Electronic Gaming Monthly mention

[saussage]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 4 2005, 05:58 PM\'][quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jun 4 2005, 03:36 PM\']Three colors?  That must have been the Windows 3.1 version; pink, yellow, green and black.  As long as you beat the computer, you could keep building up your total.  I think I was up to $87,000 in 13 wins by the time we updated the computer.
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The four-color pallate was a CGA thing. Windows (and definitely by the time 3.1 shipped) always required at least 16-color graphics, I'm fairly sure.
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The PC at the time was weak for video games mostly. CGA was in the ol DOS days with ISA video cards that barely did 2D. When the original WOF came out for the PC, Windows 3.1 was still a pipe dream. I played that version many times and although the game is pretty good, the gfx make Vanna look like she has permanent liver disease

The C64 at the time by far was better and even the NES was beating the PC in the graphics and sound dept. Not until the early 90's where the PC could start surpassing game consoles for graphics and sound quality around the time Wolfenstein 3D came out. Then, the PC surpassed for good with Windows 95 being released and 3D graphics cards. Since then, Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, and Jeopardy as examples have been faithfully reproduced. It would've been great if this to have happened 10 years prior.... games like Let's make a deal, High Rollers, Gambit and Card Sharks would've had nice high quality CD-ROM versions released for us to play and treasure (and I know some of the games I listed were never released or done). Now those game shows are so old since the original air dates that there's no drive for anyone to produce a game for them for the PC or console. I guess GSN or a 3rd party may want to look into the gameshow software market?? Problably not a viable option.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Modor\' date=\'Jun 7 2005, 06:55 PM\'][quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 7 2005, 08:32 PM\']The PC version of Blackout was vastly superior to most other versions, too.
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Blackout had a PC game??
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'Scuse me. Wipeout.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'saussage\' date=\'Jun 7 2005, 09:23 PM\']Not until the early 90's where the PC could start surpassing game consoles for graphics and sound quality around the time Wolfenstein 3D came out.

(yammer yammer wonk deleted)
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Yes, the VGA graphics standard and the Sound Blaster (well, the AdLib tried, but it was really the SB that took hold) sound card were the saving graces of the IBM-PC as a gaming machine. If you'd have told me in 1988 that the PC would be the preeminent gaming platform inside of ten years, I'd have laughed at you.

[ilb4ever2000]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 8 2005, 04:32 AM\']Yes, the VGA graphics standard and the Sound Blaster (well, the AdLib tried, but it was really the SB that took hold) sound card were the saving graces of the IBM-PC as a gaming machine. If you'd have told me in 1988 that the PC would be the preeminent gaming platform inside of ten years, I'd have laughed at you.

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So...you don't like PC speaker beeps?

[saussage]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 8 2005, 04:32 AM\']If you'd have told me in 1988 that the PC would be the preeminent gaming platform inside of ten years, I'd have laughed at you.

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It's a good thing that I didn't seriously have a PC until 1992. I would've turfed it if I had it even a couple of years earlier. Problably would've grabbed a C64 instead.
A Tandy 3-voice with dithered ultra low-res graphics... delicious

It's so funny: Vanna's puzzle touch-board has problably more processing power than PC's in the late 80's and the puzzle board still does next to nothing. Common, show me a dragon or something I was going to say red letters but that was already done on the old puzzle board

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'saussage\' date=\'Jun 8 2005, 04:07 PM\']It's a good thing that I didn't seriously have a PC until 1992. I would've turfed it if I had it even a couple of years earlier. Problably would've grabbed a C64 instead.
A Tandy 3-voice with dithered ultra low-res graphics... delicious
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That's when I got my first PC. (Well, second half of 1991.) VGA graphics and a Sound Blaster. First game I bought for it: Wing Commander. Good times.

It's so funny: Vanna's puzzle touch-board has problably more processing power than PC's in the late 80's and the puzzle board still does next to nothing. Common, show me a dragon or something I was going to say red letters but that was already done on the old puzzle board

Um...yeah.

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 8 2005, 07:19 PM\']That's when I got my first PC. (Well, second half of 1991.) VGA graphics and a Sound Blaster. First game I bought for it: Wing Commander. Good times.

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Considering most games on the consoles have speech and kick-ass graphics now, it's no big deal to anyone when that happens in a game.

But in 1991, toss a Sound Blaster and Wing Commander into a PC and you actually have a) decent sound and b) real speech*, that's something big. IMHO, Wing Commander/'Wing Commander 2 were the quintessential "show off your IBM PC" games.

*The speech might have started with WC2? My memories are foggy if a speech pack was made for the first one.

ObGameShows: A few years later, science fiction met game shows in "Lexi Cross" (to this day, one of my favorites).

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Jun 8 2005, 05:13 PM\']*The speech might have started with WC2? My memories are foggy if a speech pack was made for the first one.
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Speech pack was WC2, which took up a whopping _TWENTY_ megabytes of hard drive space when everything was installed.

I remember the night that was released, we went over to a buddy's place who worked at the software store and sat there with jaws agape as we watched the opening sequence.

(And to those of you who complain about the price of video games, I paid eighty bucks for WC2 and the speech pack. Gladly.)