In the past I've been something of a gamer, this site is somewhere for me to list various game related info.

Top 5 Games

• Zangband - Freeware.
Zangband is one of many variants of text based dungeon games, others include Angband, Nethack, Moria and Rogue. Your player is the "@" symbol, and you run through dungeons killing orcs "o", dragons "d", etc. You have stats such as strength, dexterity, constitution, and can go up levels by gaining experience (it's based on role playing games). The game itself is massive, with dozens of levels and landscape to explore, and hundreds of enemies, weapons, equipment and artifacts. This serves as an example that a great game is not just about graphics - it is more about gameplay. Zangband first appeared in 1994, new versions have been released since then. The origin of these games is Rouge, by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman and Ken Arnold in 1980.
• Elite 3 - "Frontier: First Encounters" (FFE), Frontier Developments. shareware.
Elite 3 was a starship simulator with unlimited freedom. An immediately stunning feature was the quality of graphics, with seamless vision when travelling from high orbit down to a planet's surface. The aim was whatever you liked - trade, millitary combat, piracy, exploration; unlike so many games with obviously canned story lines, Elite 3 was freedom. The game itself is likely to have had the most unlimited gameplay in any game (even more than the massive Zangband), with the entire milky way to explore (billions of star systems and individual planetry systems). It even included several newspapers chains that could be read in game, to learn about wars, civilisations, and other events that you could participate in (if you liked). What prevented this game from massive popularity was it's premature release - the first release was riddeled with bugs (eg, autopilot would sometimes try to fly the spacecraft through planets), and by the time these could be fixed the damage had been done by poor reviews. Since Elite 3 was released in 1995, I've been waiting for Elite 4. I'm still waiting! In the meantime various fans have reworked Elite 3 to work on a variety of newer systems, including Linux.
• Doom - id Software.
Doom was a huge leap for 3D gaming, it had angeled walls and floors, lighting effects, head bob, great textures, artwork and music; but most importantly - gameplay. The levels were small, fast and imaginative - in the ten years after Doom's release I have not seen level design anywhere near this good. The multiplayer mode was a first, and I don't believe any multiplayer game since has been as fun as the original Doom deathmatch - mostly due to the tight levels. Doom was released in December 1993, in 1994 I wrote a Dr Who mod called "WhoDoom" which made it to the Internet (but has since vanished. screenshots 1, 2 ).
• Wolfenstein 3d - id Software.
When Wolf 3d was released there was nothing like it. Up until then, most 3D graphics in games were wireframe models; a few flight simulators had primitive colours and that was all. Wolfenstien 3d was a full colour, fast paced, 3d shooter from the first person - not only the first done properly, but done very well. Gameplay was great, the artwork was done nicely, and it was a lot of fun (and still is). It was released in May 1992.
• Spellbound - MAD (Mastertronic's Added Dimension).
Spellbound was a platform game released for the C64 in 1985. It and the series it was part of were unique, they were a mix between a platform game and a role playing game. When the fire button was pressed a menu would appear of actions to perform, such as pick up an object, read an object, talk to someone, cast a spell, etc. The aim of the game was to free Gimbal the Wizard by interacting with the other characters in the game and solving many puzzles. The game really made you think, and it wasn't until a few years after buying the game did I finish it. It had superb music written by Rob Hubbard for the C64's SID6581 sound chip.

Systems

Atari 2600, VZ200, VZ300, VIC20, C64, C128, Microbee, Apple IIe, Atari XT, Amiga 500, Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive, Playstation, Playstation 2, PC, Unix, Linux.

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