When I was young man studying at QUT and still had a future I spent many happy lunch hours playing Pub Pong and Tank Battle in the Rec Room. It wasnt too long before we moved onto the Commodore 64 and thought Pitstop was something special and then the world of colour brought us Frogger and our prayers were answered. Gaming could not get any better. It did. First real gaming “PC” I had was the Atari ST and this had some brilliant games, not the least being Rick Dangerous. Then the problems started. RD 1 became RD 2 and it looked prettier but was less playable – a pattern to be repeated time and time again over the years to follow. Then it was onto an actual PC and remember friends coming over to my place because I had a 100 meg HDD! Then started playing 2 of the best games ever, in different genres, that have not been bettered for me to this day. The FPS entry was Duke Nukem and man it was fun. For your stategy/resource type game we had Command & Conquer. Simply spent hour after hour playing these games. There were acceptable upgrades to come like Red Alert etc and then we also had the AOE series which were great. And who could forget the original Warcraft! The FPS evolved into Quake which was equally simple golden fun. This was a golden era for PC gaming and more importantly they were suited for the single player – hell they even created bots so you could pretend you had friends! Sporting sims started to appear and the clear leader for me was the Links LS golf series.
Quake sadly introduced the online gamer asshole also. They may have been “campers” or simply cheats in one way or another but slowly and surely a lot of fun of online gaming started to disappear. Also life changed a bit at home with kiddies coming along and other priorities coming along. The years passed and as is the way you upgrade your computer every couple of years to keep up with the OS etc. Basically the cost of a new computer stayed much the same year after year but you got more bang for your buck. Game developers got lazy because the puters had much more grunt now so we were dazzled by the pretty colours and gee whizz sounds but the gameplay never improved. Of course we also had the gaming console explosion. Like the PC some of these original consoles had very simple but very playable games such as the Atari soccer game – many sore thumbs eventuated.
So as a reduntiree thought it would be good to get back into some game playing. Computer is suitably gruntworthy with I7 CPU and 16 meg memory etc and of course a PS 3. Bring on the fun? Noticed EA selling the C&C Ultimate collection with all 17 games – hook in! Ok the first 3 entries in the series are virtually unplayable on todays PC and the later entries lack the same degree of playability – if I want a wargame I want tanks , planes and soldiers. I dont want some sort of laser beam from space. WTF happened to Warcraft – who couldnt love Orcs and catapaults? Now we have wizards and spells. People told me Tiger Woods PGA 13 on the PS3 was great and it does indeed look great but I simply cannot master the control pad. EA also had a great online special for Battlefield 3 for only $39? Ok lets get current. Of course these days everything is a digital download and man this game took 3 days to download! Now it looks great and is certainly one of the better FPS series of recent years. Sadly it is majorly aimed towards the multiplayer arena – I understand this, I simply dont like it.
If we can dumb down our Politicians in 2013 why cant we dumb down our computers? Better still anyone got Dr Emmett Browns number?
flashman181 
While the mechanics of games may have made as many steps back as forwards the potential for story has never been better. If you want an FPS to play maybe try Spec Ops: The Line, it has a better narrative than most of last years films.
The competency of modern computers has also allowed the complexity of the RTS to be enhanced exponentially; C&C is all well and good but take a look at the likes of Europa Universalis 3 and you’ll see that there is an upside to progress.
Of course these are both games that barely anybody plays; as in movies the majority go for the dumbed down, compromised fare but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t arthouse equivalents out there.
P.S. There are some sites on which you can play the original C&C, right there in your browser.
I can play original C&C ON MY wIN 8 COMPUTER BUT ONLY IN 16 COLOURS – DO THESE SITES HAVE IT IN FULL RESOLUTION AND Colours? Got some URLs oh wise one. The BF3 single player campaign is pretty good and of course looks awesome. Also playing Counter Strike through Steam wit hbots can be hours of fun. Have heard of Spec Ops so will check it out as long as it suits single player. Is Europa more like Age of Empires – had never heard of it?