On Christmas 1997, I received my first PC. It was a Packard Bell Multimedia D135. It came equipped with a 133 MHZ Pentium with MMX, 16 MB of RAM, and a 1.7 GB Hard Drive. I had no idea what any of that meant at the time. But I did recognize the Intel brand as they heavily advertised on Television back then. Before then, I had some light experience with First Person Shooters. The first was “Zero Tolerance” on the Sega Genesis, Golden Eye 64 on the N64, and the first Medal of Honor on the PS1. The experience ranged from the small, pixelated window of Zero Tolerance to the blocky graphics of Golden Eye on the 64. Medal of Honor on PS1 was probably the closest to what I would later experience on my first PC. Don’t get me wrong, these games were all fun. I had a great time with them. But up until I got my first computer, I had no idea such games even existed on pc. My experience with computers was mostly limited to education.
When I found that I was getting a pc for Christmas, by getting a sneak peek in my parent’s closet, I wasn’t too thrilled at first. Sure, I thought it was neat. I figured I could browse the web and play my music CDs on it. Truth is, I had very little interest in computers. Then it hit me. I remember visiting my local grocery stores and reading game magazines for consoles. There were certain ones that I never bothered to pick up because they were computer-related. So, I then decided to walk to my local Kroger, down the hill from our apartment, rushed to the magazine section, and picked up PC Gamer. The issue had Duke Nukem on the cover. I had no idea what a Duke Nukem was, but it looked damn cool. Inside was a CD full of game and application demos. After buying the magazine I took it home and browsed through. I had no idea you could play games on computers. That not-too-thrilling feeling turned to excitement that I could barely contain.
That Friday, my stepdad and brother announced they were going to Walmart. I jumped up and threw on my coat to join them. My thought was, that now I can browse the computer game section that I never paid any attention to before. Once we arrived, I headed straight for the games section. It’s strange to me now thinking about how big the PC section was, especially with its Big Box packaging, and how I never noticed it before. Nonetheless, I picked up game after game, only to find I couldn’t afford any of them with my $ 10-a-week allowance. Feeling defeated, I was ready to walk away until I looked up just a little and there was a CD rack holding various shrink-wrapped jewel case PC games. It was then that I saw Lo Wang with a bloody sword holding the head of some monster with a blood-red backdrop. It was $9.99 and I was sure with a little convincing I could get my brother to cover the tax, which he did. It was still some time until Christmas, so I couldn’t play the game just yet. I read the booklet over and over. It sat on my dresser for a few more weeks.
On Christmas morning, I walked into the living room, where I pretended to be surprised by the computer set up sitting on the floor around the tree like a magazine advertisement. I quickly gathered everything, took it into my room, and set it up on my desk. I’ll spare you the tedious details for when I write about the Packard Bell itself. A little while later, I had installed Shadow Warrior and was ready to go. I was greeted with the classic black loading screen with a little spinning line. After some time, rock-inspired synth music followed by a loud, “Haha! You no mess with Lo Wang!”, blasted from the speakers, with an animation of Lo Wang performing a roundhouse kick. The menu featured episodes, which I had no concept of at the time. I came from console games. I selected the first episode which started me off in Wang’s dojo where a demon armed with an Uzi jumps in and begins firing at me. After defeating the demon, I left the dojo where a bus speeds by crashing into cars creating a spectacular explosion. This was one hell of a start to a game. The levels would continue to vary from city streets, haunted woods, dark caves, zen-like environments complete with statues, and a few water levels. While the explosion effects stuttered a bit on my Pentium 133, I didn’t care. This was my first PC, and I was just glad to be in this moment. The graphics were grainy, yet detailed. It’s hard to explain. While Golden Eye 64 had smooth textures, it and games like it lacked the detail that, what I would later know as Build Engine, had. It wasn’t just the graphics. It was also the interactivity. Driving vehicles. Mounted weapons. Using toilets. Making phone calls. Playing pachinko!? It was official, I was a PC Gamer and First Person Shooters was my new favorite genre.
For weeks, I would spend my after-school days playing Shadow Warrior. Exploring each level looking for secrets and creating a million saves due to getting my ass handed to me often. The levels were rarely boring. Some were maze-like, but I didn’t care. I later discovered, there were cheats on the CD in a folder named, “Goodies” that also contained demos for other 3D Realms games like Bio Menace and Terminal Velocity. Back then, cheats were the norm. They were more for fun than anything and were helpful when you were stuck for a long time. It was quite normal to be stuck on a console game and check Tips and Tricks magazine every time you visited a gas station or grocery store to see if your game had cheats listed in the back. Another cool trick was the ability to put in your Music CD after the game was loaded and type commands to play tracks from them. It felt like there were endless tricks for PC games that did not come close to consoles.
After experiencing Shadow Warrior and the demos included on the CD I wanted more. I went out on the slow 28.8k dial-up modem in search of more FPS shareware and demos. That’s when I discovered, Blood: The Chosen, Redneck Rampage, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, Hexen, and whatever else I could get my hands on. PC Gamer Magazine eventually released an issue that included the full version of Duke Nukem 3D. Later I would get a new computer where I’d continue my First-Person Shooter games with Half-Life, Delta Force, Ghost Recon, No One Lives Forever, and more. While I had played a few FPSs’ on early consoles, Shadow Warrior is solely responsible for my love of FPS games and making PC my favorite gaming platform.
To this day, I have my original Shadow Warrior game complete in the case. It doesn’t get much use these days as there are new ways to experience the game such as Shadow Warrior Redux on Steam & GOG. It has a modern interface, controls, and some graphical enhancements including high resolutions. It’s my favorite way to play it these days. There is also the newer reimagining of Shadow Warrior (2013) developed by Flying Wild Hog, with two sequels, Shadow Warrior 2 (2016) and Shadow Warrior 3 (2022). I have played and enjoyed those as well, the first being my favorite. There was a period when I was without my old Packard Bell as I had screwed it up to the point where it no longer worked (See the article “Unreal and its Impact on Me”). But since I got my second computer a few years later, I play Shadow Warrior at least once every year. I am now 41 years old at the time of writing this. It is still my favorite PC Game and First-person shooter of all time.
