10. Quake (id Software)

The dominance of the first-person shooter began in 1996 with the release of Quake, and with it came the wonders of online gaming. The single-player story consists of a government teleportation experiment gone horribly awry, in which hordes of deadly foes break through a portal and destroy everybody but you. The game’s graphics and music - the latter composed by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails - were unmatched by any other at the time, even id Software’s own Doom series, and paved the way for a lucrative set of games that included Quake II, Quake III Arena, Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

9. Duke Nukem 3D (3D Realms)

I was first attracted to the Duke Nukem games simply because the lead character was just so f-ing cool. Yet another first-person shooter on this list, the game was released the same year as Quake but was entirely different in its look and feel; where Quake was dark, bloody, and rough, Duke Nukem was colorful, bloody, and, to a certain extent, amusing as hell. A game that allows you to have a weapon that shrinks enemies to the size of Barbie dolls is absolutely good for hours of fun.

8. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (LucasArts)

While never a Star Wars geek, I was drawn to Jedi Knight for a number of reasons: a) the positive sneak peeks that kept showing up in the gaming magazines I read, b) the respect and trust I had for LucasArts, and c) the online gaming capabilities. With the help of my Diamond Monster 3D graphics card, the game took up a good number of hours of my teenage years, less so for its single-player storyline than for the multiplayer fun that included capture-the-flag, team games, and deathmatches. Of course, cheating was prevalent in these multiplayer games - unlike others, Jedi Knight had no fix for that - and the old-school servers could barely handle the load, but if you could get beyond the lag and you had a blazing-fast 56k modem, you were good to go.

7. Grim Fandango (LucasArts)

Continuing on my path of “LucasArts, rah, rah, rah!” (as five of the ten games listed here were created by that company), when I first saw the screenshots for Grim Fandango I was absolutely floored. Released in 1998, the game had probably the most beautiful cartoon graphics I had ever seen. Based on the Mexican concept of Día de los Muertos, the tone of the entire game is inherently dark with a humorous twist. I honestly spent hours upon hours working my way through the game, and its intricate puzzles and captivating storyline had me hooked all the way through.

6. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (LucasArts)

Though I was only eight when Monkey Island 2 was released, I managed to rediscover it in my early ‘teens. You play Guybrush Threepwood, a swashbuckling young stud who’s on a search for both a treasure (the Big Whoop) and the girl of your dreams, only to be interrupted by the resurrection of your old foe, the infamous pirate LeChuck. Hysterically funny, verging on rude, Monkey Island 2 hosts a wealth of pop-culture quotes, tough puzzles, and lovable characters that led me to play the game time and again, long after I’d beaten it for the first time.

5. Half-Life (Sierra Entertainment, Valve Software)

In 1998, probably the best first-person shooter was released, and the gaming world was never going to be the same. Half-Life was the most talked-about game in a decade, and while it lacked the traditional level structure of past games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D (you simply keep playing in kind of a continuous way, moving from one place to the next at your own pace), the entertainment value never faltered. Gorgeous to look at, mind-blowing to listen to, and difficult but manageable to play, Half-Life is likely to be seen as the grandfather of many of the great shooters of today.

4. Wolfenstein 3D (id Software)

In addition to being the first popular first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D was also one of the first examples of viral marketing gone totally right. Released as shareware, the game’s popularity flourished with the ease of copying the game; additionally, in 1994 Wolfenstein was banned in Germany for its use of the Nazi Swastika and anthem. The publicity didn’t stop there: when Wolfenstein was released for Super NES, the cartoon blood was replaced with sweat, and the guard dogs in the game were removed due to animal-rights activists protesting about, well, shooting cartoon animals. *pause* Anyway. With Wolfenstein constantly making headlines, the game maintained its popularity throughout the 1990s and has spawned a few sequels, with the next in the series under development now for PC, XBox 360, and Playstation 3.

3. Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (LucasArts)

I have to give a shout-out to DoTT, especially since I rediscovered the wonders of this point-and-click adventure game recently when I bought the original on eBay. The sequel to 1987’s creepy Maniac Mansion, DoTT involves a trio of friends attempting to save the world from domination by the oversized, angry Purple Tentacle with the use of a time machine. In typical LucasArts adventure game fashion, the game is chock-full of humorous, illogical puzzles involving, at times, key characters from colonial America - George Washington, Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, et cetera. Though the game itself is rather short, the creativity you need to use to get through each part of the game is extraordinary, and DoTT remains to this day my favorite adventure game ever.

2. Sid Meier’s Civilization (MicroProse)

My dad brought this home for me one day when I was twelve, and I have yet to find another game so engrossing that I can easily lose four hours at one time playing it. A single-player, turn-based strategy, Civilization offers you the opportunity to build an empire while competing with two to six other civilizations for wealth, knowledge, military prowess, and technology. The game developed into further releases, including CivNet, the online version, as well as Civilizations II, III, IV, and, most recently, Revolution, which I finally purchased after futile attempts to get it at my local Best Buy - it kept selling out.

1. Outlaws (LucasArts)

If any game influenced my career path, it was the first person shoot-’em-up Outlaws. Forever a fan of Westerns, the release of Outlaws took up all of my (rare) free time because of its addictive single-player storyline, the thrill of online play and the close-knit nature of its online community, and, of course, the creation of Outlaws Unleashed, a site I created to be the de facto resource for Outlaws players and which was featured in the unfortunately now-defunct PC Games Magazine.

… at least, it feels that way outside. If we have another cold spell, I think I may actually hurt somebody. This past week was crazy with the Nor’easter that came through; though my street wasn’t largely affected by it, numerous roads were shut due to overflowing rivers and drains, and I heard that downtown Rahway was full of people in boats. Basically, it was just very wet, very gray, and quite cold and miserable. This probably explains why everyone at The Office seems to be sick. Bloody winter. Go away!

Last week we had a sales and marketing kickoff meeting in Atlantic City, three days with eight hours each of presentations, team-building exercises, and so forth. It was pretty interesting, actually, and caused some heated debates … but of course that’s not the bit that made me happy. No, it was my discovery that I absolutely adore playing blackjack for money. By the end of the third night, Meg (who had come to visit that night because she didn’t have to work the next day) was keeping all of my chips in her pocket for me so that I wouldn’t spend anymore, and when I cashed out I had about $1100. Not bad for a poor sod like me! Plus, given that the hotel and all meals were paid for by my company, I made a fair bit. Nothing wrong with that.

On a random note, Chris bought Guitar Hero II the other day for XBox 360 (did I mention I bought that? Well, I did, and it’s fabulous!) and brought it over last night so that I could finally try it out. Let’s just say, I don’t think I should ever buy it for myself. I wouldn’t play anything else. I already have problems enough with The Godfather.

And finally, thank goodness Sanjaya and his bloody hair are finally gone from American Idol. If LaKisha had gone before him, I may have actually stopped watching (that’s a blatant lie, of course, but I would have been more than a little bit peeved). But what will America be talking about now? Honestly, as much as I disliked the guy, he was the most interesting part of the show this year. Even Paula seems to have lightened up on the drugs; she’s lost her infamous ‘colour’ from previous seasons.

My passion for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has made me a realize a long-departed interest in gaming, and I’ve spent some time scouring sites like Gamespot and IGN for the latest gaming news and views. My next large present to myself will undoubtedly be an XBox 360, but that is a long time coming. I wouldn’t feel right plopping down four hundred bucks for a game machine right now, not when my car sounds as though it’s about to explode, I have rent and bills to pay, and I’ve yet to figure out a wedding gift for my mother and her boyfriend. But anyway.

I stumbled across a preview for a game that, at first glance, is quite similar to GTA. It’s a real-time strategy game that is based in New York City, and, as the main character, you wander around completing missions. This is where the similarities end. Where GTA offers the innocent gamer the opportunity to do things he/she probably would never do in real life, such as steal cars, shoot innocent bystanders, and deal with corrupt cops, among other things, Left Behind: Eternal Forces lets you “join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil” as you use prayer to build up an army to take on the AntiChrist, the head of UN-lookalike Global Community Peacekeepers. The game, though involving some necessary deaths, will not include blood so as to retain its ‘T for teen’ rating, and unnecessary killings result in a lower score. Compare that to GTA, where you actually gain respect for killing rival gang members.

Can you guess that this game is targeted at the Christian community? Looks pretty interesting, but I’ll stick with my ‘Los Santos’ boys, thank you very much. That is, unless the promised multiplayer capability really does offer the opportunity to control the forces of the AntiChrist. Now that’s intriguing.

I miss designing web sites. Back in the summer of 1996, I found a book on HTML in the discount bin at my local bookstore and took it upon myself to learn the ins and outs of the art of web design. My first site, Pure Fun (can you tell I started this one at thirteen?), was a mess of everything from wallpapers to icons to random commentary to advice columns. Let’s face it: it was ugly and amateurish. Luckily I moved on quickly, learning some Java and CGI along the way, and came up with a prototype for what would be one of my biggest web accomplishments. HoMM3 Unleashed, dedicated to the 1999 3DO PC game Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia, was a side hobby of mine that I started at the beginning of my junior year of high school. I took it upon myself to outclass and outperform the already established web sites dedicated to the game, and found myself rapidly amassing an international fan base. Once all the kinks had been worked out, the 100+ page site received multiple awards, including one from the game company itself, and was even featured in the now-defunct PC Games magazine, which, in its heyday, rivalled ubermag PC Gamer. Ultimately, though, with over three million visitors, and needing to update the site multiple times daily, it proved too time-consuming for a high school student to handle, and I handed it over to one of the most frequent visitors, who merged with a fellow gamer to create the Might and Magic haven known as Celestial Heavens.

My other site, developed from my love for European pop music, was a fan site dedicated to Swedish pop sensations the A*Teens, formerly Abba*Teens. In the summer of 1999, my sister and I traveled to Sweden to visit relatives, and I was introduced to the Abba tribute band, whose singles “Mamma Mia,” “Gimme Gimme Gimme,” and “Super Trouper” were catchy and upbeat. I figured there would be a small market for such music, as I really enjoyed it. My site, Somewhere in the Crowd, quickly grew to be one of the most popular A*Teens sites on the web, so much so that even the maintainers of the official site noticed and would periodically send me autographed CDs and pictures to use as prizes in site contests. Once again, though, updating became a nuisance, and I dropped it in senior year due to a load of AP courses and tae kwon do training. The A*Teens have since split to allow its members to pursue individual projects - both Dhani Lennevald and Marie Serneholt (who was voted the sexiest woman in Sweden a year or so ago - quite a change from when A*Teens first began in 1998!) have released albums in Sweden since then - but on occasion I do listen to their songs and remember the days when they were my main musical focus.

I never received any compensation for my sites, though in hindsight, HoMM3 Unleashed could have done well with some advertising. I was never in it for the money, however. I made sites because I enjoyed a) the product I was marketing, and b) creating the sites themselves. And I miss it! I miss the enjoyment of putting together a professional-looking site just from typing a bit of text into Notepad, I miss scouring the ‘net for means of attracting visitors, and most of all I miss creating a product that was both useful and enjoyable for people I might never meet, from all around the globe.

I’d like to get back into web design. This would entail, however, re-teaching myself the tricks of HTML as well as learning the languages and technologies that have emerged since my departure from the web scene, including DHTML, Flash, RSS feeds, and so forth. That, and I require a good idea for a site. Obviously this is a long way off, but it’s fun to think about.