Forsaken
I pretty much grew up with a PC in my room. In and around grade 6 or so the family computer (Is that a dated term now?) got a big upgrade and since I was the only one right any interest in it, the old 286 ended up with me. Home computers were still very basic at the time and so there wasn't much you could do with them aside from office stuff, MS Paint and gaming. But I used to love tinkering with it, trying to get the most out of the low-power computer and trying whatever software I could get a hold of. Which was very difficult at the time since there was no internet. I slowly made upgrades here and there; from a 286 to a 386, 486, pentium 166, pentium 2. Added a sound card, modem, CD-ROM, more ram (from 512k to a whole 4mb) and new video cards. The fun part was how when you made enough of a leap, suddenly you could play games that were infinitely greater than the ones before it, or sometimes, the games themselves could run that much better that they were practically new games. It was the equivalent of upgrading consoles from one generation to the next, though sometimes the cost was much higher.
I used to drop large amounts of money on computer upgrades. If I had it, I never thought twice about spending $300 on a new video card so I could run a game I just bought. Or $1500 on a whole new rig, but mind you, I used to spend a lot of time in front of my computer. One of the biggest at once upgrades I ever did was when I used cash from a summer job to upgrade from my Pentium 166 to a new Pentium 2 with a new case, video card, (Viper V550 I think?) 2X CD-Writer, a ton of ram and (finally) a new sound card. (Soundblaster LIVE 128.) At the time, we all had N64s and PlayStations as consoles and while they were quite good, they were very early on the scene for 3D graphics. I was so used to my console outperforming my PC at the time that when I made this upgrade I was floored by how much better everything looked.
When you upgrade PC components, one of the other awesome things is how frequently hardware is bundled with game demos, or sometimes even full games. There's a number of PC games that I wouldn't have tried had they not come free with my video card, or sound card, etc. One of the games that I got bundled when I made this notable upgrade was Forsaken. A Descent clone that has you flying around tunnel arenas fighting AI driven tanks and other players in various futuristic hover-vehicles. It looked absolutely fantastic. Texture resolutions were much higher than on the PS1, lighting and other effects were more advanced and the framerate was silky smooth. As far as I was concerned, it was well worth the $1000+ upgrade.
Forsaken wasn't a particularly special game, but it always stuck with me since it was the first game I had tried on my new system. We actually had a copy for the N64 which was great for 4 player gaming at the time. I loved it much more than anyone else, so it went to the wayside quickly as other new games showed up and so I just went back to playing my PC version by myself. The N64 version practically looked like a different game though. Textures were big and chunky, levels less defined and overall looked like it may have been a completely different game. Then again, it was developed by two different developers and very well may have been two different games.
Apparently, Forsaken was purposely bundled with new video cards in order to show them off, since it was so 'new tech' driven that it was used to benchmark various hardware. This explains why it looked so fantastic at the time and especially so on the card I had purchased. Like Descent, it was a very difficult game. Allowing full 3D freedom of movement, it was easy to get disoriented (with no horizon or sky to rely on) and this became a problem when you had to get somewhere quick. But in the end, it was a fun deathmatch game that stood out from the usual fare at the time that offered two different experienced for me, one on console and one on my new PC.
I pretty much grew up with a PC in my room. In and around grade 6 or so the family computer (Is that a dated term now?) got a big upgrade and since I was the only one right any interest in it, the old 286 ended up with me. Home computers were still very basic at the time and so there wasn't much you could do with them aside from office stuff, MS Paint and gaming. But I used to love tinkering with it, trying to get the most out of the low-power computer and trying whatever software I could get a hold of. Which was very difficult at the time since there was no internet. I slowly made upgrades here and there; from a 286 to a 386, 486, pentium 166, pentium 2. Added a sound card, modem, CD-ROM, more ram (from 512k to a whole 4mb) and new video cards. The fun part was how when you made enough of a leap, suddenly you could play games that were infinitely greater than the ones before it, or sometimes, the games themselves could run that much better that they were practically new games. It was the equivalent of upgrading consoles from one generation to the next, though sometimes the cost was much higher. I used to drop large amounts of money on computer upgrades. If I had it, I never thought twice about spending $300 on a new video card so I could run a game I just bought. Or $1500 on a whole new rig, but mind you, I used to spend a lot of time in front of my computer. One of the biggest at once upgrades I ever did was when I used cash from a summer job to upgrade from my Pentium 166 to a new Pentium 2 with a new case, video card, (Viper V550 I think?) 2X CD-Writer, a ton of ram and (finally) a new sound card. (Soundblaster LIVE 128.) At the time, we all had N64s and PlayStations as consoles and while they were quite good, they were very early on the scene for 3D graphics. I was so used to my console outperforming my PC at the time that when I made this upgrade I was floored by how much better everything looked. Forsaken wasn't a particularly special game, but it always stuck with me since it was the first game I had tried on my new system. We actually had a copy for the N64 which was great for 4 player gaming at the time. I loved it much more than anyone else, so it went to the wayside quickly as other new games showed up and so I just went back to playing my PC version by myself. The N64 version practically looked like a different game though. Textures were big and chunky, levels less defined and overall looked like it may have been a completely different game. Then again, it was developed by two different developers and very well may have been two different games. Apparently, Forsaken was purposely bundled with new video cards in order to show them off, since it was so 'new tech' driven that it was used to benchmark various hardware. This explains why it looked so fantastic at the time and especially so on the card I had purchased. Like Descent, it was a very difficult game. Allowing full 3D freedom of movement, it was easy to get disoriented (with no horizon or sky to rely on) and this became a problem when you had to get somewhere quick. But in the end, it was a fun deathmatch game that stood out from the usual fare at the time that offered two different experienced for me, one on console and one on my new PC.
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