive I just had the game paused and running for at least 200 hours. Other than those two, I can't think of many, if any. I suppose I logged probably 150+ hours into Dragon Quest 9.
Edit: And Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for the Xbox. Loved that game.
I'm a weird one on these forums. I seem to be the only one who enjoys JRPGs that aren't Final Fantasy.
I've never even played a Final Fantasy game. That's not been a conscious decision to deliberately avoid them. I just... haven't. None of the things I've ever seen about them have ever interested me enough to want to try them.
Although when I got an Xbox 360 and discovered the online store, I looked at the RPG's and decided on a whim to try Tales of Vesperia. I've bought every Tales of game released in english since... Graces, Xillia, Symphonia Chronicles, Abyss on the 3DS.
But before BG... well, there was Time Pilot on the BBC micro. That took up a lot of my time. Elite, Elite II, First Encounters, Phantasy Star 1-4, The Settlers 2, Fallout 1+2, Daggerfall, Warcraft, Dungeon Keeper...
And since Baldur's Gate I've obviously played lots of games. Despite how it looks based on stuff I do the internet, like never signing up for any game forum other than Baldur's Gate ones, I do do other things. BG doesn't occupy a huge part of my life. Really. I've got...a dog and... stuff. So obviously that all keeps me very busy and I'm not just thinking about playing Baldur's Gate all the time. Not most of the time anyway.
The upcoming Elite: Dangerous has got me all excited about space sims. I remember playing X: beyond the frontier at about the same time as Baldur's Gate came out, and despite all it's flaws it was great. flying through space, exploring, trading and blowing stuff up. Good times. Some of the sequels were alright too, pity about the terrible voice acting and storylines.
The new Elite has got me thinking about buying a joystick, that's how excited I am.
TES3: Morrowind. I still do play it avidly, in fact.
Me too, but technically I've played it (for the first time) after Baldur's Gate and not before.
The game I've played right before Baldur's Gate was The X-Files Game.
It was released in 1998, few months before BG1. I should still have the CDs somewhere, but I don't know if they still work or if the game still runs on modern hardware. Too bad it isn't available digitally from sites like GOG.
I remember there was a part in which you had to guess a computer password by looking at clues in an office. I'm not gonna spoil it here, but I used that password as the name of my first PC in BG1
Commodore plus 4: icycle works, fire ant Sega master system: Alex Kidd, operation wolf,Spider-Man, wonderboy in monsterland Amiga 500: prince of Persia, stryder, mad bomber Mega drive: golden axe, altered beast, streets of rage Game boy: motor cross maniacs, Tetris, T2, super mario world Super Nintendo: mario cart, super Mario bro,world etc PC: fall out 1,2,3, caeser 3, Zeus master Olympus, sudden strike, medieval total war, project igi, heroes m&m, iwd, bg1&2,gangsters 2, lots lots more Xbox: hit man, halo 1&2, godfather, feud ex invisible war, need for speed underground again lots more Xbox 360: fable (great fun), fo3
How much of my life have I missed, happy days.... Gotta go, got minted lamb burgers for dinner missus callin ciao =D
Comments
Nhl
Neverwinter nights online (was stuck there 4 years)
FF 7-10
Gran turismo
Call of Duty online
But i really miss some of the old arcade games, like Commando and 1941.
So, yes. =P
Shattered Steel comes to mind. Pool of Radiance, The NewZealand Story, Discworld (Discworld and Discworld II), P.O.D., Myst (entire series), Legend of Zelda (A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening), Pokémon (Red, Blue, and Yellow), Broken Sword (The Shadow of the Templars and The Smoking Mirror).
There's a bunch more, but I cannot remember them all off the top of my head.
Eye of the Beholder I, II & III
Magic Candle I, II & III
Ravenloft I & II
Savage Frontier I & II
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness
Dungeon Hack
Stonekeep
Oh, I remember a few more:
Colonization
Heroes of Might and Magic I & II
Might and Magic IV, V & VI
Diablo 1
Fallout
Classic point'n'click adventure games like Hopkins FBI, Jack Orlando, Simon the Sorcerer, Ace Ventura.
I used to love playing Dungeons & Dragons, particularly as the Dungeon Master.
Baldur's Gate came in late 1999. It was my first experience with D&D and roleplaying in general. Till this day it's pretty much THE game for me, and I'm fine with that. Gaming a lot makes me feel bad about myself (inner voice telling me I should make better, more productive use of my time).
What game I played avidly before discovering BG was a game called Ultima Online. I also dabbled in Quake 2, Diablo 1, Half Life, and later Counter-Strike. BG was really the only single player game able to rip me away from UO the way it did, which believe me, was quite a feat for a single player game
GTA 1 + 2!
Oldies from Win 95, the previous windows (don't remember their name) and MS DOS!
Cybermage: Darklight Awakening!
Age of Empires 1 + Rome Expansion!
Others have just started now with the enhanced editions, so their 'games before' list sounds like last years new releases.
So if I get to add games I've played at the same time as BG, well a fair wack of multiplayer unreal tournament (the first one), all of the deus exes, all 5 of the PC assassins creeds up to 3, mass effect 1&2, and the total wars, shogun 1 & 2, rome, empire, and napoleon. To a lesser extent, Portal 1&2, KotOR 1&2, & Jade empire.
I've also been on a quest for the perfect sailing game (cannons not optional), so Sid Meier's Pirates, age of sail 2, East india company, plus I modded empire total war so I can play the pirate faction, assassin's creed 4 is waiting for the next steam sale, and I'm desparately trying to get a copy of age of pirates 2.
Wizardry 1-6, Bard's Tale 1 & 2, Ultima (all of them starting with 1 until Ultima On-Line), Dungeon Master 1&2 (on my college roommate's Amiga!), all of the Gold Box games starting with Pool of Radiance, Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic 1-6 (lost interest after 6), and Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3 (still like the Heroes games but BG was out before Heroes 4). I also was playing the V for Victory war games and Axis & Allies quite a bit at that time. I'd mention Lode-Runner and Pong but you'd all think I'm a fossil if I did that...
Right on commander!
Quarantine was the first game I played that had a video sequence between chapters. That was an awesome game as well. (You were a cab driver in a prison city complex in a dark future... Twist at the end was unexpected...)
Civ. Turn based empire building.
X-wing. Took the video cut scene to a whole new level. Great game as well.
Spyhunter on the sega master system... it was a top down Chase hq game. (Hell, Chase hq was based on it...)
Micro machines. 8 player madness on my Amstrad mega-pc.
Lemmings. If your of a certain age, you will have taken a tribe to the side of a cliff and let them all dissolve in acid... on purpose...
Worms. I never knew so much pride could be induced by having one worm commiting suicide and flinging itself across the screen to save his buddies... Many a fond recall of best worm of the match at the end...
...
Those games meant something. Then Baldur's Gate made me a Gnome...
Had a Famiclone for NES games. Contra etc. Mostly the crappy NES games unfortunately.
Then a Genesis/Mega Drive II, played Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Power Rangers, some Disney games.
And then the Playstation. That's when I got serious as a gamer. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Fear Effect, Metal Gear Solid. Played a LOT of games on PS1.
When I got my Playstation, is when I started discovering RPGS.
Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Vagrant Story, Breath of Fire. Played most of them.
Then I got my PC, my cousin gave me Neverwinter Nights and I played it a bit.
It was fun but I had no idea what I was doing or what was doing what.
Imagine a PC "noob" trying Neverwinter Nights, 3.5E complexity and rules. It took me months to make sense of it.
Then, my cousin told me that he was playing Baldur's Gate and I saw BG2 in a video game magazine review, along with Icewind Dale. Still have that magazine.
It got me curious but still had not much of an idea about it. Just that it's a classic and hard as hell.
I decided to get it when I learned some stuff about it.
I started playing for the first time with a Human Druid in the unmodded BG1. I played it for a bit and left it.
Then discovered some mods about it and installed EasyTutu and then I played it fully and focused, for the first time.
No offense to the nostalgic people, but BG1 unmodded is unplayable. At least for me.
Low resolution, not a fan of the UI, clay-like models, slow and silly animations, buggy and no kits.
Then came Icewind Dale etc etc. Still haven't finished some DnD games that I want to but they're on the list.
Edit: And Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for the Xbox. Loved that game.
Although when I got an Xbox 360 and discovered the online store, I looked at the RPG's and decided on a whim to try Tales of Vesperia. I've bought every Tales of game released in english since... Graces, Xillia, Symphonia Chronicles, Abyss on the 3DS.
But before BG... well, there was Time Pilot on the BBC micro. That took up a lot of my time. Elite, Elite II, First Encounters, Phantasy Star 1-4, The Settlers 2, Fallout 1+2, Daggerfall, Warcraft, Dungeon Keeper...
And since Baldur's Gate I've obviously played lots of games. Despite how it looks based on stuff I do the internet, like never signing up for any game forum other than Baldur's Gate ones, I do do other things. BG doesn't occupy a huge part of my life. Really. I've got...a dog and... stuff. So obviously that all keeps me very busy and I'm not just thinking about playing Baldur's Gate all the time. Not most of the time anyway.
The new Elite has got me thinking about buying a joystick, that's how excited I am.
The game I've played right before Baldur's Gate was The X-Files Game.
It was released in 1998, few months before BG1. I should still have the CDs somewhere, but I don't know if they still work or if the game still runs on modern hardware. Too bad it isn't available digitally from sites like GOG.
I remember there was a part in which you had to guess a computer password by looking at clues in an office. I'm not gonna spoil it here, but I used that password as the name of my first PC in BG1
Sega master system: Alex Kidd, operation wolf,Spider-Man, wonderboy in monsterland
Amiga 500: prince of Persia, stryder, mad bomber
Mega drive: golden axe, altered beast, streets of rage
Game boy: motor cross maniacs, Tetris, T2, super mario world
Super Nintendo: mario cart, super Mario bro,world etc
PC: fall out 1,2,3, caeser 3, Zeus master Olympus, sudden strike, medieval total war, project igi, heroes m&m, iwd, bg1&2,gangsters 2, lots lots more
Xbox: hit man, halo 1&2, godfather, feud ex invisible war, need for speed underground again lots more
Xbox 360: fable (great fun), fo3
How much of my life have I missed, happy days.... Gotta go, got minted lamb burgers for dinner missus callin ciao =D