h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My experiences gaming on personal computers comes after the Atari 2600. I was as a youngster among the first generation to be exposed to PC's in the classroom. I had the dubious benefit of being able to sample from the cream of the "microcomputer" crop as it stood after its first harvest. Systems I had thrust upon me include the TRS ("trash") 80 by Tandy/Radio Shack; the Apple II, II+, IIe, IIc; Commodore Vic-20, 64 and Amiga; Atari models 400, 800 and 520st (upon which I played the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Zork text games by Infocom. Ahhh...memories...). I think there were a Timex Sinclair and a Compaq in there somewhere as well.

In the early to mid-eighties, I played a lot of text adventures (Zork, Death in the Caribbean, Enchanter, H2G2, Dragonworld), and the type of arcade ports available for the Commodore machines. It was the text and text/graphics games that did it for me in those days. What a wonderful concept-kind of like the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure book. Not only were the games interactive to almost an infinite degree, but the experience depended entirely on the mind and imagination of the player. Direct descendants of the text adventure include games like Ultima, which at first used ASCII characters to represent the game environment. Modern RPG's were born of such humble stock. Those original text games were the ultimate escapism, allowing complete freedom of the imagination to visualize the game environment in as much complexity as the user's capacity allowed. The puzzles and stories were clever, logical and well-written, allowing an immersive experience akin to reading an interactive novel.

Recent PC gaming leaves something to be desired. There are some worthwhile games in my opinion, like Myst, but most of the popular PC games that I've tried are of the strategy/simulation variety or the ubiquitous first person shooter. I have not had the chance to experience games like Ultima Online or Everquest, but from what I hear, they have a great draw for people to enjoy escapism. My biggest problem with PC gaming is that it doesn't have the "plug-and-play" simplicity of console video games. I don't want to have to worry about whether my computer meets the system requirements listed on the game box. I don't want to have to configure systems or free up RAM or pay a monthly subscription fee for online play. I don't want to have to download patches to fix buggy gameplay. Maybe when the PlayStation 2 goes online soon (I hope), I will try the online thing, but not until then.