PC Gamer - UK (2022-06)

R

emakes are great. Not only do they get
modern developers off the hook from
having to think of genuinely new things
for us to do in virtual worlds, they also
make it far more convenient for us to
indulge in our more nostalgic passions. There it is,
look, effortlessly running on Steam in 4 K: your
childhood obsession. The gateway to a lifetime of
subsequent PC game exploration. All you have to do is
click ‘new game’ and you’re back in that cosy, familiar
world again, and now in widescreen.

But youdon’t do it. It just...doesn’t
feel right. Remasters are generally
about conjuring treasured memories,
and to a certain, broken subsection of
us, any minor deviation from that
memory is a dagger through the
ventricle. Updated textures hurt.
Improvedlighting makesus convulse.
These new releases of old classics,then, can never truly
compete with the originals because they can never beas
faithful asthe real thing. No, what you reallywant is to
reproducethe conditions of 1998 so precisely that it takes
four years before you can click ‘new game’. You want to
source the exactparts of your firstpersonalcomputer,
assemble them in a sacred corner of your home, and use
that corner to truly travelback in time through games.
Here’s how I went about it.

The firststep is acceptance. Onemust accept that

running a virtual machine on a modern PCand installing

WIndows 98on it isn’t goingto scratch the itch, and neither is

DOSBox.If we have aninterest in playing an old game in the

first place, that interestis about enjoying our own memories

and takingpleasurein observing the changes between then

(whenever then might be)and now. Playing Rogue Spearon a

VM doesn’t feelthat much different to watching a video of it

on YouTube. Playingit on a CRT monitor and aVoodoo 2,

however, is like being back at itsreleasedate.

BID FOR VICTORY

Which means you’re going to be

spending alot of timeon eBay. I got lucky

with my original PC tower, a Packard Bell

Platinum 350 – one showedup just

weeks after I first created an alertfor

‘Packard Bell vintage PC’. A shortcourier

journey from Scotland later,the beating

heart of my time machine was here, still

featuring theoriginal hardware – an Intel Pentium II 350MHz

processor, a 3DFXVoodoo 2 ,and 64MB of SDRAM.

A can ofcompressed airdoes wonders at this stage. Not

just forthe aesthetics of your new objet d’art, which probably

has 20 years of dead skin and carpet fibres caked around its

fan blades, but also for... the smell. But let’snot dwell on that.

I found the exact modelof keyboard within a month,too. If

it had been missing itsdistinctive wrist rest that would have

been a deal-breaker, but fortunately someoneout there is as

MUSEUM PIECE

My four-year quest to source a very special PACKARD BELL PC

PHIL IWANIUK

Ever hired a

fragile goods

courier that

specialisesin

moving antique

chandeliers to

deliver a

20-year-old

monitor to your

house?Phil

Iwaniuk has.

We’re all so

terribly worried

about him.

TECH TALES

MACHINE BUILDING

Plotting Phil’s ’ 90 s immersion level over time

’Avin it

Parklife

Like,

whatever

Decides

to build

PC

anally retentive asme andkept the two

together for a decade anda half.

Compressed air’salso very welcome on

a vintage ‘board to clean out the bitsof

Discos andNik-Naks that fell down

there when Westlife were still charting’.

Authentically ’90s membrane

clickety-clacks: check.

About two yearslater, the mouse

appeared. People don’t fetishise beige

computer mice the way they do vintage

Razer Boomslangs or the components

that live inside the case, so it wasalways

going to be a long shotto finda very

specific anduncelebrated model of

PS/2 ball mouse. Asit happened, the

seller wasoffering itwith my exact

keyboard. So Ihave two now.

MASTER SYSTEM

It was only after getting this far, two

years in, that Irealisedthe remaining

items I had yet tofind were in many

ways the most important: the CRT

monitor and the master discs. We

already passed thepoint of reason

many paragraphs ago, so at this point

A CAN OF

COMPRESSED AIR

DOES WONDERS AT

THIS STAGE

Finds tower

immediately

Years of

eBay

alerts

Buys

same

keyboard

twice

CRT

monitor

secured

‘Start

new

game?’

100

HARDWARE