> I picked it out of a lineup of discounted games in a mall and it hasn't left my psyche ever since.

This is how I found most of my favorite PC games as well, including this one.

Often there were these vertical mesh cylinders with a very low effort sign stuck in them that just read the price and that was it. You had to dig through layers upon layers of arbitrary games and surprisingly often found real gems.

It was an eye-opener for tween me to realize that some of the best games made in that era were about as popular as some of the worst games from the same era.

Thank you for the article, a really fascinating read! Good start to my morning.