The wind blows fiercely blowing dust into his eyes. Yet such mere winds can rarely distract him from his path that lay before him. He tightened his grip on the shovel. Took a deep breath...it was going to be a long day. Slowly,but surely he walked towards the entrance to a long-forgotten world. He could hear the sound of his mother telling him to clean up his room,but that was secondary for him right now. That could wait. He had bigger and more urgent tasks to handle.
A sweat rolled down his cheek. But he dared not to wipe it off lest he would lose his focus on his goal. Before he knew it,in the blink of an eye, he was climbing up the stairs. Every stair he had to climb felt like a huge task to him. It felt as if the earth was pulling him down with something like 10.9 m/sec2 . But his determination was not to be shaken. The light from the other side was approaching towards him,getting closer by every second. From somewhere he heard Oasis music ringing loudly in his ears. He tried to ignore the nasal tones of Liam Gallagher and chose not to rant on how over-rated they were. Because he had more important things to do.
And then...he reached the other side. Looking around at a room that was long lost in his memories just like the things it contained,he felt that somewhere cobwebs were being swept off in his mind. He finally produced out the shovel,which turned out to be nothing more than a small key. A key to the treasure he cherished. But a lingering question roamed in his mind,as he searched for the "chest of cardboard" that held his treasure. Will his treasure be intact? Will it be in the same condition as it had been when he had placed it there years ago?
Such questions worried him immensely. But he chose not to hesitate any longer. He searched for his "chest of cardboard" and found it in a lonely corner as if weeping from the ignorance shown by him. He felt sorry for it. He placed the "chest" safely on the ground and moved to open it with the key,which had now turned into a pair of scissors assigned to cut through any kind of tape.
With a single swipe of the scissor,the chest was unlocked and bright light filled the entire universe. ( 
)
BEHOLD THE TREASURE!!
With trembling hands,the gamer touched the upper portions of the treasures comprising of all the games that he had grown up on. Games he had played when he was young. Games he had enjoyed. Games he had not understood due to his tender age then. Games that he considers the best he has played and probably ever will. Games,all of which were played with the help of a keyboard and a mouse. 
So,the excited gamer/archaeologist (A.K.A me) searched through his treasure(A.K.A the past catalogue of his games) and made a list of all the games he had found in the secret vault (A.K.A the attic of his house),
The Treasure List
System Shock
System Shock 2
Doom
Doom 2
Doom 3
Quake II
Quake III : Arena
Unreal
Unreal Tournament 2004
Half-Life
Half-Life Opposing Force
Half-Life Blue Shift
Team Fortress
Half-Life 2
Prince 1
Prince of Persia 2
Prince of Persia Sands of Time
Prince of Persia The Warrior Within
Deus-Ex
Deus Ex The Invisible Wars
Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer Red Alert
Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun
Command & Conquer Renegade
Diablo
Starcraft
Starcraft Brood Wars
Diablo II Lord of Destruction
Grim Fandango
Myst
Riven
The Longest Journey
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate : Tales of the Sword Coast
Baldur's Gate II : Shadows of Amn
Baldur's Gate II : Throne of Bhaal
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights : Shadows of the Underntide
Neverwinter Nights : Horde of the Underdark
Planescape : Torment
Icewind Dale
FIFA 2001
FIFA 2002
NHL 2000
NBA Live 2000
F1 2000
Cricket 2002
Need for Speed High Stakes
Realms of Arkania Blade of Destiny
John Romero's Daikatana
Syberia
Test Drive Unlimited
I think if I have counted it properly,that list contained 53 games all of which I had previously owned,been gifted or had burnt from my friends. There are few which are now in their backup copy forms since the original CDs were heavily scratched (and some even broken) after heavy use and rough handling (don't blame me,I was a kid back then. )
So,as you can see that hugely tells you that I didn't "WASTE" all those years I spent PC gaming. There are games in that list which some of you console-gamers will NEVER get to experience. I can especially name few of the games from the list which I am HIGHLY excited to play like...
Baldur's Gate games deserve to be on the top of this list. Mainly because they are RPGs like no other. I remember very little of BG2,but I know that it was a fantastic game,probably one of the greatest games I'll ever get to play and I am very excited to play it. As my "Now Playing List" indicates I've already begun playing Baldur's Gate 1 and it is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G 
The Longest Journeyis perhaps a game that heavily BORED me when I played it the first time back then. But maybe that was because I was a kid,and I didn't enjoy text-and dialogue heavy games. But Longest Journey has something..umm..it's hard to say but I feel it has that kind of aura that I sensed in games like FFVIII. Am really interested to see how this one turns up.
So,this is it people. A reason why I was largely absent from GameSpotting for large portions of the last week. Yeah my 7-hour long test on last Sunday went well,but it's the gaming in the following week which has really been the highlight for me. I guess I am learning to enjoy gaming while it lasts...y'know what I mean,don't you?
C ya
Lightwarrior179
Comments
@Trigger_OS-- Yea,Baldur's Gate,Diablo and Grim Fandango are considered to be some of the best PC games of their time and I am proud to own them.
System Shock - I am jealous. I'm a huge Neverwinter Nights fan too...that game took a lot of hours of my life away. Half-Life is also amazing....obviously. xD
The first Deus Ex is also SO amazing. I was so disappointed with the second one - not NEARLY as good as the first one at ALL.
Have fun!
Have fun with all the games!
I don't really have a great PC...though I guess they are quite old they may run on it...:looks thoughtful:
Have fun with 'em all! I still haven't played Baldur's Gate, keep meaning to.
Take away those jealous eyes from MY System Shock!
NWN is a fantastic game and a hell lot addictive one as well. Although NWN2 (made by Obsidian not BioWare) sucked a$$. I find Baldur's Gate II as the god-damn BEST RPG EVAR!!
Deus Ex 1 was an amazing game. It was just ingenious to combine shooter and RPG elements together so seamlessly. System Shock 2 is another good example of that as well.
@pikastar-- Aww..I guess everyone missed my supreme presence around here? (gets slapped for being a braggart)
And thanks!
@PJ24-- I think most of these games barring a few will run smoothly on older PCs considering it is atleast PIII. And yes Zelda chest music did play and my character sprite was shown raising his arms holding the treasure.
@AlmightyMax-- You should try Baldur's Gate. They are VERY good RPGs. And nice to see Pearl Jam as your avatar although I would prefer Nirvana as a grunge band over them anyday .
@Ipodhero176-- Duuuuuuude. That's too many "u's" together.
But thanks anyways.
@kingkilla3-- I haven't played Icewind Dale II but I heard it was a pretty faithful followup to the original. It is a little strange but after playing the likes of BGII,Planescape Torment and NWN, Icewind Dale games no longer appeal to me as much as they actually should which is something of a pity I guess.
@Cronaroth-- Thanks,d00d.
@NeonNinja-- I take only those archaeologists who actually want to dig up something interesting and valuable. Not those archaeologist punks who want to go to the dig site in the sun just to get tanned. You get my word,bro? Now you decide what you want? A tanned body that will make the ladies swoon or a treasure that will make you rich but will also cast an ancient curse upon you?
@herviross_2-- Thanks.
very amusing, friend.... i knew what you were talking about right from the beginning ^__^
i'm happy for you that you uncovered such a find.... that's a lot of games; but i know you are more than up to the task! ^__^
@kingkilla3-- Yeah,you got a new laptop didn't you. Then you should really try on some new PC games as well as some old ones if you haven't tried them before. I would recommend the CRPGs for their sheer scope and addictiveness, and adventure games for their beauty,art and immersiveness.
@templar165-- I stayed in Ahmedabad before I left for Hyderabad. When I was in the shifting process, I stopped over at my old (but still owned by my family) home in Mumbai (the one where I live now) and stashed up some extra,unnecessary stuff. Part of it included the games I mentioned. As you can see, most of the games could hardly have been understood and appreciated by a 4th grader,and hence was the reason behind me leaving them here.
@SymonDezyn-- Hehe..yeah. I hope you enjoyed the starting part. It's just a hazy trailer of the kind of writing to come in the "challenge" of yours.
@topazsage-- Why thank you. I would love to share some of the games (as I feel that some of them should really be played by every gamer worth their salt
) with you but then there is something called distance that crashes that particular plan! But really,you should try finding the likes of NWN (get the Diamond package which includes the original game as well as all the expansions,the added modules and Kingmaker) and they will be dead cheap by now too.
@alidallal-- I love Grim Fandango for it's unique and wacky humor.
Basically, I am the archaeologist who has gone on an excavation to the dig site (or my attic) to uncover an ancient treasure (or my past catalogue of PC games that I had boxed up long back).
@NeoGen85-- I totally love Deus Ex. I think it was the best example of combining two totally different genre elements FPS and RPG into one amazing game. I think only System Shock 2 did better than it by adding that "scariness" factor into it.
NHL 2000 was a good game. I used to play as Boston Bruins (due to my fascination with anything Boston-related
).
Anyways, it would be cool if you found some really old gems there. I am a staunch supporter of games from the past and never miss out an oppurtunity to indulge in some nostalgia-filled gaming sessions.
Good job on the test, but I still can't get over the fact that it was 7 hours long.
Don't worry. It's actually not as bad as it sounds to be...or maybe it is!
@templar165-- Oh,none of our tests are high-scoring. This last one was particularly low-scoring with the topper getting 200 odd marks. That's what you get when they mix both JEE and Olympiad questions into one.
Some of the games there are realyl great...I mean most of them. Doom, HL, FIFA, Cricket....Have fun playing all of them. "Re"fresh your memories
Good to see you back here.
@viveckvivu-- Thanks. Yeah most of those games are pretty cool.
. doom , hl , baldur gate , nfs , ut , pop , tdu , c&c, siberia , what happened to its sequel , i heard lonmg back a sequel was in works for pc , 360 , hope they make that someday
I can proudly say I am really amazed at the massive collection of PC games I've gathered over the years from my purchases,pals etc.
How can you not like FIFA? Football ROCKS! Cricket is on a distant No.2! *gets stoned by the billion cricket fans in India*
I think Syberia did get a sequel almost the following year after the first. It was called Syberia 2 of course. If you talking about the sequel of Syberia 2, then I haven't heard much about it,but I guess it deserves to be made.
templar165
All my favorites are present in there.
Happy gaming!