Non-Console Gaming and Me

This is a brief addendum to my previous post, covering the non-console gaming I've done over the years.

PC Gaming:
I've been PC gaming since the days of DOS; the first PC games I played extensively were SimCity 2000, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Dawn Patrol.  Compared to console gaming, PC gaming for me wasn't divided into discrete generations but rather consisted of a continuing succession of new computers (on average, we'd get a new one every 2 or 3 years).  Up until the late 1990s, console gaming made up the majority of my gaming time, but after then the balance was tipped in favor of the computer.  This was mostly because the game genres I began getting interested in were mostly PC exclusives, including strategy (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires II, Cossacks, Stronghold, Tropico, many games in the Command and Conquer series, and Eugen Systems' Wargame series), simulators (IL2:Sturmovik and its add-ons, Microsoft Train Simulator, Trainz), economic simulations (Railroad Tycoon II, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion), or citybuilding games (SimCity 2000, 3000, and 4).  By around 2007, PC gaming made up the majority of my gaming time (around 75%), and by around 2010 it made up almost all of my gaming time.

Handheld Gaming:
I had a Gameboy growing up and played a lot of Tetris on it; I also had a GameGear (with only 1 title: The Lion King).  While I did play these during long car rides and during similar situations, I was never all that big on handheld gaming; by the turn of the millennium, I'd usually take a portable music player (tape, then CD, then iPod) and/or a paperback with me on long car rides, especially since books didn't require batteries.

Tabletop Gaming:
Growing up, I considered board games boring and/or childish, but while I was living in New Brunswick, NJ (I was going to Rutgers at the time) there was a comic book/tabletop gaming store located about a block away from where I lived (The Fallout Shelter; the store has since then moved to Highland Park, and subsequently closed), and I started going there, where I was introduced to card and board games such as Power Grid, Zombies, and Man Bites Dog.  Since then, I have added Ticket To Ride and Terror in Meeple City to my repertoire of board games, and have also played numerous miniatures games, including Warhammer 40K, Wings of Glory, and X-Wing.  I think part of what attracted me to tabletop gaming was that it gave me a break from time spent behind a computer; while I loved going on the computer in my free time when I was growing up, today I often use a computer at work so tabletop gaming has become a welcome break from that.  In addition, there is a tactile element to tabletop gaming that electronic gaming just doesn't have; in its own way, moving a game piece or a group of miniatures around a board or playing surface is more satisfying to me than just making a bunch of pixels do something on a screen.

Arcade Gaming:
I wasn't a regular visitor to video game arcades, but when I did visit them, I played everything from Asteroids to Midway:1942 to Super Alpine Racer.  Depending on where I was, going to an arcade could feel like visiting a 70s video game museum, or it could feel like I had stepped into the future.