This One Gaming Moment Blew My Socks Off
A retro gaming story from the 1980s, when 10 frames per second felt like magic
There are some moments in my gaming life I’ll never forget. And one of them completely blew me away. Yes, it had to do with graphics, but not the kind you’re probably thinking of.
It had nothing to do with ray tracing, photorealism, or massive open worlds. This happened in the 1980s, on my third computer.
I actually wrote a little more about those early days, in this post, if you want to check it out:
My first ‘gaming machine’ was the Sinclair ZX 81, the second one was the ZX Spectrum. Then came the Commodore 64, and with it, a game that fascinated me:
Flight Simulator II by a company called SubLOGIC. It was developed by a guy named Bruce Artwick, back when most games were made by solo developers.
Even though it ran at maybe one or two frames per second on the C64, we were amazed. It came with something like 90 or 100 pages of documentation, which made it feel important.
Then came 1986, the release of the Commodore Amiga. We got one right away, and soon after, Flight Simulator II was ported to it.
And then it happened.
I loaded it up on the Amiga. I took off. And I saw the runway glide by in fluid graphics. It was only 10 or maybe 15 frames per second, but to me, that felt like flying into the future.
I WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THOSE FLUID GRAPHICS! That moment, that one moment, I’ll never forget.
Compared to the C64 version, it was a huge leap. You have to imagine: we had been flying for years in that stuttering, low-frame world with one or two fps. And now it was smooth, and it had more color. It actually felt like flying! It honestly stunned us.
If you ever played both versions, the C64 and the Amiga ones, you know what I mean.
I also made a video about it. You can watch it here:
That was it for today …. a retro gaming moment that blew my socks off. And I still get goosebumps when I think about it.
Thanks for reading, and keep playing,
Michael
I grew up just playing handheld on the game boy and I remember always wishing to have one in colour and was so excited when the game boy colour came out. 😅 not quite the same but it blew my mind at the time.
Its so fun that we got to experience so many moments like that, where graphics and the possibilities of games expanded much further than we could have ever imagined. I still remember seeing odd world oddysey for the xbox and thinking this is the pinnacle of graphics.