Off the Record

My Favourite Computer Game

I have a favourite computer game. It's called "Caesar III" and it's by those wonderful guys from Sierra.

I accidently saw the game being played by a shopkeeper in Ampang Point about 6 years back and I decided to try it for myself. I immediately got hooked.

You see, I love computer games, but I tend to stick to a very few titles. It's like food, I don't really venture beyond fried chicken, white rice and telur dadar. Yup, for all my exploits in the entertainment world, when it comes to food and computer games, I just stick with what I like.

When I was young, my favourite arcade game was Galaxian (or Galaga) and I would spend a lot of money just hanging out at arcades playing that game. At the same time, the PC was just getting into people's houses and we got an Apple II. Yup, that computer that made Apple a household name. And my favourite on that was a game called Lode Runner. (No I did not like Donkey Kong).

Whenever we went to Genting Highlands for holidays, I would spend the whole day at the arcade section playing a car-racing game which was in 2D. You had a bird's eye view of the car and the whole thing was in a green tint. I loved it, green tint and all.

When I was in Boston, I used to hang out at a pizza place called Supreme's Pizza and we played a lot of 1942, an arcade game featuring World War II planes. Back home in my apartment, I spent many-a chilly night playing EA's golf game (I forgot the title) on my Mac IIsi. That was the only time I got to beat the pros.

When I got married and stayed in Sri Ayu apartments, we had a small study room and I played some game about exploring outer space and trading goods between planets on my Mac Quadra. I loved it because it was about exploring different planets.

Then I discovered Caesar III. I love ancient history, especially the Roman age. I was always fascinated by their empire and when I was young (and even now), I would always think that the first place I would go to if I had a time machine would be to Ancient Rome.

Caesar III was educational. And fun. I created societies, tried to make sure they all got enough to eat, enough work to do, and have a good army to defeat those barbarians. I could play that for hours to an end. And I have been playing that game off and on for the last 5 to 6 years.

Here comes the sad part. I sent in my laptop to the IT department the other day and forgot to take out the CD. The CD's gone. IT says they don't have it. Maybe I lost it. I can't find that game anymore anywhere. I've been looking in and out of a lot of computer shops but to no avail.

In my desperation, I thought I'd just give up playing computer games. Then last month, in a nondescript shopping hypermarket in America, ok ok I was in Target, I saw this game that caught my eye. It was Empire Earth. And yes, it was by those guys from Sierra.

I started playing Empire Earth a couple of days ago. Well, I'm still at the tutorial stage but it seems like a lot of fun. I get to work with people from ancient history until the distant future. A whole 500,000 years worth of strategy.

Maybe this will be better than Caesar III.

Wish me luck, guys.