There's two games I spent the most time on in my 4-16bit youth ;) ..
1. Ultima V on the c64
2. Elite on the Amiga500
I miss the days when games just came to you without a manual, and you had to figure everything out yourself, because they didn't have introductory chapters or tutorials buit-in.
You'd spend a lot more time on getting into the game.
I had no information on Ultima V, but I figured out the whole magic language, I could even write in it's own rune-alphabet, and I drew a map of the world myself. Years later I saw the actual Ultima V map, and I realized I got pretty close to it.
Now, these days, Elite would probably be a bit too grindy and repetitive to be enjoyable, but at the time, the sensation of freely moving through a virtual 3d-space was really mind-boggling.
On the PC, I spent a lot of time on Doom I+II and Descent I+II. I built my first map on descent II ;)
One honourable mention has to be "Gargoyle's Quest" on the Gameboy. A really great console-rpg/jump and run hybrid. Very beautiful graphics, considering the gameboy has only 4 shades of gray.
Actually, my first computer games were played on a Simens "Programming Machine", it had 12" floppy disks, a lovely amber monochrome monitor and ran CP/M as OS - ascii all the way. Even before I got an Atari VC2600 ;)
1. Ultima V on the c64
2. Elite on the Amiga500
I miss the days when games just came to you without a manual, and you had to figure everything out yourself, because they didn't have introductory chapters or tutorials buit-in.
You'd spend a lot more time on getting into the game.
I had no information on Ultima V, but I figured out the whole magic language, I could even write in it's own rune-alphabet, and I drew a map of the world myself. Years later I saw the actual Ultima V map, and I realized I got pretty close to it.
Now, these days, Elite would probably be a bit too grindy and repetitive to be enjoyable, but at the time, the sensation of freely moving through a virtual 3d-space was really mind-boggling.
On the PC, I spent a lot of time on Doom I+II and Descent I+II. I built my first map on descent II ;)
One honourable mention has to be "Gargoyle's Quest" on the Gameboy. A really great console-rpg/jump and run hybrid. Very beautiful graphics, considering the gameboy has only 4 shades of gray.
Actually, my first computer games were played on a Simens "Programming Machine", it had 12" floppy disks, a lovely amber monochrome monitor and ran CP/M as OS - ascii all the way. Even before I got an Atari VC2600 ;)