Every gamer has that one game. It's the one that you looked forward to playing at the end of every single day. You would race home, throw your backpack/suitcase/small child onto the couch, and you would immediately plug in. You'd play to master every part of it. You'd skip meals for it. You'd play it until sunrise if you could, and if you couldn't, you'd make time. You loved it, deeply and purely, maybe voraciously. And then life happens, and however long it may take, you eventually drift away from it.
Myth was that one game for me. I just finished my Myth: The Fallen Lords LP and while I like the overall result, it felt incomplete. For all of their virtues, LP's aren't the best medium for long-winded accounts of how a game shaped a multi-year chunk of one's life. Blogs are probably better suited to telling stories like that, and whaddya know! I happen to have a blog right here!
I really mean it when I say that Myth shaped my life. The pursuit and enjoyment of Myth drew me in all kinds of crazy directions that were mostly cool and entirely formative. I actually learned life lessons from the whole ordeal, starting with actually getting the game itself.
For everyone out there that has that one game, you probably remember the first time you saw it played. My first time with Myth was at a computer store that was obnoxiously named The Computer Store. The underlining was a part of the name. It was on all of their branding. It was probably in the phonebook with an underlined The. I think I even remember the employees rarely answering the phone with extra emphasis on "The." It was the kind of obnoxious swagger that befitted a Mac-only store in the late 90's. It actually still exists and has since been renamed "The Mac Store," no underlining, after someone apparently decided to concede that there are actually computers that aren't Macintoshes.
Nerdy brand loyalty aside, it was a really cool place in my adolescent eyes because it had a consistent supply of Mac games. I didn't care that the carpets were usually dirty and the place smelled like warm plastic and sweat; I probably smelled much worse. A more important feature to me was the counter with mammoth 21" CRT monitors hooked up to blazing-fast Macs. The guys at the store were pretty cool about loading the display models up with games, including Myth.
Some bespectacled lummox was probably playing the game as I watched arcs of gore and fire dance across the screen. I saw purple plumes burst from the Soulless as arrows pierced their ghostly forms. Exploding Wights rippled the ground and coated it with their excreta. Warriors charged into the breach, their shields clattering against the clumsy blows of a Thrall's axe. It was like Braveheart, except with 100% less Mel Gibson and 861% more gratuitous blood.
Another cool thing about The Computer Store was their laissez-faire attitude about unattended juveniles playing games that would be considered totally inappropriate for them. I probably got away with playing it for a good two or three minutes before I shied away, knowing that my Dad was probably not going to be too happy with me playing a game that was essentially an explosive meat grinder simulation. But the damage was done. I had to have it.
Unfortunately, I was still plodding along on a Performa 475. We bought it in 1994 and it worked fine back then, but Apple had come out with PowerPC-based machines in that same year. A lot of applications were only compatible with these new chips, including Myth, and our plucky little Performa used a 68k based chip that was getting pretty wheezy by the time 1997 rolled around.
Buying a new computer wasn't just a matter of whining until my parents cut a check. We flat out didn't have the money to buy non-essentials for a lot of my childhood. It wouldn't happen unless I suddenly discovered that I had a third kidney or that my farts contained trace amounts of gold dust (I only just learned this about six months ago).
I was despondent, but determined.
