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Hope you enjoy it.
Chris, IB.
I used to live 3 mins from there, little village called Barkway.
Ah, the Green Man pub on the corner nr the car park, the shoddy market..
Such happy memories
As some people may know, my name is Matt. I live in a town called Royston. Royston is about halfway between Cambridge and Stevenage. I’m 19, 20 in August.
The Spectrum Years
I was introduced to gaming very young with the Spectrum 1. The Spectrum 1 was just a keyboard so a tape recorder was needed in order to play games. Very quickly, I learned how to set it up and learned what to type. A phrase that I will always remember is Red in Ear, Black in Mic. This phrase helped me learn where the connecters for the tape recorder went.
For many a day, I played various games including Kikstart, Super Trolley, Maze Chase and a few others. At this time, Spectrum games were very easy to come by. Every week or so, I would get a magazine with games. Gaming now took most of my time.
My gaming was halted when the power pack for the Spectrum 1 burned out. I was devastated. I found it very difficult to fill the void. I used to spend many hours on Maze Chase. Now it was all over.
A few months later, the Spectrum 2 came along. The Spectrum 2 had a built in tape recorder. Once again, I was spending hours playing all my favourite games. Some new ones came along including Super Sprint, Turbo Outrun, Chase HQ and some quizzes including A Question of Sport and Every Second Counts.
The Spectrum 2 renewed my love for gaming. I still have the Spectrum 2 today as well as Spectrum emulators on my PC.
The Megadrive
The Megadrive had not been out for long when I went round a friend’s to play football. When I arrived, he was playing Sonic 1 on the Megadrive. It was so different to everything I had been used to.
About a month later, a shiny black Megadrive sat in my room. Sonic 1 was the only game I had at the time. I played it over and over again. I completed it many times using different routes. The first game I really loved was Sonic 1.
I found a game shop hidden away in town. I bought Super Monaco Grand Prix. I played this many times. I became so good that I got into the best car in 3 races.
In 1992, I began watching Formula 1. My gaming library was growing slowly. I borrowed a SNES and played Super Mario World and F-Zero. I was particularly fond of F-Zero. I completed Super Mario World with not much trouble.
I heard about the upcoming release of Sonic 2. I was, at this time, a member of Special Reserve. I ordered Sonic 2 and waited. The date arrived, which came to be known as Sonic Twosday, and I received mine at 7 am. I played it straight away, almost being late for school.
In 1994, rule changes in Formula 1 meant the cars were very unsafe and the third race of the season proved to be the worst in modern day F1. The race was Imola in San Marino. The tragedy began in qualifying when Roland Ratzenberger died. During the qualifying, Rubens Barrichello flew through the air just hitting the tyre wall, which saved his life.
The tragedy continued in the race. At the start, JJ Lehto stalled on the grid. A car smashed into the back of him. A tyre flew off the car into the crowd injuring 6 people. A member of the pit crew got run over and killed. Then the event that everyone who had this race remembers. The death of Ayrton Senna.
No one I knew had died. Senna’s death affected me. I couldn’t see how but it did. A week later, I decided to try something to get rid of this feeling. I decided to spend a whole day playing Ayrton Senna’s Super Monaco Grand Prix 2. I felt a lot better knowing I had something that will always remind me of one of the greatest F1 drivers ever.
I got a Mega CD and a 32X. Unfortunately, when we got them, they were not making any more games for them. We got a few games but not many.
More Sonic games came along which we got and enjoyed them just as I enjoyed the others. I still have my Megadrive, Mega CD and 32X and I occasionally play on them but I usually play on my Megadrive and Snes emulators on my PC.
The Amiga
A friend of the family was selling his Amiga cheap. We accepted without hesitation. I spent days playing Formula 1 Grand Prix. Then Sensible Soccer came into my life. What a game! It spent months playing Sensible Soccer then Sensible World of Soccer. Beating my mates was always a pleasure and winning trophies with minor teams was a personal achievement.
My brother knew someone who could get Amiga games and so we had a vast games library. My friend also had an Amiga with games and we played on it for years. I still have my Amiga and play on it regularly.
Gaming at School
My gaming never stopped just because I went to school. When I was at middle school, the school were slowly changing from BBC computers to Archimedes. I managed to get hold of games for the BBC and my Spectrum knowledge helped me program games, which I played after school with my mates. I also managed to get hold of Moonquake for the Archi.
Bullying was always an issue because of my religion. I needed to make steps to avoid getting bullied. I decided to try and make friends with people who weren’t bullies but had a lot of influence with bullies. These people were interested in gaming and we talked about gaming and played games frequently. They also involved me in some of their activities like football. As a result, I wasn’t bullied at middle school.
We moved up to secondary school and my gaming continued. I got a few more games for the Archi and got more people involved in gaming. I remember playing a Moonquake tournament. For anyone who doesn’t know what Moonquake is, it is Bomberman but very simply designed. I won this tournament and I enjoyed the respect I received from this win.
My school gaming helped me cope with the pressures that school can put on a person. It served as a release for these pressures, which I feel, helped me gain good exam results.
Holiday Gaming
Holidays are meant to be a release from the pressures of home and a way for me to release pressure was through playing games. I’ve always taken my Gameboy and Game Gear on holiday and I’ve played them for many an hour in the sun.
PC and Internet
When my older brother left school, he went into PC maintenance. We got a PC quite cheap. It was slow compared to now but we could see the rate of growth within months. Within a few years, one PC became two, then three, then a server made four, and eventually a fifth PC.
My brother saw my gaming potential and was willing to do whatever it took to help my gaming. If a game came out which I wanted, he got it for me, even though I never asked him to. He could see what no one else could, that gaming was my life.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do after I left school and gaming never occurred to me. I started a home study course after taking a year off. I was really into this course until after six months when I suddenly realized that this was not what I wanted to do in life. I still do the course but my heart was no longer in it. I then realized that my gaming meant more to me then anything.
The Internet proved an invaluable tool in helping my gaming. I could see and read things about games that I probably would never have seen. Special Reserve had the buying online facility, which I used. I use the Internet a lot, putting some maybe useful posts up on the SR chat forums.
For the last year and a half, I have been cut adrift from the gaming industry. My brother no longer buys me games due to his domineering girlfriend spending all his money. I left my run for getting in the games industry so late that I don’t know where to start looking. I get the occasional game but the money is no longer there. With only 2 new games this year and no more in sight, I fear I might get left behind. But I still enjoy my gaming and will always enjoy playing games.
That is my gaming story. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Grandprix
Hope you enjoy it.