Red Silvers
Pokemon Red w/ 1 Nidoran
(Thread migrated from old forum, pardon our dust!)
There are a handful of games that I can say defined a major part of my life. In the list of games I have played and enjoyed, there is a very big one. But games that actually changed who I was, and sparked something deep inside me? That list is a lot shorter.
So let's try to set the scene a little, shall we? The first strategy game I played on the computer was WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, sometime in 1994. 11 year old Red loved the idea of building an army and fighting another army. Plus you had the denizens of Azeroth, the good humans and the evil Orcs, and you could even play at the bad guys! (Of course, in actual lore it gets a bit more complicated than that, even back then) It was a hard game, too, one I didn't get to beat back then because I didn't own the game.
Fortunately, right around when my siblings and I got a new PC, a new game came out: WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. The original version was a DOS game, though it would launch in Windows. While Orcs & Humans was a good game, the sequel took everything good about the first game and made it better. The controls were less janky, the graphics popped better, and even the way the game felt just seemed better. Plus, the cast expanded a bit beyond just Orcs and Humans, as each side got new allies. Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes joined the human side, while Trolls, Goblins, and Ogres joined the Orcs. All summed up in two 14 level campaigns following the two sides. All in all, a lot of points to make it a superior sequel to the original. But how did it really blow me away, you ask?
WarCraft II came with a map editor. You could recreate any level in the game, or build your own levels, known as PUDs. And you could play these levels against others. There were lots of third party CD's sold that were just collections of PUDs, though they were marketed as if they were additional games. But for me, the idea of being able to make my own levels for a beloved game was a game changer. Though for WarCraft II level making, that would turn out to be just the start. But I'll get into that a bit more later on.
The following year, an expansion pack came out, titled WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. Two new 12 level campaigns came out that carried on the story from the core game. A new focus on the Hero units helped drive the story in a new direction, and even added Draenor, the Orc homeworld, into the game for the first time.
Both these original discs were DOS discs, as I mentioned before, but eventually the games were remade as pure Windows format, and tweaked so that they could make use of the Battle.net service, which later Blizzard games like StarCraft and Diablo 2 made use of. There are other differences in the Battle.net version, but not stuff that most casual players of the game would notice.
Nowadays in this modern era, I am fortunate that even though the classic discs I have won't run, both Orcs & Humans and the Battle.net Edition are available on Good Old Games. This game really is special to me and I haven't even touched on parts of the history of the game that have really defined me, because I want to leave some things to talk about a bit down the road. But for now, I'm excited to take you all with me as I play though this classic from my past.
There are a handful of games that I can say defined a major part of my life. In the list of games I have played and enjoyed, there is a very big one. But games that actually changed who I was, and sparked something deep inside me? That list is a lot shorter.
So let's try to set the scene a little, shall we? The first strategy game I played on the computer was WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, sometime in 1994. 11 year old Red loved the idea of building an army and fighting another army. Plus you had the denizens of Azeroth, the good humans and the evil Orcs, and you could even play at the bad guys! (Of course, in actual lore it gets a bit more complicated than that, even back then) It was a hard game, too, one I didn't get to beat back then because I didn't own the game.
Fortunately, right around when my siblings and I got a new PC, a new game came out: WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. The original version was a DOS game, though it would launch in Windows. While Orcs & Humans was a good game, the sequel took everything good about the first game and made it better. The controls were less janky, the graphics popped better, and even the way the game felt just seemed better. Plus, the cast expanded a bit beyond just Orcs and Humans, as each side got new allies. Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes joined the human side, while Trolls, Goblins, and Ogres joined the Orcs. All summed up in two 14 level campaigns following the two sides. All in all, a lot of points to make it a superior sequel to the original. But how did it really blow me away, you ask?
WarCraft II came with a map editor. You could recreate any level in the game, or build your own levels, known as PUDs. And you could play these levels against others. There were lots of third party CD's sold that were just collections of PUDs, though they were marketed as if they were additional games. But for me, the idea of being able to make my own levels for a beloved game was a game changer. Though for WarCraft II level making, that would turn out to be just the start. But I'll get into that a bit more later on.
The following year, an expansion pack came out, titled WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. Two new 12 level campaigns came out that carried on the story from the core game. A new focus on the Hero units helped drive the story in a new direction, and even added Draenor, the Orc homeworld, into the game for the first time.
Both these original discs were DOS discs, as I mentioned before, but eventually the games were remade as pure Windows format, and tweaked so that they could make use of the Battle.net service, which later Blizzard games like StarCraft and Diablo 2 made use of. There are other differences in the Battle.net version, but not stuff that most casual players of the game would notice.
Nowadays in this modern era, I am fortunate that even though the classic discs I have won't run, both Orcs & Humans and the Battle.net Edition are available on Good Old Games. This game really is special to me and I haven't even touched on parts of the history of the game that have really defined me, because I want to leave some things to talk about a bit down the road. But for now, I'm excited to take you all with me as I play though this classic from my past.