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"Memories of a Gamer"

I’ve been a gamer since I can remember. My father brought me up well through the earlier consoles before I made it up to what was the current generation. So throughout my life I’ve put a lot of hours into a lot of games. During these times, there have been the things that have stuck in my memory: accomplishments, failures or just those moments that make you think - whether through the medium itself, or through those who were with you at that moment.

During a recent struggle with sleep in which I was so obviously losing, I laid awake and, with an obviously overactive mind, rummaged through the memories of a childhood (and teenagehood, and early adulthood) lost in virtual worlds. I found myself oddly curious with how vivid some of the recollections were, although in some cases sceptical about the fine detail that seemed unrealistic in its inclusion.

I remembered some of my first console moments - playing games based on simple mathematic puzzles through a cassette player on a console of which I’m unsure. I remember my favourite game as a child - Jinx, for the Atari 7800, a game which I taught myself how to play the music for on my keyboard that I had at the time (a tune that could be played simply on the black keys - it took me hours to figure out, and thinking back it may have been a poor rendition).

I remember the SEGA Megadrive, of which I owned two simultaneously. Both obtained from car boot sales, they rarely worked together, with one dying as the other was resuscitated. The constant failures of myself attempting to get through the damn ostrich level in The Lion King. Nights spent playing Columns with my grandmother, the only game we ever played together. Watching my dad play Sonic the Hedgehog and retreating from the room (and down the stairs) when the first spiked section appeared in Green Hill Zone. Turns out Dr. Robotnik and water in the Sonic games also had a similar effect on me, I was scared of the death and drowning sounds.

Going to Toys ‘R’ Us to pick up a game for my Game Boy and picking up a PlayStation bundle instead (awesome). The collective “wow” of my family as we started up the first game on the console - PGA Tour 98 - the graphic capabilities were immense, for the time. Back here was when my dad still played himself, we completed our first game together, Jersey Devil, up to 100%. Playing Circuit Breakers with both my parents, using a multitap (don’t miss those at all) in the only video game I’ve ever played with my mother (that wasn’t dancing, EyeToy or the like).

Dancing Stage games have been a part of my gaming “career” for a long time. I had seen them before; a teenage guy used his quick feet to hit the arrows with accuracy and style, doing so much to allure a crowd of several girls. I wanted to be that guy. On the 18th August 2001, I finally plucked up the courage to jump on a (deserted) machine. Suddenly a large crowd appeared, but I was no longer (as) nervous, I was already up there.

Anyway, enough about my memories, I have more but I’ll share them later, if they become more relevant in conversation. It’s time to open up the floor. Do you have gaming memories, or has it never been much more than a distraction to you? I think it’d be interesting to find out what sticks with us, especially that from yesteryear.

DL wrote:
chasfh wrote:
[i] ... And was it "Golden Axe" or something similar?..

Anyway, we wore the controllers out eventually,

Not surprised ...

Golden Axe

First played this classic on my first born's Master System ... (notice, I said his, even though I bought it haha! He did love it though, especially Alex the Kidd and Jungle/Nuclear Strike).[/i]

Yup, my boy loved the Nintendo systems, even when his little hands were too tiny to play properly. Many times I was hurriedly passed a controller and told to "Jump daddy!"

By the time we had the SNES though, he was old enough to do it all himself. Inevitably, we ended up playing two player on Mario, and much to his delight, he was better at it than I was!

He's now six foot tall and owns a motorbike... How things have changed!

My first proper go on a console (the Atari 2600) was actually at the house of a girl who owned one. Yes, a girl. So much for games being for the boys in the early days!

Still, it was a slippery slope that saw me owning a Spectrum, which gave me the change to do work experience at Your Sinclair (still fondly remember my talks with Duncan McDonald) and virtually every games console from the Mastersystem onwards.

chasfh wrote:
... And was it "Golden Axe" or something similar?..

Anyway, we wore the controllers out eventually,

Not surprised ...

Golden Axe

First played this classic on my first born's Master System ... (notice, I said his, even though I bought it haha! He did love it though, especially Alex the Kidd and Jungle/Nuclear Strike).

Early days..

My brother had a Commodore 64 with a rather flimsy looking and (very!) exposed expansion board poking out of the back; he was the envy of all the other cool kids and geeks alike, with his "MEGA MEMORY!!" (128K or something..)

Snoopy Tennis on a game and watch console would probably be my first "proper" experience of gaming, however my cousin did have an Atari system, and we batted that little white square backwards and forwards for hours on end...

The first console I owned personally was a Nintendo NES, which i convinced my wife we needed more than new tyres on the car, and we spent an entire night playing "Swords and Serpants" on it. Followed by a mammoth session on Super Mario Bros...
...And was it "Golden Axe" or something similar?..

Anyway, we wore the controllers out eventually, but by then the SNES was due for release, and I just HAD to have one.

I still think that really, when all's said and done, some of the simplest games ever are still some of the best (and most addictive) games ever.

I could write a lot on this but instead I'll just offer up some headers of all I can remember.

My first gaming memory (though I'm a bit vague on the order of things) was of going on holiday to Yorkshire when I was about 8 and being introduced to my cousins Amiga (or Commodore). I remember playing Bubble Bobble and not much else, though I certainly played others and I adored that you could go into a newsagent, buy a magazine and get a game tape with it that had (in my mind at least) been coded at home. It was genuinely exciting and new to me.

When I got home I shortly after bought an Atari 2600. I think it had about 40 games on it and honestly it bored me, it didn't have the same sense of character or creation about it. It certainly didn't help that I could never find games for it.

Very soon after that someone gave me a Master System and that was really the start of my gaming love. It still didn't have that home-coded charm, nothing did, but it kept me busy. My main memory of that console is of playing Choplifter and getting infuriated at it's difficulty, thankfully down the road from me I had a video and game rental shop. I adored that place and spent most of my childhood and my money renting anything that took my interest, playing on their arcade machine after school with my friends.
Looking down the Wiki games list, I remember owning After Burner, Alex Kidd In Miracle World, Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II, California Games, Hang-On, Sonic, Tazmania. Pretty much anything else got rented.

I've typed up far more expected, more later.

My mum took me by surprise the day I came home from uni and found her playing Doom on my PS1. Apparently she had seen me playing it and fancied a shot and was holding her own. She tends to stick to puzzle games on the DS now though.

dav, sounds like your mum was pretty awesome. As I said, the most I got out of gaming from my mother really was three-way races on Circuit Breakers with her and my dad...not sure why that one caught on in the end - like Micro Machines with weapons, it got very competitive.

Some memories from my childhood gaming.

Atari 2600
Before santa brought me one I had to make do with playing at a friends house. Moon Patrol was the game of choice. My friend's mum was ever so friendly and she was always delighted to see us and got a hug on the way in and the way out. Found out many years later she was an alcoholic and her friendliness was alcohol fuelled.

I ended up in quite a battle with my mum on Millipede. She had a nasty habit of always beating my high score. I think I won in the end but it was quite a drawn out battle.

Spectrum 128K
Worst christmas ever thanks to my dad. He switched the old Speccy off when he heard the loading noise. No computer should make that noise when it loads I was informed. He complete ignored me when I tried to correct him.

Sunday session on Emlyn Huges Internation Soccer with friends from school. We would rotate venues and the mum at each house had to supply cheese rolls for our lunch.

Gameboy
I would regularly come home from school to find the batteries for the Gameboy in the charger as my mum had wiped them out with another Tetris session.

Memories needing time to form is an interesting concept. I was unsure as to whether memories from earlier come more readily because I was younger and more easily influenced, or just the rose-tinted spectacle effect.

I remember in Pokemon Red, facing off against Mewtwo in the cave. I had stocked up on Ultra Balls in anticipation of catching it (I refused to use the rare Master Ball at the time out of stubbornness). Ultra Balls came and went, and it would not yield to my Pokemon mastery. 50 of the things had been thrown to no avail. My stock of Great Balls also fell by the wayside - Mewtwo would not be caught by a puny human such as I.

With my finger itching for the reset button (I couldn't pass up the only chance to capture this monster). I threw a standard Pokeball, more in hope than expectation. It shook, shook and shook again. I was sceptical, I'd seen this a few times with the better balls - surely it would not let the battle end like this. *clink* - I threw the Game Boy onto my bed and ran around the house screaming in celebration. It was possibly one of the biggest reactions, if not the biggest, I have ever had from a video game.

I have a lot of gaming memories across the systems over the years.

My earliest memory was the Spectrum. We had to remember how to connect the cassette player up. Red in Ear, Black in Mic. For some reason, that stuck. I also remember the load noises that the Spectrum would make and you could tell when the game was about to finish loading by the noise it was making.

My first gameplay memory was for the game Maze Chase. A fairly simple game where you would move a man around a maze painting the lines while a creature would move around randomly. The goal was to paint the whole maze. I was playfully challenged that I would never get past all the levels. It wasn't that difficult but then I was really young at the time. I ended up proving that game had no end as the levels just went round and round.

There are other Spectrum memories like seeing the game Super Trolley on the show Jim'll Fix It and then buying the game, which was really cool at the time. Buying copies of the magazine Your Sinclair with the tapes included was something I remember fondly. Pretending to be the crew of a starship on the game Starship Enterprise and the music on 1st Division Manager are a couple of other memories.

My most important memory is the first time I saw Sonic 1 on the Megadrive. I wasn't really in the gaming loop at the time so when I saw that game, it ignited my passion for gaming that is still burning today. It will always be my favourite game of all time just purely for the impact it had on me.

I remember the time when my older brother took me along to a friend's house. There was a small group there and I felt a little out of place. They were playing Lotus Turbo Challenge when one of them got a phone call. He was getting trounced in the race he was doing against his friend and I don't think he was thinking as he handed me the pad. I had never played the game before. I came back and won the race which amazed the people there. It was at that house that, as an 11 year old, I saw Night Trap for the first time. It kind of freaked me out a bit the first time but I guess it is no different to seeing an unsettling film as a youngster.

I have a few disturbing memories like when my mum and my younger brother were in a car accident and I didn't know what was going on. My dad went to the hospital while myself, my sister and my older brother were sent to a neighbours house. I remember vividly playing Altered Beast. Strange how we put those kind of things together. Also, when Ayrton Senna died in 1994, I remember playing a load of Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP 2.

I have a load more gaming memories but I don't have that many recent ones. I suppose they need time to fully form as something to remember. I'll end this with the only recent one that stands out. I was playing Need For Speed Hot Pursuit online and I was on the Cop team against the racer team. I had played enough to know that there is usually one player that tries to hide at the start while everyone tears off. I spot it and bust him.

It takes a while to catch up and I have a battle with another racer who is going round and round a motel like area. I manage to bust that person too but things were looking grim for our team. There was only 1 racer left and there was another cop on his tail but that cop had no weapons left and was having trouble keeping up. I was the only other cop left but by this time, I was 3-4 miles back. I never give up and start to give chase. I didn't put a wheel wrong as I tore through shortcuts and in and out of traffic. The racer is into the last mile of the race and the other cop can't keep up. I drift full speed out of a shortcut, hit the EMP and bust the racer to give our team the win. It was a great feeling. Not long after that, I ended up winning an all racer event by weaving through a 4 car pile up pretty much on the finish line.

I have more memories but I think that'll do for now.