"It's Christmas of 1994, and I am 16 years old. Sitting on the table in our family room next to a pile of cow-spotted boxes is the most incredible thing in the world: a brand-new Gateway 66MHz Pentium tower, with a 540MB hard disk drive, 8MB of RAM, and, most importantly, a CD-ROM drive. I am agog, practically trembling with barely suppressed joy, my bored Gen-X teenager mask threatening to slip and let actual feelings out."
"I'd been working for several months at Babbage's store No. 9, near Baybrook Mall in southeast suburban Houston. Although the Gateway PC's arrival on Christmas morning was utterly unexpected, the choice of what game to buy required no planning at all. I'd already decided a few weeks earlier, when Chris Roberts' latest opus had been drop-shipped to our shelves, just in time for the holiday season. The choice made itself, really."
"The moment Babbage's opened its doors on December 26-a day I had off, fortunately-I was there, checkbook in hand. One entire paycheck's worth of capitalism later, I was sprinting out to my creaky 280-Z, sweatily clutching two boxes-one an impulse buy, The Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual, and the other a game I felt sure would be the best thing I'd ever played or ever would play: Origin's Wing Commander III: The Heart of the Tiger."
A 16-year-old receives a new Gateway 66MHz Pentium PC with a CD-ROM drive, prompting eager anticipation for CD-based games. A decision to buy Wing Commander III followed months working at Babbage's and the game's arrival at the store. The purchase felt inevitable given the series' reputation and the promise of cinematic interactivity. Memories include sprinting home with boxed purchases and believing the game would be the best experience ever. From a later perspective in 2026, the promised 'Siliwood' FMV revolution is remembered as unsuccessful, leaving costly games defined by grainy interlaced video and mediocre gameplay.
Read at Ars Technica
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