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I’m Leon Lanthier, living in Washington State. I’ve been an avid computer gamer since I was first involved with computers, back in 1963, when I joined the Air Force and became a Flight Simulator Specialist.  Outside of a real aircraft, a flight simulator is the biggest toy in world.  At least, that’s how I saw it. It was certainly the best computer game.

It wasn’t until 1975 when I got my first home computer game console. Anyone remember the Magnavox “Odyssey”.  Very high tech, at the time.

In 1980, I was working in the Connectors Division of AMP Inc. We had a DEC PDP-10 computer that came with a game developed by Will Crowther called “ADVENT”, which became “Adventure” and later, “Colossal Cave”. It was a text-based adventure game, as we would classify it today.  A co-worker and I became obsessed with it and would come in on weekends to play it.  It took us about 3 months but, we finally finished it.  I still have all the gameplay printouts and data base sheets, as well as the original program code (on computer paper).

Soon after, I was introduced to “Zork” and “Quest”... a couple of games similar to “Adventure” but, with crude graphics along with the text input.

Then, came “TRON”. When the movie came out in 1982, many theaters also had a “Tron” arcade game in the lobby.  I enjoyed the movie but, really liked the game.  I became good enough to put high scores on many machines.

In ‘83, my brother and I went in together on an Atari computer.  We had the usual game cartridges...”Asteriods”, “Missile Command”, “Pacman”, “Donkey Kong”, etc.  Not long after that, I was working at a computer service company and had an IBM clone PC on my desk.  With a 5MB hard drive and a CGA monitor, I could load the best games on the market and they would run really smooth.

In 1990, I landed a job at a local college as a computer tech. It paid well enough to support my computer gaming hobby (habit) and, in 1992-1993 it sky-rocketed. Beginning with “Wolfenstein 3D”, “DOOM”, “Duke Nukem” , “Myst”, “7th Guest” and “11th Hour”, among others.  Later, in 1993, “DOOM II:Hell On Earth” was released and all hell broke loose.  Mission paks and WADs were created and “DOOM II” enjoyed continued success over the next couple years.

In ‘94, I heard that Cyan Worlds was working on a new game called “Riven”, I became very immersed in following it’s development.  The game had quite a following by the time of its release in ‘97.  

Around ‘95, EA came out with the first of a long series of car raccing games called “Need For Speed”. It was the only DOS-based game they produced and the first one that I had to buy a joystick for. Steering a car with the Arrow keys is just not good.

In ‘97, “Need For Speed II” was released and was EA’s first attempt at an open world. It was limited however, to what was termed ‘open-ended tracks’.

Also in ‘97, the long-awaited “Riven” finally came out.  I was a resounding hit. It continued the still-image gameplay style but, inserted motion video cut-scenes as milestones were achieved.  The Riven community grew tremendously.

Then, in ‘98, “Quake” came out with it’s first issue, and in ‘99, “Unreal” blasted into the market.  These two were in hot competition for years

About Me and PC Gaming.

During the last half of the ‘90’s video game boom,  we saw two more of the Need For Speed series…  “NFSIII: Hot Pursuit”  and “NFS: High Stakes”. The latter was my favorite.

In 1998, I found a few airplane simulator games. My favorite was the “F22 Raptor” I’d still play it today but, it only runs on a Windows 98 OS.

Also that year, Valve released “Half-Life”. A sci-fi, ARPG* that became a standard in computer gaming.

After the anticlimactic Y2K Bug scare subsided, the 2000’s brought an ever-increasing advance in hardware and software technology. As soon as hardware manufacturers came out with faster and more powerful systems, game developers were soaking up those resources with better video graphics.  

A new entry into the FPS/ARPG** genre was Deus Ex. An open (albeit confined) world  provided for a lot of choices for approaching the enemy.  And, the first time (that I new) where you could actually employ stealth tactics.  A sequel was released in 2003 called “Deus Ex:Invisible War”

”Return To Castle Wolfenstein” was a milestone in FPS/ARPG types. I still play it, today. A sequel came out in 2009 called “Wolfenstein”.  Cyan had a new offering called, ”Myst III: Exile”, followed every couple years by ”Uru”, ”Revelation” and ”End of Ages”.

During the 2000’s, EA released 10 more in the “Need For Speed” series. I have 7 of them in my library.

In 2002, I was introduced to “America’s Army”. I played “AA” for years until it became Steam-powered.  I lost interest and haven’t gotten back on it.

“DOOM 3” hit the market in 2004 and really put computers to task.  I built a system just for this game (one that Alienware” would have been proud of). Of course, it was obsolete within just a few years.

The 2010’s saw, once again, major leaps in technology and game quality. The “Need for Speed” series continues to release almost every year.  A prequel to the original “Deus Ex”, “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” is an excellent game that’s still on my (new) machine, as well as Valve’s 2004 release of “Half-Life 2” and their sequels, “Episode One” and “Episode Two” .  And lately, I’ve added two more recent games… ”Thief” (the fourth in that series released Feb 2014) and “Wolfenstein: The New Order” which came out in May, ‘14.  However, “W:TNO” is no longer on my computer.  I think I was about two-thirds of the way thru it and I became so offended that I stopped and deleted it.  I won’t go into it here, but it’s disgusting.

After playing all these games (and many more I haven’t mentioned), I’ve yet to burn out on PC gaming.  It seems there’s always something looming on the horizon to anticipate.

While not in the same category, another computer game I play extensively, is online Poker.  Unfortunately, being in the U.S., I can’t play for money, but I still can enjoy play-money Poker. I’m on almost every night. If you play on Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars, maybe you’ll run into me…my player name is “DarkHelmet07” . See you on the felt.

* ARPG  Action Role Playing Game

** FPS/ARPG  First Person Shooter/Action Role Playing Game