A little while back, I was thinking about how much video games have changed since I started playing, and I realized I've been gaming since I was six years old - that's more than 17 years spent obsessed with video games. Over that time I've seen 4 generations of consoles, 3 storage media changes (5 1/4 -> 3 1/2 -> CD-ROM -> DVD) and a 100 fold increase in computing power. Pretty impressive when you think that that's a span of only 3 presidents.
Unlike most ADD youths of the digital generation (I abhor the term "Y Generation", so don't even try) I never owned a video game console as a kid. My parent wouldn't allow me to get an NES or a Genesis or even an old Atari 2600 I found at a garage sale for $20. It wasn't until college that I finally bought myself a gamecube. No, my formative years were restricted to the realm of computer games only.
The first computer my family had was a good old-fashioned Macintosh LC II. I remember driving to Incredible Universe (a rough equivelent to Fry's) soon after we got it and buying Prince of Persia I. Quite frankly, it blew my mind. Here you had incredibly fluid animation (which still holds up well) combined with outrageous gymnastic moves and wonderful music. I spent months trying to move from level to level without getting impaled on various spikes or falling 3 stories to my death. The fact that the game had an hour time limit (you could save between levels, but your total playing time had to be under 60 minutes before getting to the final level) only made it more frustrating. But I was hooked.
My father was enrolled at University of Oregon at the time, and would bring home shareware games for me from time to time. This was where I got exposed to Solarian II, which I still consider one of the best Space-Invader clones ever. Additionally, I would trade games with another fellow Mac user in my neighborhood, which exposed me to puzzle and adventure games for the first time. This is where I found "3 in Three" which quite simply is the best puzzle game ever (and I'll be talking about it in detail soon).
At my school, we had Apple IIes and Mac Classics, so we would play nothing but Kings Quest 1 or Oregon Trail whenever we could.
It wasn't until I was 10 or so before I touched a PC for gaming, and it was only the Lucasarts classic adventure pack that a friend loved to let me play for 5 minutes before shutting off his computer ( . . . bastard). My family didn't get a PC until I was 13 or so.
The point of this post? I guess to show that a) Mac gaming actually didn't suck during the early 90's (offhand I can name 5-10 great Mac-only games from that time) and that my forced choice of PC gaming influenced my tastes a lot - even now, I still enjoy computer gaming much more than consoles, and typical console genres like Street Fighter clones and sports games just don't hold any interest for me. I wonder how many of today's zealots had only their favored console during childhood. Interesting thing to ponder.
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If it helps any there is a distinct lack of Street Fighter clones nowadays due to the fact that, with the downturn of arcades in the US several years ago, the fighting game genre has gone from something everyone can enjoy to a small group of dedicated fans.
But it is interesting to see a wholly computer-based gaming situation, for the most part. I was the opposite, growing up with nothing but consoles and some moderate forays into computer games. What really helped were those CD compilations in the early 90's though. It was really easy to catch up on a decade worth of the best puzzle, action, SHMUP, adventure, and other genres computers had to offer in just a few months.
Interestingly, I had the same beginning as you (only I never had a Mac - DOS shareware all the way). I was never allowed to have a console, but Sophomore year at CMU I finally broke down and bought an Xbox for Halo. Since then I've played a couple good PC games (the Homeworld series, and.... uh... I can't think of any others) and a ton of fantastic console games.
I got into DOS shareware eventually, but that wasn't until I was 12-14. A hardware store near my house had plenty of those "demo on a disk for $5" things and I snapped most of them up. Apogee and Epic ruled my life for quite a few months.
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