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I used to be a pirate. No no, not the 'walk the plank' pirate, but a supposedly industry harming games copier. I did this in two forms - I played copied PlayStation games, and I played Pokemon Blue on an emulator on the PC. Was I harming the video games industry? Probably not.
Piracy has always been happening. In my gaming life, I've only really played shareware games - Monster Bash, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem. I was only about eight, the age where you can play the same game over and over again and not notice how boring it actually is. I didn't need the extra parts, because I was content with what I have. And what's more, I finished every game I had. Beat that, people. Games were harder back then. And for an eight year old, 'clocking' every game I had was a pretty darn big achievement.
Shareware games though. Was I wrong in using them? During about five years of my early Dos gaming, I not once paid for a game. I played countless games from great developers such as Apogee, Id and Maxis. Yet I wasn't a pirate, I don't understand that.
I don't want to move off topic, but in my experience copying a game devalues it. I wouldn't finish an emulated version of Mario 64, because I couldn't be bothered. On the N64 on the other hand, I'd finish a game which I paid £50 for. The point here is, if you copy a game, is it any worse than playing shareware? I mean, will you really get any further than you would IF there was a shareware version.
The first video games console I owned was a Sega Master System 2. I remember, I bought it for $100 from Farmers - a department store similar to Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. I remember, I didn't play it too often, it spent the majority of its lifetime dusty underneath the TV. I only had two games for it - Alex the Kid which was already on it, and Sonic the Hedgehog which was free with the console seperately anyway. I guess console gaming wasn't my thing, but at that point I was after all content with the endless trawl of 2D platformers I had on my PC.
After moving on to SNES and Megadrive, I started getting more interested in consoles. Back in the 'old' days of gaming, when playing on computers the constant upgrading factor wasn't there. A game would play on a machine if it was a day old or five years old. When 3D graphics started appearing, I stopped playing. There were three main reasons for this - Duke Nukem 3D and Sim City 2000. And Windows. My dad bought a 'new' computer, complete with Windows 95 and a CD Drive! It was on this that I started, and abrubtly stopped playing 3D games. Why? Because of the damned mouse. I hated it, and still hate it today. It's vital, yet utterly stupid. You can click, but for a computer you only need a keyboard to do most things. Yet there is always one thing which requires the mouse. Arggh...
So I went to the PlayStation. At this stage, I'd started getting more interested in multiplayer aspects of gaming. It was mainly at friends' houses that I played them; Killer Instinct at Tim's, Daytona USA at Billy's (lol), on his new N64 direct from Hong Kong. Great stuff. And then Goldeneye came along.
Goldeneye WAS the game which revolutionised my video gaming experience. Dunno why, but it did. Until then, the only First Person Shooters I had played were Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. All very dated compared to what was in Goldeneye.
The multiplayer in Goldeneye, coupled with the brilliant N64 controller resulted in gaming which was in my opinion so much better than what had come before. But the thing is, I had a PlayStation. I was what, 11 when Goldeneye became the highlight of gaming? Not the age where you own more than one console, I can tell you, and the repeated ridicule from siblings about wanting an N64 was enough to dissuade me. I stuck with my PlayStation.
And the PlayStation introduced me to my first bout of piracy. It was in 1999, the year after I lived in America that I first played copied games. My friend had a cousin who could copy games, and when he visited (he moved to a town 2 hours' drive away), he brought his PlayStation with him as well as about 30 copied games. This was at a time when my collection consisted of Cool Boarders 2, Spyro the Dragon and Final Fantasy 7. I also had a GameShark - a cheat cartridge you plugged into the back of the console. The instructions said I could play copied games, but I had taken no notice of that. My friend introduced me to the copied game, and for the rest of the time on the PlayStation the only 'original' games I bought were Final Fantasy 8, 9 and Spyro 2.
But would I have bought other PlayStation games anyway? Not at all - piracy isn't ruining the industry, because they think I'd pay for things I couldn't afford. The next computer bought had a CD writer, and is the same PC I'm writing this on. I'm sure hidden away in a folder somewhere here will be a patching program, PPF patch if I'm correct, and a whole host of downloaded patches.
On the other front, my new PC introduced me to something new to me - Emulation, and the Internet. Until then the Internet was something friends had, but never I. Kind of like early console games. At that point though, my entire perspective on gaming changed. I stopped buying games from shops, and started getting heavily involved in piracy. For a 12 year old, you'd be surprised just how many GameBoy, SNES and N64 roms I had. I don't have them any more - they were lost with the great hard drive cleanout (8 GB doesn't stretch very far nowadays...), but I'm still in awe at where I managed to find all those files. It's nigh on impossible nowadays to find a decent ftp site. Not that I'd try...
Anyway, Pokemon was the game which occupied a lot of my life. In New Zealand, the TV series actually reached the country before the video game, which meant many people had a big knowledge of the game beforehand. I never knew there was a game, and imagine my rush to download it when I heard there was one. Suffice to say, I got it and about 4 or 5 months were solidly spent finishing the game. I had about 300 hours or something ridiculous like that in playing time. And I said copied games devalues them...
Today, I own a GameCube, PlayStation 2 and an Xbox. Sitting on my desk at this very moment is an X-Ecuter mod chip. On Monday, I'm going with my dad to the University of Southampton to get a technician to install it for me (better safe then sorry). Monday evening, I'll be indulging in Commander Keen, Cosmo, Jazz Jackrabit, Stuntz, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem, Worms, Lemmings, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent and Paganitzu all over again. And they said nostalgia is dead.
What am I saying? Emulation. It's great. I still carry on with it to some degree or another, not through malicious, money-dodging crimes, but through the lack of availability or plaing nostalgia. I mean, come on, am I really expected to find a brand new copy of Marble Madness down at Game? I don't think so. MameX is a revolution, because it brings console emulation back to the consoles. Mark my words, I'm not a pirate. Any more. My chip is for two purposes - playing import games, and playing MameX. Nothing more. I loved Street Fighter 2 in the arcade, and pumped far and beyond £40 into the machine. Do I not deserve the reminiscent gameplay that I deserve, in my own home?
I don't know what I'm talking about now. I started off talking about my early gaming days, which turned into piracy and again emulation. I suppose it charts my rise through gaming, from mediocre shareware player on an old 286, to website and magazine writer. With 3 consoles, not one. My life through gaming has been full of joy, and I've learnt much from my experiences. One thing which has always stuck with me though, is the name Apogee. I don't know where they've gone and what they're developing now. I know they aren't ID software - that's a different company. I'm just going on now. This is a thread for the people who have the time and energy to talk about their early gaming days. Doesn't matter how dull or boring it is, because perhaps here we can talk about the 'good old days' of playing computer games.
Piracy has always been happening. In my gaming life, I've only really played shareware games - Monster Bash, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem. I was only about eight, the age where you can play the same game over and over again and not notice how boring it actually is. I didn't need the extra parts, because I was content with what I have. And what's more, I finished every game I had. Beat that, people. Games were harder back then. And for an eight year old, 'clocking' every game I had was a pretty darn big achievement.
Shareware games though. Was I wrong in using them? During about five years of my early Dos gaming, I not once paid for a game. I played countless games from great developers such as Apogee, Id and Maxis. Yet I wasn't a pirate, I don't understand that.
I don't want to move off topic, but in my experience copying a game devalues it. I wouldn't finish an emulated version of Mario 64, because I couldn't be bothered. On the N64 on the other hand, I'd finish a game which I paid £50 for. The point here is, if you copy a game, is it any worse than playing shareware? I mean, will you really get any further than you would IF there was a shareware version.
The first video games console I owned was a Sega Master System 2. I remember, I bought it for $100 from Farmers - a department store similar to Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. I remember, I didn't play it too often, it spent the majority of its lifetime dusty underneath the TV. I only had two games for it - Alex the Kid which was already on it, and Sonic the Hedgehog which was free with the console seperately anyway. I guess console gaming wasn't my thing, but at that point I was after all content with the endless trawl of 2D platformers I had on my PC.
After moving on to SNES and Megadrive, I started getting more interested in consoles. Back in the 'old' days of gaming, when playing on computers the constant upgrading factor wasn't there. A game would play on a machine if it was a day old or five years old. When 3D graphics started appearing, I stopped playing. There were three main reasons for this - Duke Nukem 3D and Sim City 2000. And Windows. My dad bought a 'new' computer, complete with Windows 95 and a CD Drive! It was on this that I started, and abrubtly stopped playing 3D games. Why? Because of the damned mouse. I hated it, and still hate it today. It's vital, yet utterly stupid. You can click, but for a computer you only need a keyboard to do most things. Yet there is always one thing which requires the mouse. Arggh...
So I went to the PlayStation. At this stage, I'd started getting more interested in multiplayer aspects of gaming. It was mainly at friends' houses that I played them; Killer Instinct at Tim's, Daytona USA at Billy's (lol), on his new N64 direct from Hong Kong. Great stuff. And then Goldeneye came along.
Goldeneye WAS the game which revolutionised my video gaming experience. Dunno why, but it did. Until then, the only First Person Shooters I had played were Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. All very dated compared to what was in Goldeneye.
The multiplayer in Goldeneye, coupled with the brilliant N64 controller resulted in gaming which was in my opinion so much better than what had come before. But the thing is, I had a PlayStation. I was what, 11 when Goldeneye became the highlight of gaming? Not the age where you own more than one console, I can tell you, and the repeated ridicule from siblings about wanting an N64 was enough to dissuade me. I stuck with my PlayStation.
And the PlayStation introduced me to my first bout of piracy. It was in 1999, the year after I lived in America that I first played copied games. My friend had a cousin who could copy games, and when he visited (he moved to a town 2 hours' drive away), he brought his PlayStation with him as well as about 30 copied games. This was at a time when my collection consisted of Cool Boarders 2, Spyro the Dragon and Final Fantasy 7. I also had a GameShark - a cheat cartridge you plugged into the back of the console. The instructions said I could play copied games, but I had taken no notice of that. My friend introduced me to the copied game, and for the rest of the time on the PlayStation the only 'original' games I bought were Final Fantasy 8, 9 and Spyro 2.
But would I have bought other PlayStation games anyway? Not at all - piracy isn't ruining the industry, because they think I'd pay for things I couldn't afford. The next computer bought had a CD writer, and is the same PC I'm writing this on. I'm sure hidden away in a folder somewhere here will be a patching program, PPF patch if I'm correct, and a whole host of downloaded patches.
On the other front, my new PC introduced me to something new to me - Emulation, and the Internet. Until then the Internet was something friends had, but never I. Kind of like early console games. At that point though, my entire perspective on gaming changed. I stopped buying games from shops, and started getting heavily involved in piracy. For a 12 year old, you'd be surprised just how many GameBoy, SNES and N64 roms I had. I don't have them any more - they were lost with the great hard drive cleanout (8 GB doesn't stretch very far nowadays...), but I'm still in awe at where I managed to find all those files. It's nigh on impossible nowadays to find a decent ftp site. Not that I'd try...
Anyway, Pokemon was the game which occupied a lot of my life. In New Zealand, the TV series actually reached the country before the video game, which meant many people had a big knowledge of the game beforehand. I never knew there was a game, and imagine my rush to download it when I heard there was one. Suffice to say, I got it and about 4 or 5 months were solidly spent finishing the game. I had about 300 hours or something ridiculous like that in playing time. And I said copied games devalues them...
Today, I own a GameCube, PlayStation 2 and an Xbox. Sitting on my desk at this very moment is an X-Ecuter mod chip. On Monday, I'm going with my dad to the University of Southampton to get a technician to install it for me (better safe then sorry). Monday evening, I'll be indulging in Commander Keen, Cosmo, Jazz Jackrabit, Stuntz, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem, Worms, Lemmings, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent and Paganitzu all over again. And they said nostalgia is dead.
What am I saying? Emulation. It's great. I still carry on with it to some degree or another, not through malicious, money-dodging crimes, but through the lack of availability or plaing nostalgia. I mean, come on, am I really expected to find a brand new copy of Marble Madness down at Game? I don't think so. MameX is a revolution, because it brings console emulation back to the consoles. Mark my words, I'm not a pirate. Any more. My chip is for two purposes - playing import games, and playing MameX. Nothing more. I loved Street Fighter 2 in the arcade, and pumped far and beyond £40 into the machine. Do I not deserve the reminiscent gameplay that I deserve, in my own home?
I don't know what I'm talking about now. I started off talking about my early gaming days, which turned into piracy and again emulation. I suppose it charts my rise through gaming, from mediocre shareware player on an old 286, to website and magazine writer. With 3 consoles, not one. My life through gaming has been full of joy, and I've learnt much from my experiences. One thing which has always stuck with me though, is the name Apogee. I don't know where they've gone and what they're developing now. I know they aren't ID software - that's a different company. I'm just going on now. This is a thread for the people who have the time and energy to talk about their early gaming days. Doesn't matter how dull or boring it is, because perhaps here we can talk about the 'good old days' of playing computer games.
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I used to be a pirate. No no, not the 'walk the plank' pirate, but a supposedly industry harming games copier. I did this in two forms - I played copied PlayStation games, and I played Pokemon Blue on an emulator on the PC. Was I harming the video games industry? Probably not.
Piracy has always been happening. In my gaming life, I've only really played shareware games - Monster Bash, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem. I was only about eight, the age where you can play the same game over and over again and not notice how boring it actually is. I didn't need the extra parts, because I was content with what I have. And what's more, I finished every game I had. Beat that, people. Games were harder back then. And for an eight year old, 'clocking' every game I had was a pretty darn big achievement.
Shareware games though. Was I wrong in using them? During about five years of my early Dos gaming, I not once paid for a game. I played countless games from great developers such as Apogee, Id and Maxis. Yet I wasn't a pirate, I don't understand that.
I don't want to move off topic, but in my experience copying a game devalues it. I wouldn't finish an emulated version of Mario 64, because I couldn't be bothered. On the N64 on the other hand, I'd finish a game which I paid £50 for. The point here is, if you copy a game, is it any worse than playing shareware? I mean, will you really get any further than you would IF there was a shareware version.
The first video games console I owned was a Sega Master System 2. I remember, I bought it for $100 from Farmers - a department store similar to Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. I remember, I didn't play it too often, it spent the majority of its lifetime dusty underneath the TV. I only had two games for it - Alex the Kid which was already on it, and Sonic the Hedgehog which was free with the console seperately anyway. I guess console gaming wasn't my thing, but at that point I was after all content with the endless trawl of 2D platformers I had on my PC.
After moving on to SNES and Megadrive, I started getting more interested in consoles. Back in the 'old' days of gaming, when playing on computers the constant upgrading factor wasn't there. A game would play on a machine if it was a day old or five years old. When 3D graphics started appearing, I stopped playing. There were three main reasons for this - Duke Nukem 3D and Sim City 2000. And Windows. My dad bought a 'new' computer, complete with Windows 95 and a CD Drive! It was on this that I started, and abrubtly stopped playing 3D games. Why? Because of the damned mouse. I hated it, and still hate it today. It's vital, yet utterly stupid. You can click, but for a computer you only need a keyboard to do most things. Yet there is always one thing which requires the mouse. Arggh...
So I went to the PlayStation. At this stage, I'd started getting more interested in multiplayer aspects of gaming. It was mainly at friends' houses that I played them; Killer Instinct at Tim's, Daytona USA at Billy's (lol), on his new N64 direct from Hong Kong. Great stuff. And then Goldeneye came along.
Goldeneye WAS the game which revolutionised my video gaming experience. Dunno why, but it did. Until then, the only First Person Shooters I had played were Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. All very dated compared to what was in Goldeneye.
The multiplayer in Goldeneye, coupled with the brilliant N64 controller resulted in gaming which was in my opinion so much better than what had come before. But the thing is, I had a PlayStation. I was what, 11 when Goldeneye became the highlight of gaming? Not the age where you own more than one console, I can tell you, and the repeated ridicule from siblings about wanting an N64 was enough to dissuade me. I stuck with my PlayStation.
And the PlayStation introduced me to my first bout of piracy. It was in 1999, the year after I lived in America that I first played copied games. My friend had a cousin who could copy games, and when he visited (he moved to a town 2 hours' drive away), he brought his PlayStation with him as well as about 30 copied games. This was at a time when my collection consisted of Cool Boarders 2, Spyro the Dragon and Final Fantasy 7. I also had a GameShark - a cheat cartridge you plugged into the back of the console. The instructions said I could play copied games, but I had taken no notice of that. My friend introduced me to the copied game, and for the rest of the time on the PlayStation the only 'original' games I bought were Final Fantasy 8, 9 and Spyro 2.
But would I have bought other PlayStation games anyway? Not at all - piracy isn't ruining the industry, because they think I'd pay for things I couldn't afford. The next computer bought had a CD writer, and is the same PC I'm writing this on. I'm sure hidden away in a folder somewhere here will be a patching program, PPF patch if I'm correct, and a whole host of downloaded patches.
On the other front, my new PC introduced me to something new to me - Emulation, and the Internet. Until then the Internet was something friends had, but never I. Kind of like early console games. At that point though, my entire perspective on gaming changed. I stopped buying games from shops, and started getting heavily involved in piracy. For a 12 year old, you'd be surprised just how many GameBoy, SNES and N64 roms I had. I don't have them any more - they were lost with the great hard drive cleanout (8 GB doesn't stretch very far nowadays...), but I'm still in awe at where I managed to find all those files. It's nigh on impossible nowadays to find a decent ftp site. Not that I'd try...
Anyway, Pokemon was the game which occupied a lot of my life. In New Zealand, the TV series actually reached the country before the video game, which meant many people had a big knowledge of the game beforehand. I never knew there was a game, and imagine my rush to download it when I heard there was one. Suffice to say, I got it and about 4 or 5 months were solidly spent finishing the game. I had about 300 hours or something ridiculous like that in playing time. And I said copied games devalues them...
Today, I own a GameCube, PlayStation 2 and an Xbox. Sitting on my desk at this very moment is an X-Ecuter mod chip. On Monday, I'm going with my dad to the University of Southampton to get a technician to install it for me (better safe then sorry). Monday evening, I'll be indulging in Commander Keen, Cosmo, Jazz Jackrabit, Stuntz, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem, Worms, Lemmings, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent and Paganitzu all over again. And they said nostalgia is dead.
What am I saying? Emulation. It's great. I still carry on with it to some degree or another, not through malicious, money-dodging crimes, but through the lack of availability or plaing nostalgia. I mean, come on, am I really expected to find a brand new copy of Marble Madness down at Game? I don't think so. MameX is a revolution, because it brings console emulation back to the consoles. Mark my words, I'm not a pirate. Any more. My chip is for two purposes - playing import games, and playing MameX. Nothing more. I loved Street Fighter 2 in the arcade, and pumped far and beyond £40 into the machine. Do I not deserve the reminiscent gameplay that I deserve, in my own home?
I don't know what I'm talking about now. I started off talking about my early gaming days, which turned into piracy and again emulation. I suppose it charts my rise through gaming, from mediocre shareware player on an old 286, to website and magazine writer. With 3 consoles, not one. My life through gaming has been full of joy, and I've learnt much from my experiences. One thing which has always stuck with me though, is the name Apogee. I don't know where they've gone and what they're developing now. I know they aren't ID software - that's a different company. I'm just going on now. This is a thread for the people who have the time and energy to talk about their early gaming days. Doesn't matter how dull or boring it is, because perhaps here we can talk about the 'good old days' of playing computer games.
Piracy has always been happening. In my gaming life, I've only really played shareware games - Monster Bash, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem. I was only about eight, the age where you can play the same game over and over again and not notice how boring it actually is. I didn't need the extra parts, because I was content with what I have. And what's more, I finished every game I had. Beat that, people. Games were harder back then. And for an eight year old, 'clocking' every game I had was a pretty darn big achievement.
Shareware games though. Was I wrong in using them? During about five years of my early Dos gaming, I not once paid for a game. I played countless games from great developers such as Apogee, Id and Maxis. Yet I wasn't a pirate, I don't understand that.
I don't want to move off topic, but in my experience copying a game devalues it. I wouldn't finish an emulated version of Mario 64, because I couldn't be bothered. On the N64 on the other hand, I'd finish a game which I paid £50 for. The point here is, if you copy a game, is it any worse than playing shareware? I mean, will you really get any further than you would IF there was a shareware version.
The first video games console I owned was a Sega Master System 2. I remember, I bought it for $100 from Farmers - a department store similar to Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. I remember, I didn't play it too often, it spent the majority of its lifetime dusty underneath the TV. I only had two games for it - Alex the Kid which was already on it, and Sonic the Hedgehog which was free with the console seperately anyway. I guess console gaming wasn't my thing, but at that point I was after all content with the endless trawl of 2D platformers I had on my PC.
After moving on to SNES and Megadrive, I started getting more interested in consoles. Back in the 'old' days of gaming, when playing on computers the constant upgrading factor wasn't there. A game would play on a machine if it was a day old or five years old. When 3D graphics started appearing, I stopped playing. There were three main reasons for this - Duke Nukem 3D and Sim City 2000. And Windows. My dad bought a 'new' computer, complete with Windows 95 and a CD Drive! It was on this that I started, and abrubtly stopped playing 3D games. Why? Because of the damned mouse. I hated it, and still hate it today. It's vital, yet utterly stupid. You can click, but for a computer you only need a keyboard to do most things. Yet there is always one thing which requires the mouse. Arggh...
So I went to the PlayStation. At this stage, I'd started getting more interested in multiplayer aspects of gaming. It was mainly at friends' houses that I played them; Killer Instinct at Tim's, Daytona USA at Billy's (lol), on his new N64 direct from Hong Kong. Great stuff. And then Goldeneye came along.
Goldeneye WAS the game which revolutionised my video gaming experience. Dunno why, but it did. Until then, the only First Person Shooters I had played were Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. All very dated compared to what was in Goldeneye.
The multiplayer in Goldeneye, coupled with the brilliant N64 controller resulted in gaming which was in my opinion so much better than what had come before. But the thing is, I had a PlayStation. I was what, 11 when Goldeneye became the highlight of gaming? Not the age where you own more than one console, I can tell you, and the repeated ridicule from siblings about wanting an N64 was enough to dissuade me. I stuck with my PlayStation.
And the PlayStation introduced me to my first bout of piracy. It was in 1999, the year after I lived in America that I first played copied games. My friend had a cousin who could copy games, and when he visited (he moved to a town 2 hours' drive away), he brought his PlayStation with him as well as about 30 copied games. This was at a time when my collection consisted of Cool Boarders 2, Spyro the Dragon and Final Fantasy 7. I also had a GameShark - a cheat cartridge you plugged into the back of the console. The instructions said I could play copied games, but I had taken no notice of that. My friend introduced me to the copied game, and for the rest of the time on the PlayStation the only 'original' games I bought were Final Fantasy 8, 9 and Spyro 2.
But would I have bought other PlayStation games anyway? Not at all - piracy isn't ruining the industry, because they think I'd pay for things I couldn't afford. The next computer bought had a CD writer, and is the same PC I'm writing this on. I'm sure hidden away in a folder somewhere here will be a patching program, PPF patch if I'm correct, and a whole host of downloaded patches.
On the other front, my new PC introduced me to something new to me - Emulation, and the Internet. Until then the Internet was something friends had, but never I. Kind of like early console games. At that point though, my entire perspective on gaming changed. I stopped buying games from shops, and started getting heavily involved in piracy. For a 12 year old, you'd be surprised just how many GameBoy, SNES and N64 roms I had. I don't have them any more - they were lost with the great hard drive cleanout (8 GB doesn't stretch very far nowadays...), but I'm still in awe at where I managed to find all those files. It's nigh on impossible nowadays to find a decent ftp site. Not that I'd try...
Anyway, Pokemon was the game which occupied a lot of my life. In New Zealand, the TV series actually reached the country before the video game, which meant many people had a big knowledge of the game beforehand. I never knew there was a game, and imagine my rush to download it when I heard there was one. Suffice to say, I got it and about 4 or 5 months were solidly spent finishing the game. I had about 300 hours or something ridiculous like that in playing time. And I said copied games devalues them...
Today, I own a GameCube, PlayStation 2 and an Xbox. Sitting on my desk at this very moment is an X-Ecuter mod chip. On Monday, I'm going with my dad to the University of Southampton to get a technician to install it for me (better safe then sorry). Monday evening, I'll be indulging in Commander Keen, Cosmo, Jazz Jackrabit, Stuntz, Monster Bash, Duke Nukem, Worms, Lemmings, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent and Paganitzu all over again. And they said nostalgia is dead.
What am I saying? Emulation. It's great. I still carry on with it to some degree or another, not through malicious, money-dodging crimes, but through the lack of availability or plaing nostalgia. I mean, come on, am I really expected to find a brand new copy of Marble Madness down at Game? I don't think so. MameX is a revolution, because it brings console emulation back to the consoles. Mark my words, I'm not a pirate. Any more. My chip is for two purposes - playing import games, and playing MameX. Nothing more. I loved Street Fighter 2 in the arcade, and pumped far and beyond £40 into the machine. Do I not deserve the reminiscent gameplay that I deserve, in my own home?
I don't know what I'm talking about now. I started off talking about my early gaming days, which turned into piracy and again emulation. I suppose it charts my rise through gaming, from mediocre shareware player on an old 286, to website and magazine writer. With 3 consoles, not one. My life through gaming has been full of joy, and I've learnt much from my experiences. One thing which has always stuck with me though, is the name Apogee. I don't know where they've gone and what they're developing now. I know they aren't ID software - that's a different company. I'm just going on now. This is a thread for the people who have the time and energy to talk about their early gaming days. Doesn't matter how dull or boring it is, because perhaps here we can talk about the 'good old days' of playing computer games.