It's amazing than reading the comments here makes me realize that even in "1st world countries" we all play the same ol' games (one flavor of UT, Other game that became a must for that specific LAN Party like Delta Force, and some other strategy game).
I used to be "the young guy" in my local group back in the late 2000's and I often wondered what games we would play if everyone had access to a top class PC back in the day.
I didn't do any cracking, but I was a teenager in the late 90s and I share your thoughts on the way that computers and the internet eventually opened up my experience. I ended up making friends with any internet café owner in my city because that was the only reasonable place to use the internet before broadband.
I used to be "the young guy" in my local group back in the late 2000's and I often wondered what games we would play if everyone had access to a top class PC back in the day.