When I was around 4 or 5 in the very early 90s, my Dad brought home a kickass IBM 386 or 486 that the company he worked at, Seagate, was tossing out. It was pre-Windows, relying on DOS, though I think my Dad put Windows 3.1 on it. Since I was pretty young, he wanted to make it easier for me to play games on it, so he set up a little menu at startup where all I had to do was type in a number and it would start that game.

We had a ton of games since the IT department at Seagate pirated them and distributed them to everyone in the building liberally. I grew up with Wolfenstein 3D (everyone should have shooting Nazis normalized), Commander Keen and bunch of others.

I'd like to talk about some of my favorites.

The modern Triple A gaming scene is all about spectacle, and sure they do it alright but let me tell you about Wing Commander (1990). It's a space flight simulator with an emphasis on dogfighting. It was immaculately polished for its time, and provided as close to a cinematic experience as could exist in a videogame.

In it, you take on the role of a pilot in a long running war with the Kilrathi, a race of humanoid lion folks who seem to be a ripoff of the Klingons. The game featured animated cutscenes, most of them being long conversations with other pilots on the carrier, the TCS Tiger's Claw, all of whom would serve as your wingman each with a distinct AI giving them very different flight and combat patterns.

The game starts with an orchestra playing for the opening credits. Furthermore, the game has branching paths. Some of the levels are very difficult and you may not accomplish every mission. Depending on how well you do you get entirely different campaigns. It really gives off the feel of being on a military campaign in a space opera.

The sequel, Wing Commander II (1991) featured some limited voice acting and a much more complex plot with more involved cutscenes. Wing Commander III (1994) went even further, featuring live action cut scenes with professional actors like Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and John Rhys-Davies. They must've needed paychecks, but it is a phenomenal experience and way better than the movie Wing Commander (1999).

My Dad was the bomb at Wing Commander. He loved flight sims, but this one seemed to be his favorite. He went for a perfect run, which is very difficult to do. He eventually got to the point where he would shoot down his wingmen for stealing his kills, and the game would start weirdly glitching when it ran out of NPCs. I guess none of the developers anticipated a sociopath run at the time. Can't say they didn't learn that lesson.

This game made little me cry quite a bit, because whenever you die, there is a cutscene of your character's funeral, with your commander and your wingmen saying things about you depending on how far you got through the game. It might've the first time I ever had to contend with my mortality.

Surely you've at least seen the remakes. Prince of Persia (1989) was an early cinematic platformer. It followed the prince as he's tossed into the dungeon and has a limited time to make it through all the levels to rescue the princess from being forced to marry the douchebag vizier.

Amusing side note: the historical Jafar is considered one of the great men of Islamic history, being responsible for great advancements across science, art, and civics. Unfortunately his name sounded "evil" enough for early Hollywood that he's been forever immortalized in the Evil Advisor trope.

Anyway, the game features these really smooth rotoscoped graphics that make it feel really pretty and satisfying to watch, even if it is very outdated.

In the game you navigate one screen at a time through the dungeons of the palace solving puzzles and avoiding traps. Some of the deaths were fairly traumatizing for a four year old, like falling into spikes or getting cut in half.

My Dad finished this one and had a save game for every level, allowing me to explore it to my heart's content. I learned how to take a screengrab and import it into a paint program and would make little digital dioramas before I could properly read.

In the 2000s they made a trilogy of really interesting games based on this, and I hope to play them all the way through someday.

This is probably the most mundane concept here. Budokan: The Martial Spirit (1989) is one that's been pretty much forgotten. I look at its gorgeous graphics and marvel that it came from the late 80s, and marvel more that it was from Electronic Arts.

Back in the day, Electronic Arts was a solid studio, you could definitely expect a technically competent, good looking, and fun game. The first thing that always grabbed me about this game is how good it looked.

In it, you take on the role of a student at some kind of martial arts school. You can go to the trainers and learn how to use karate, the bo staff, kendo, or the nunchaku. Once you're confident, you can go to the tournament and try your skills against increasingly difficult opponents.

As an early PC fighting game, the controls are a bit stiff. It definitely isn't as polished as the likes of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, but it is absolutely a solid game.

This was ported to the Sega Genesis and I played it a bit on the Sega Channel in the 90s, I remember spending a frustrating afternoon getting near to the end, but I cannot remember if I finished it or not. I definitely never got that far on the PC.

This was probably the first RPG I ever played. Space Rogue (1989) is an open world RPG where you take on the role of a space explorer in a tiny ship. You can explore space stations and weird parts of space while avoiding pirates and trading goods.

My Dad and I played this one together a bit, and it had a pretty involving story, but we never could figure out what we were supposed to do beyond a certain point. I keep meaning to get a walkthrough and go through it sometime.

The game allows you to do crimes and deal with the consequences. Space Stations won't let you board if you fire on them or get kicked out for stealing. I always find myself wondering what's beyond that third hyperspace jump.

They're pretty primitive by today's standards, but these games were some of the most premium of their day. We definitely never would have been able to afford them without the software pirating fueled generosity of the Seagate IT department.

My Dad brought home almost a literal wall of games on floppy disks back then. I couldn't begin to tell you every amazing DOS game I've played without at least an afternoon or two.

They're a little hard for me to play these days, living in that space between ADHD and personal tragedy makes it hard to motivate for something so comparatively crude, but I'd urge anyone reading to check these out sometime, they're great works of art.