Much more DOS and old PC gaming coverage please!!

[DreamcastRIP]

Soulless? What utter tosh!

If anything, the fact that I built, configured and upgraded my PC on my own meant that I had MORE of a "connection" to it. My PC was mine, its configuration and setup was unique to me.

I wouldn't argue PCs weren't hard to deal with, but that was part of the appeal.

Sure, we started from behind, but where is your Amiga now?!

Still playing ALL the same games it did, shame any Windows can't manage that!

Too funny!

[theantmeister]

Erm... Wut?

If you take a PC the same age as an Amiga, it'd run contemporary DOS games just fine. Windows will run DOS games fine with DOSBox. It'll run Amiga games pretty well too!

So the Amiga is better because it has stagnated as a platform? Yay Amiga!

[AmigaJay]

Erm... Wut?

If you take a PC the same age as an Amiga, it'd run contemporary DOS games just fine. Windows will run DOS games fine with DOSBox. It'll run Amiga games pretty well too!

So the Amiga is better because it has stagnated as a platform? Yay Amiga!

No the point was you need emulators to play old PC games, obviously the Amiga died when Commodore screwed up I'm not sitting here on a massively upgraded A1200 ( well there are some who can't let go!)

But for the same reason, you could say I bought my Amiga when you bought your 286 DOS PC both now massively outdated...what's your point, the fact you spent thousands upgrading to play new and old PC games on totally different hardware ..well done!

[quantum]

Pah! CGA! You were lucky! When I were a lad we had nothing but Hercules Monochrome! One colour, orange, and we were glad for it!

My first PC had CGA, but I only had an amber screen so was spared the 4 colour wonder. When I upgraded to a colour monitor I remember playing all my games again and being amazed at the graphical magic...

To be fair DOS was/is difficult for most to configure, and who wants to feck around with DMA and IRQs when there's games to play? MemMaker didn't come along until MSDOS 5 or 6, so you had to learn how config.sys/autoexec.bat worked.

And yeah, more PC - specifically DOS - game coverage!

[pforson]

Cant believe I didn't see this thread earlier. Anyway...

Once again the debate over PC coverage has headed off in completely the wrong directon, being fueled foolishly by both sides of the argument. Here is my opinion:

1. Yes the mag still requires more PC coverage, but it is also fair to say that in recent issues things have improved.

2. The argument about the PC not being commonly used as a games machine in the UK is daft. Yes, it is fair to say that in the late 80's and very early 90's the ST and more so the Amiga were better and more common. However, one must remember that VGA Graphics were introduced by IBM in 1987 and this became the standard by the early 90's when the PC began to take over.

I would argue that the true era of PC gaming was between 1993 and 2000. I would also argue that it was in this period that the PC dominated both in terms of techinical prowess and creative, influential games - for example, in 1993 the following games were released:

Day of the Tentacle
Sam and Max
X-Wing
Simcity 2000
Doom
Wing Commander: Privateer

When I first saw screenshots of Sam and Max I knew the Amiga was dead. I was right.

3. Many of todays big games companies and franchises began life in this period on the PC. For example:

Mass Effect - Bioware, PC games company.
Fallout / Elderscrolls - PC games from the 90s.
ID software and Valve - both started out as PC games developers
Deus Ex and Max Payne
Etc.

Simply put. The PC killed off the Amiga. Throughout the 90s the PC had the largest technical superiority over that generation of consoles. Modern gaming owes a lot of thanks to the rise of Western developers and PC gaming in general.

4.Most importantly. PC gaming is about games that work best on a PC and that were designed for a PC. If you want to play Street Fighter, buy a snes. However, if you want to play a strategy game (Simcity), a management game (Champ Man), a point and click adventure, a flight sim or a western RPG (Diablo, Fallout, Ultima) - you really should be playing on a PC. This is what the PC should be celebrated for.

5. More PC coverage!

[AmigaJay]

Simply put. The PC killed off the Amiga. Throughout the 90s the PC had the largest technical superiority over that generation of consoles. Modern gaming owes a lot of thanks to the rise of Western developers and PC gaming in general.

Nope wrong...Commodore killed off the Amiga by itself! What with farting about with the A500+ and A600, and taking too long to deliver the AAA chipset, in the end the AA (AGA) chipset had to come to market to bridge the gap in the delay, and it was too little too late from Commodore, had they choose to release the A1200/A4000 in 1990 when VGA gaming was taking off and deliver the AAA chipset on time in 1993 then it might have been a different story, but I guess that's the story with a lot of companies when things go wrong.

As for modern gaming, I'm not thanking anyone for the amount of repetitive fps shooters that get released on a monthly basis!

[psj3809]

Damn its crazy to see how biased some people are !

Totally agree with Pete, in the early 90's for me in the UK it was the Amiga/ST, 1993/1994 the PC seemed to take over, all my friends who had Amigas all moved over to PC's, just the next step up. Commodore didnt kill off the Amiga, just as people moved from 8 bits to 16 bits the next step was Amiga-PC. The Amiga was killed off as everyone jumped ship, better games were coming out on the PC.

I loved my Amiga and had some great years with it but then was addicted to my first PC with Command and Conquer, of course Doom. Great times back then

[Fishsta]

LOL... I have great memories of messing about with autoexec.bat and config.sys to try and maximise the amount of Conventional Memory available (640Kb should be plenty, remember), or indeed activating or deavtivating EMS Memory. Whatever the hell that actually was.

I remember setting up a menu for the startup of my 6x86 PC, 4 options... startup in Windows (95), startup in DOS with EMS, startup in DOS without EMS and startup in DOS... dang.... what was the 4th option? I *KNOW* there were 4 options, but can't remember what the last one was.

Damn this fading memory.

[Matt_B]

If money was no object, a PC was the best games machine you could get from about 1990 onwards. Of course, not everyone could afford a 486 with SVGA graphics, a Soundblaster Pro, a Roland MIDI synthesizer, etc. so perhaps people still got the impression that PC games had just EGA graphics and speaker sound. It's easy enough to go back and look at which games came out when though, so I'd hope people can rid themselves of that misconception.

As for the Amiga, I suppose the irony is that when the machine really took off in the UK in the early 90s, it was already a dead duck in most of the rest of the world; well, largely outside Western Europe and maybe a few other isolated pockets. Commodore only really had themselves to blame, as they'd squandered a huge technological lead in the late 80s; all those great A500 games were basically running on the same hardware as a 1985 Amiga 1000.

[pforson]

Simply put. The PC killed off the Amiga. Throughout the 90s the PC had the largest technical superiority over that generation of consoles. Modern gaming owes a lot of thanks to the rise of Western developers and PC gaming in general.

Nope wrong...Commodore killed off the Amiga by itself! What with farting about with the A500+ and A600, and taking too long to deliver the AAA chipset, in the end the AA (AGA) chipset had to come to market to bridge the gap in the delay, and it was too little too late from Commodore, had they choose to release the A1200/A4000 in 1990 when VGA gaming was taking off and deliver the AAA chipset on time in 1993 then it might have been a different story, but I guess that's the story with a lot of companies when things go wrong.

As for modern gaming, I'm not thanking anyone for the amount of repetitive fps shooters that get released on a monthly basis!

Don't get me wrong, I had an Amiga back in the day and it's my 3rd favourite retro system with a host of my favourite games on it. However...

What?

How exactly can a company kill itself off? - without competition from other systems the leader in the market continues to lead. It is irrelevant whether said company releases further improvements or not. If for example, the PC had never existed and no better computers were ever to be released, then we'd all still be happily using our Amigas to this day.

If the Amiga hadn't been released then I would have happily continued using my Spectrum.

Sure, if Commodore had released the greatest computer ever seen in the world ever of all time ever, then the PC wouldn't have killed them off. But they didn't and so it did. Simple.

[pforson]

If money was no object, a PC was the best games machine you could get from about 1990 onwards. Of course, not everyone could afford a 486 with SVGA graphics, a Soundblaster Pro, a Roland MIDI synthesizer, etc. so perhaps people still got the impression that PC games had just EGA graphics and speaker sound. It's easy enough to go back and look at which games came out when though, so I'd hope people can rid themselves of that misconception

Amen.

[AmigaJay]

Simply put. The PC killed off the Amiga. Throughout the 90s the PC had the largest technical superiority over that generation of consoles. Modern gaming owes a lot of thanks to the rise of Western developers and PC gaming in general.

Nope wrong...Commodore killed off the Amiga by itself! What with farting about with the A500+ and A600, and taking too long to deliver the AAA chipset, in the end the AA (AGA) chipset had to come to market to bridge the gap in the delay, and it was too little too late from Commodore, had they choose to release the A1200/A4000 in 1990 when VGA gaming was taking off and deliver the AAA chipset on time in 1993 then it might have been a different story, but I guess that's the story with a lot of companies when things go wrong.

As for modern gaming, I'm not thanking anyone for the amount of repetitive fps shooters that get released on a monthly basis!

Don't get me wrong, I had an Amiga back in the day and it's my 3rd favourite retro system with a host of my favourite games on it. However...

What?

How exactly can a company kill itself off? - without competition from other systems the leader in the market continues to lead. It is irrelevant whether said company releases further improvements or not. If for example, the PC had never existed and no better computers were ever to be released, then we'd all still be happily using our Amigas to this day.

If the Amiga hadn't been released then I would have happily continued using my Spectrum.

Sure, if Commodore had released the greatest computer ever seen in the world ever of all time ever, then the PC wouldn't have killed them off. But they didn't and so it did. Simple.

Well it killed itself off by wasting money on r&d on useless hardware I.e c65, c128, CDTV, c64gs, a500+, a600...all the money they made on the c64, Amiga they squandered on those, eventually going into liquidation and hence killing itself off.
As for whoever said the PC was the best games machine whatever it cost from 1990 onwards...I disagree totally on that, only when Doom arrived did I start to want some games, but my friend had a decent spec PC and I wouldn't say at all the PC had the best games, yeah it shared games that were on other systems....even today it's not the best games machine, it's always in the background to surprise with some great games sure but not THE definite games system.

[Matt_B]

As for whoever said the PC was the best games machine whatever it cost from 1990 onwards...I disagree totally on that, only when Doom arrived did I start to want some games, but my friend had a decent spec PC and I wouldn't say at all the PC had the best games, yeah it shared games that were on other systems....even today it's not the best games machine, it's always in the background to surprise with some great games sure but not THE definite games system.

I was more thinking in terms of technical specs. PCs could offer games with the greater colour depth of VGA, MIDI soundtracks, more processing power, etc.

Which machine actually had the best games is always going to be a matter of personal preference, and not an argument I'd particularly want to get into here.

[merman]

Well it killed itself off by wasting money on r&d on useless hardware I.e c65, c128, CDTV, c64gs, a500+, a600...all the money they made on the c64, Amiga they squandered on those, eventually going into liquidation and hence killing itself off.
As for whoever said the PC was the best games machine whatever it cost from 1990 onwards...I disagree totally on that, only when Doom arrived did I start to want some games, but my friend had a decent spec PC and I wouldn't say at all the PC had the best games, yeah it shared games that were on other systems....even today it's not the best games machine, it's always in the background to surprise with some great games sure but not THE definite games system.

R&D costs on the C65, C64GS and C128 were minimal. CDTV was a dead-end, but the real killer was the delay to the CD32 release in the US. Poor management and marketing had a bigger impact. The only thing that could have saved Commodore was launching the AAA architecture and machines.

[AmigaJay]

As for whoever said the PC was the best games machine whatever it cost from 1990 onwards...I disagree totally on that, only when Doom arrived did I start to want some games, but my friend had a decent spec PC and I wouldn't say at all the PC had the best games, yeah it shared games that were on other systems....even today it's not the best games machine, it's always in the background to surprise with some great games sure but not THE definite games system.

I was more thinking in terms of technical specs. PCs could offer games with the greater colour depth of VGA, MIDI soundtracks, more processing power, etc.

Well of course, chuck money at anything and you will get the best...But spending hundreds on each component just for VGA graphics wasn't wise in those early days, when you could have the same games on other computers for a fraction of the cost, as said it wasn't until 3d games and dedicated 3d graphics cards came out then the PC started coming into its own.

Well it killed itself off by wasting money on r&d on useless hardware I.e c65, c128, CDTV, c64gs, a500+, a600...all the money they made on the c64, Amiga they squandered on those, eventually going into liquidation and hence killing itself off.
As for whoever said the PC was the best games machine whatever it cost from 1990 onwards...I disagree totally on that, only when Doom arrived did I start to want some games, but my friend had a decent spec PC and I wouldn't say at all the PC had the best games, yeah it shared games that were on other systems....even today it's not the best games machine, it's always in the background to surprise with some great games sure but not THE definite games system.

R&D costs on the C65, C64GS and C128 were minimal. CDTV was a dead-end, but the real killer was the delay to the CD32 release in the US. Poor management and marketing had a bigger impact. The only thing that could have saved Commodore was launching the AAA architecture and machines.

Commodore were in trouble from 1992 onwards even before the CD32 was the last gasp hope, overpriced and awful designed A600 didn't sell as hoped, short orders of A1200 parts meant poor sales in a vital first xmas season, I think it was only 30,000.
But mainly it was Commodore US that dragged the rest of the company down with it, the UK and Germany subsidiary's were making money even at the last, heck even Commodore UK made a bid to buy the rights after the liquidation!
And yes that was the other point about the AAA chipset that never was, if they knew it was going to be delayed that long they could have got AA out earlier to compete with VGA, and had the power with the AAA chipset to compete with the upcoming games that appeared at that time. Its all ifs and buts of course, shame we never got to find out, I would never had thought I'd be using an Apple product 20 years down the line!