The best way for me to describe the tremendous impact this game had on me is
through anecdotal details from my experience playing it through for the first time:
Back in 2000, when this game was released, I didn't have the means to run it at home, and so I "borrowed" my parent's Mac. I basically moved back in at the
time, just for this. Those days, I was in a particularly busy time at work, and yet I would think of nothing else but DX all day, until I finally got "home", and eagerly loaded this masterpiece for another night of completely immerse
fantasy. I completed the "game", on Realistic mode, in just under three weeks, with nightly sessions ending - typically - at 5:30 AM, leaving me just enough time to sleep two hours in preparation for work the next day. By the end of that three-week period, I was so completely and utterly exhausted, I actually
believed I was going to have a cardiac episode driving to work - at the age of 26! I didn't regret the idea for a second.
Well, my folks had their computer set up on a makeshift table with a plywood
surface, the edge of which was rather sharp, and so uncomfortable for the
undersides of your wrists, should you leave them resting there for too long
without a break. One night, so immersed was I in my experience, that this edge had actually managed to break the skin on my mouse-hand wrist, drawing
blood, and I didn't notice until I went to bed.
Enough said. This game succeeds in accomplishing all the goals which should be part and parcel of the basic mission of entertainment, and the manifesto of
gaming in particular.
No matter how great other games may have been, before and since, no other
experience to date has held a candle to this.
It's only too bad you can never go home again.
through anecdotal details from my experience playing it through for the first time:
Back in 2000, when this game was released, I didn't have the means to run it at home, and so I "borrowed" my parent's Mac. I basically moved back in at the
time, just for this. Those days, I was in a particularly busy time at work, and yet I would think of nothing else but DX all day, until I finally got "home", and eagerly loaded this masterpiece for another night of completely immerse
fantasy. I completed the "game", on Realistic mode, in just under three weeks, with nightly sessions ending - typically - at 5:30 AM, leaving me just enough time to sleep two hours in preparation for work the next day. By the end of that three-week period, I was so completely and utterly exhausted, I actually
believed I was going to have a cardiac episode driving to work - at the age of 26! I didn't regret the idea for a second.
Well, my folks had their computer set up on a makeshift table with a plywood
surface, the edge of which was rather sharp, and so uncomfortable for the
undersides of your wrists, should you leave them resting there for too long
without a break. One night, so immersed was I in my experience, that this edge had actually managed to break the skin on my mouse-hand wrist, drawing
blood, and I didn't notice until I went to bed.
Enough said. This game succeeds in accomplishing all the goals which should be part and parcel of the basic mission of entertainment, and the manifesto of
gaming in particular.
No matter how great other games may have been, before and since, no other
experience to date has held a candle to this.
It's only too bad you can never go home again.
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