As someone who played it on the PC back in the day, the visuals were nothing short of amazing. Why? The whole experience was both different and beyond what other titles delivered. What made it so memorable for me? Consistently smooth animation even with large sections of the screen being updated from frame to frame. Its polygon graphics which were solid-fill and not wireframe, which was a big leap. They're right. Ordinarily, the early PC was a real turd when handling full-screen animation.

The sound wasn't ahead of its day, but it was still quite good, even with the PC speaker rendering music, alien language, and effects in a better-than-average rendition. Nobody had high expectations for PC-speaker output.

Only a few years after its release, it was sad to look back and not find that any new action games using similar methods. Did I miss any good knock-offs over the next few years of its PC release, or was it just as much ahead of the curve for years to follow?