PC Gaming and Me: Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and New Vegas

A little bit of history
My first experience of Fallout was a pirated version of the first game. It was bundled with Diablo and something else that I can't recall, and was missing all of the FMV cut-scenes, voice-acting and so on (I feel I should point out that I was living in a country where there was very little access to legitimate copies of PC games, and PC shops would openly sell pirated copies very cheaply).

Right off the bat, despite missing out on some of the background information due to missing content, I knew I was going to love the game. Nothing I had played to that point had built such a fascinating and alien world. Built from the destruction of a nuclear war, the game is set in post-apocalyptic California and incorporates a mixture of 50s sci-fi technology, Mad Max and more. For an RPG, this was new and exciting for me, as the previous RPGs I'd played were almost all in the "high fantasy" category. You play the Vault Dweller, who had lived a sheltered life in a vast underground hi-tech bunker. A malfunction with the water purifier leads you to be chosen to leave the vault (the first for a very long time) and find a replacement water chip. The adventures you have affect more than yourself, and the decisions you make create different outcomes for the various communities you encounter.

PC Gaming and Me: Memorable Music (part 1)

There was a time when PC games had to rely on the on-board "PC Speaker", which would make a lot of noise but rarely anything you would want to hear. However, such is the constant progress of the platform, it wasn't long until gamers could afford dedicated sound cards and speakers to go with their beige boxes. The difference it made was huge, even in the early days. A few small pieces of music and more realistic sound effects added so much to the experience.

Soon, sound became as integral to a game as the gameplay and graphics. Music can add mood to a game, evoke feelings and expand upon an experience. You could even craft entire games around it! But my love of music in gaming really comes down to those catchy tunes that stick in your head all day, and the soundtracks that beautifully capture the mood and style of the game.