My love for gaming began when one of my friends visited me to my house with his PS2 and his copy of GTA San Andreas. Even though we were young and weren't allowed to play this type of game we spent hours and hours exploring the world doing missions etc. Back then we were amazed with all the things that you could do on that game, not like most of today's games where they are empty without a soul. Anyway after that I started saving money to purchase my own console and a copy of the game.

It began when when my uncle gave us a spare 286DX4 computer with CGA graphics. It was used in his office primarily as a word processor and they decided that it was time to upgrade to Windows. Imagine that, a 4 color graphic PC with a DOS operating system. Got it in the late 90s while it was still useful it was way pass it's heyday.

But fortunately it was still usable for floppy disk games and it's not like my country at the time is quick to adapting new technology. A friend of my sister gave us an installation disk of Prince of Persia and Battle Axe. And how many hours spent in front of the PC replaying those 2 games over and over again.

There were also a book store still selling floppy disk of games for me to spent some money into. The floppy disk version of Die Hard, Metal Gear, North and South, Lakers vs Celtics, Sharkey 3D Pool. The challenge is to find out which of those games sold still supporting CGA monitors. Even back then VGA standard is already the norm

The PC itself is retired in early 2000s. But I still cherishes the memories of the time spend with it.

My interest in gaming started with the 286 my dad brought into our home for his work. Enjoying the classic Apogee games that I could play and being fascinated with more complex games I couldn't really understand like F29 Retaliator and Wing Commander. Having to type WC to start the latter was a joy in and off itself as a young child since WC means toilet in my native language Dutch. (potty humour ftw)

My true passion for gaming started when I got to play Doom at a friend's house in 1993 and was blown away.
My frustration with gaming started when I found out our 286 could not run it so I had to run back to wolfenstein 3d myself.

After playing Halloween Harry on a demo disk I decided that I needed to buy my first legit game because I just learned to "not copy that floppy" (also I didn't know anyone who I could copy it from).

Dad's new work PC was a Pentium 2 MMX in '98.
The Creative Voodoo 2 Blaster card was the most expensive thing I ever saved up for, soooo worth it.

Buying SiN in a store taught me that meeting system requirements does not mean smooth sailing.
Beating SiN before the infamous 20mb patch was even out is still my greatest gaming accomplishment.

Discovering GoG and buying Blood 2 digitally taught me that digital can be a better experience than a buggy physical copy. But mostly I learned to stop worrying about patches and learned to love GoG.

My first memory that was kind of a ray of light and leads me to became a passionate gamer, when was my dad plays with me this Arcade calls "After Burner" (from Sega). I guess he liked it because of the cabinet, witch emulates this flying experience. But for me was kind of living the game and to be merge in a purpose of being the main character and conquer the mission. And it was that way on any game... when I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (for example) I felt the way Leonardo's feelings, and so on and so on from beat'n up to fighting games and even more with RPG games.

For me it's not just for fun, it's a way on feel and live. I love video games.

The first systems I came in contact with were some microcomputers owned by several members of my family, I grew up with that and was fascinated by those platforms and their possibilities. It was really amazing, those crude graphics and music were mesmerizing, and I guess it was kind of magic to me to be able to control the characters on TV.

If I moved the joystick to the right then the character did move to the right!!!
And if I moved it to the left then the character did move to the left!!!!!!!!
What kind of witchcraft was this?!?!? I was almighty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that power gives you lots of possibilities, I could be a pirate and embark on adventures in the Caribbean.
Or I could be a space bounty hunter and drive my ship through a steroids field.
Or I could fight some thugs in dark alleys because, guys, I was Batman. Christian Bale did it kind of fine, though.

It began in 1998, when my father brought home the OG Gameboy which he borrowed from his workmate. I played the hell out of Battle City and Karateka. Now, I own multiple systems and enjoy gaming so much while also succeeding in real life (work, relationships, and development)!

It all started with that single turn of Heroes of Might and Magic 3. And then just one more...

Interesting thing is, that it didn't start immediately when I've played for the first time in a video game. It was a bit later, about 1-2 years after I've started to play PC games. I had a chance then to play in some fully localised titles (like Gorky 17), back then I've experienced for the first time games not only from the side of gameplay (usually I could not understand too much from the plot due to lack of sufficient knowledge of English language, or the fact they were mostly some action/platform games). Experiencing games in their all glory, with interesting scenarios assisting the gameplay, was the moment when I've fully realised how unique an experience it is - and it's still great, more than 20 years after that moment.

My first contact with video games was in the early 90's, when at my friends' house on their i486 with back-and-white screen (with screen protector!) we played Biznesman, a very obscure Polish text game concerning trading different goods (i.e. coffee, tea, but also guns, drugs (sic!), printers (sic! x2) and cars). Playing is maybe too much of a word, my friends were reading text and I was just typing letters which were shortcuts for different actions.

The other game from that PC which I recall was the 1st The Incredible Machine - but again, I was barely watching my friends play and cheering for them.

The first games I actively played were (also on friends' computer) the 1st instance of Warlords (I can't provide the links, as the text isn't formatting properly, but it's on GOG) - nah, I was just watchin my friends play, I didn't understand that game - as well as Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (1st competition during friend's birthday!) and The Need for Speed.

But the most of my memories from playing co-op with friends come from the 1st Mortal Kombat. I'm glad keyboards back then were built in order to sustain our fierce combos! After destroying Goro (just kidding, we were too much of a noobs to beat him) we collectively tried to beat some Orcs in WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness - but my parcitipation was rather secondary, I had no strategic thinking at all at that moment.

But then, around 1997, I got my fist own PC: Pentium 133MHz, 32Mbs RAM, floppy disk drive and a CD-Rom drive (speed 6x!). I had my own PC and the guy who built it installed one game on the drive. It was The Settlers 2. The moment I started playing the game, I fell in love with gaming. I was around 10 years old back then, I didn't know English at all. I figured out how to build, gather resources, expand your territory - all by trial and error. Dozens of hours I tried to figure out which resources are needed for which products to be made. Instant fascination and pure enjoyment - that's what this game gave me 25 years ago, and that feeling for gaming stays with me now even stronger than it was before.

The Settlers 2 was the game I played mainly by myself, but from that period 3 more games stand out for me, games I played with my friends only: Heroes of Might and Magic 2, Command & Conquer and StarCraft a little while later. HoMM2 was just made to play co-op on one couch (or rather several chairs around the PC), C&C was the first real strategic campaign we progressed, and StarCraft brought first LAN matches.

The history of gaming in 90's is much richer, after having so much fun with these titles I was hungry for more and more, luckily next years provided countless titles that now are perceived as classics. Maybe I touched just few of the big games in mid-90's era, but those which I played were such an unique experience and brought so much happiness (and years, obviously), so I can definitely tell - I fell in love with gaming back then and I have never stopped to be a happy gamer.

Thank you GOG for being part of my gaming love!

Have the winners been decided and announced by now or is the jury still out there?

Hey, no problem! I read ponczo_'s reply to OP that yous are very busy right now. :)

*Presses her thumbs for everyone* :D

Better luck next time I guess. :D Congratulations, winners, have fun with your game packs! :-)