Rewinding. Early 90s, summer flashbacks: Everything was sports, running around, games around the neighborhood. It was a great time. And the time for something new: Home computers. I'm not sure how many of my friends had computers at home, might have been one or two, however, my family was early having one at home. Our first computer was a 386 PC, a huge beige (which computer wasn't that color?) box which was started up by turning a key. The sound barrier was broken when its fans roared and 40 megabyte hard drive was writing. It was something else. It looked and behaved like some kind of combined air conditioner and radiator.
After having been running around outside, me and my friends often calmed down by glueing our eyes to the 13 inch screen of tomorrow. The games we played have certainly left their marks in my brain. There was, of course, the great Wolfenstein 3D which I still refer to as one of the best games ever made, in terms of playing joy and atmosphere. But what I remember most from this period are all those Pinball games, made by Swedish Digital Illusions: Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions. They were all well made and had different, creative themes. They were the perfect games for a platform in its early development stage. The computer keyboard and its shift-keys was made for playing pinball. In 1992 and 1993 pinball was huge - and you didn't need any 5-kronors.
In 1994, Blizzard Entertainment released a game called Warcraft. It was the end of The Pinball Era and since then, noone has felt the desire to play pinball on their home computer.
Only the memories remain.
