1. Hearing the three beeps in Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Apple II, IBM) as you checked out the sign next to Werdna's lair (it still brings a shiver down our spines) and read the simple words: ***The wizard is ***. Now, that was a powerful game - simple black-and-white line drawings for the 3D walls, simple four-color sprites for monsters, and all the text (what little there was) in capitals - and yet so compelling to play and so much fun. Wizardry was the first real CRPG we ever played, and it warped us (in a good way) forever after.

2. Doom - We remember the very first level in the game. Our first impressions were mistaken: we recall seeing a really pretty intro area, which was thought to be a static bitmap initially ("Sheesh," we thought, "Where's the action? Is this some kind of adventure game"). At least, that's what we thought until we turned around using the arrow keys and just about fell out of the chair from sheer, joyful shock. We saw stairs and an imp in the distance on the left, a shotgun nearby, openable doors in the center distance, a blue pool of water on the right - all in glorious 3D color. Magnificent. All amazing to watch and play on a 386-DX40 with 4MB RAM and a state of the art 14-inch monitor. Shooting barrels, flipping switches, and firing chain guns was never so good as this. What a revolutionary game.

Next: Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (cont.)