My Video Game History
Saw a "my video game history" in a video game blog and I was inspired to do the same. This is probably not the best audience for this game stuff, but I have nowhere else to put it. It is VERY loooong and nerdy, so follow along if you dare behind the LJ cut. No, I’m serious. This is like 4 pages long single spaced. I don’t know anyone who would want to read this. I just need to get this out of my system I guess.
Arcade - Probably my very first video game experience. My mom would take me to her work sometimes, and let me play on the Galaga game in the break room. She had to hold me up the entire time to reach the controls. I don't think I was very good at the game, but kudos to anyone who will hold a kid up to an arcade for the duration of a game or several games. I love you mom!
Vectrex - My first game console. It blew my mind. Graphics were awesome if you can call vector graphics awesome. At first I was too young and uncoordinated to move my ship around on the Minefield (Asteroids ripoff) game so I just rotated and fired. I never lasted long until I could include movement. Don't remember why I got rid of this system in favor of the Atari. The only games I wish it had (maybe they were available) were the vector versions of the Star Wars, and Tempest! Those were two of my all time favorite arcade games.
Atari 2600 - Trying to figure out what the hell "ren-dez-vus" (rendezvous) was in the Space Shuttle game. I knew what the word meant, but had never read it before.
Trying to understand the point of the E.T. game besides eating Reese's Pieces and falling into pits. WTF?!
Rocking out to the soundtrack of the Journey Escape game before I realized they were actually poor Atari recreations of hit songs from the band Journey! …Duh!
Playing Combat on 2 player mode for hours with cousins. There were so many variations in this game! Tanks, tanks with bouncing bullets, airplanes. The Atari Joystick made my forearms sore.
Joust. I owned at Joust!
DOS PC - I was really into flight simulators and I'm actually surprised my IBM PC could play these 3D based games long before 3D graphics cards were even imagined. They ran at almost 1 frame per second at times, so they were frustrating as hell at critical moments. The graphics were absolutely nothing special. Mountains looked like pyramids. F-19 was my favorite flight sim game. It was about piloting the then top secret stealth fighter. They didn't know much about the plane since it was virtually unknown, but the game included detailed stealth strategies and techniques for avoiding radar detection. Very cool. The missions were real-time so you would literally fly for 3 hours on a single mission. You could “fast forward” to make it go faster, but I just used the time to turn on auto pilot and go into my “onboard kitchen” to make a sandwich, grab some Pepsi, while watching TV until I reached the next target. Once the real stealth F-117 was later declassified, it was discovered that it did not in fact have a fully stocked kitchen or a TV. HA! I WIN!
Another game I played a lot was Empire. It was a turn-based, military type strategy game. I really liked it. The game took forever because you took turns making your moves, especially if you chose a big map. It was like monopoly, in that it’s damn near impossible to come back once you fall behind, and once you do there is a long painful road to ruin ahead of you. There was even a “play by mail” option where you snailmail your moves (this was before e-mail mind you) to an opponent. I cannot IMAGINE how long those games must last. I bet two people are still finishing a game by mail as I write this.
Text based command games like Spiderman and the Hulk were bad. Bad bad bad! One false move and you had Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk at the wrong time and ending the game. I need to SEE the room and visualize the hallways/doors. None of this “turn left,” “go forward,” “open door,” crap. Where the hell am I?!? Spiderman sucked too. Spidey sense tingled, then game over. How do I shot web?
Captain Comic was a fun platformer style game where you shoot fireballs and drink cola. Think the original Super Mario Brothers with even less maneuverability and therefore more frustration…
Apple II - Playing Oregon Trail over, and over, and over at school. It was sort of like playing the schoolyard game of MASH because you could name the people in your party and laugh when your real life pal Timmy died of dysentery. Always throw caution to the wind and ford the damn river. Eventually the intended gameplay became dull, so I started spending all my money at the general store on ammo and killed every animal possible at every hunting opportunity. The result? The meat goes to waste but you’ll become a good shooter and excel at goals never intended by the game makers. :D
Mac - Loom. Loom was sortof like, Myst meets Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but before those games existed. You solve puzzles and learn spells to play on your musical magic Loom, which is basically a harp. I played this in my computer typing class in Jr. High. I was stoked when I finished my work early because it meant I could gather with everyone else around the teacher’s Mac and help play the game. We managed to beat it just before the end of the school year. SUCCESS!
NES - What a great system. I have a lot of good memories of games on this system. Defeating Ganon in Zelda. Playing Goonies for hours and being boggled by what a huge game it was. Even a level map I got in Nintendo Power magazine was huge. Finally whooping the seemingly impossible Mike Tyson. Finally beating Metroid. Being the fat guy in Ice Hockey cuz he could knock everyone on their ass. Mega Man games were ridiculously hard and frustrating. Building tracks in Excitebike with only engine coolers and 45 degree ramps. Radical.
SNES - Playing NBA Jam for hours with pals. Good thing the Suns had a good team back then. Playing skydiving on Pilotwings, but instead of flying through hoops and parachuting to the bullseye, we would try to hit the bull’s-eye on the ground without using a parachute. : D Nintendo’s Mortal Kombat with green blood for the kids and NHL Hockey with no blood and no fighting, WTF NINTENDO!! Smash TV was one of my all-time favorite games. Playing two player and finding all the secret rooms and keys while slaughtering hoards of mindless drones and robots was a blast. I spent countless hours on this one. They need to make an updated version of Smash TV. I would pre-order it right now. Mario Kart is classic!! Its is satisfying to stick someone with a red shell right at the last minute, or avoid a red shell shot at you. Two player is best.
Genesis - I only had 3 games for this, Sonic 2 (came with system), Skitchin’, and Dune II: Battle for Arrakis but each one was great. Not sure why I didn’t get more Genesis games. It was a good system.
Sonic 2 was awesome. It had all the speed the Mario games lacked. I would replay Casino, the pinball style level, for hours just because it was so fun. The time limit was a joy killer.
Skitchin’ was intended to cash in on the “rollerblading craze” of the early 90s. It was basically the motorcycle based beat-em-up game Road Rash, but with rollerblades and grabbing onto cars to really get moving. Nothing is more satisfying than clubbing someone off your car with a bat at high speed.
Dune holds a special place in my heart. It was the very first Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I ever played and was perhaps the first modern RTS ever made. I later became a big fan of RTS games without even realizing that it may have been because of this game. It is based on the Dune movie from the 80s, so you harvest “spice” from the movie/book to get resources and build buildings, units and vehicles. It really was the first game to have many features that all RTS games have today. The Genesis controller was NOT spectacular when you really needed to act fast. This is why all good RTS games exist on the PC and use the mouse & keyboard now. ; )
Windows PC - Myst was probably my first big PC game. It was a very unique game. Myst was mostly a puzzle game where you try to figure out wtf is happening on this small island. It was a bit hardcore, because it actually came with a journal for you to write notes in as you progress. That’s almost like a game that assigns you homework. Intense!
Beavis & Butthead was a point and click adventure game. Pretty simple, you just have to find the right stuff to click on. Mostly a long B&B episode where you interact to get jokes.
Full Throttle was another point and click adventure game. Good humor in this one too. My cousin talked me into going in halves to buy this and I’m glad he did. The end was a frustrating sequence of clicking the right things at the right time.
I got into First Person Shooter (FPS) games thanks to Wolfenstein 3D. I later progressed on to Doom and Quake. Quake was really awesome because the music and sounds were assisted by Trent Reznor. This was the creepiest game I ever played at the time, and I used to play it in the dark with the volume way up. I could hear the chainsaw guy grunting around the corner, yet I still wasn’t prepared for him. This game is child’s play compared to what is available now, but it was freaky at the time.
Age of Empires kept me occupied for a good chunk of time. I really liked all the AoE series of RTS games. Improving your soldiers and learning new technologies as you progress through different ages made this a fun and complex game. I would play AoE with my Dad and his co-workers at Microsoft in giant battles. I eventually formulated an almost unbeatable strategy using large numbers of archers and other ranged units. The only weakness was that it took time to level up and build the army. Luckily they didn’t play Starcraft or know of the “zerg rush” strategy.
Speaking of zerg rush, I played a bit of Starcraft in my time. I actually wasn’t a fan of the normal game mode. Probably because everyone online was an idiot zerg rusher, and also because I never developed a winning strategy like with AoE. I spent my time teaming up with a cousin on special mode maps, and owning complete strangers, only to watch them cry and label us cheaters. If knowing better strategy and utilizing more effective teamwork makes us cheaters, then yes, we’re cheaters.
My biggest video game time vaccuum of all time has be Unreal Tournament. I got hooked playing a free copy of its predecessor, Unreal, which came bundled with a video card I purchased. The multiplayer modes in Unreal eventually became a separate game, Unreal Tournament. My game mode of choice was Instagib Capture the Flag. Instagib mode starts you with a gun that kills instantly and has unlimited ammo. Needless to say, it is a challenge to carry a flag from one base to another without dying. However, I loved the level playing field this created, and that you no longer had to spend time collecting weapons and ammo. I eventually created a team, or clan, to play together online and competively in leagues. We held the #1 Instagib CTF spot for a time on the Online Gaming League (OGL) site. Eventually my grades in college suffered, so I had to step down from playing to focus on school again. I barely had time to manage and keep the team together. Luckily a teammate stepped up and they enjoyed continued success without me until Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 came out and the league lost popularity. One of my favorite elements of Unreal Tournament, and one of the big reasons I played too much, was the online players. These were some of the funniest people, from stuff they’d type in game, to their timing of triggering game voice samples in relation to in-game events. I never LOLed so much in my life.
Playstation - Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Metal Gear Solid, Xeno Gears. All classics. The graphics on Gran Turismo were absolutely groundbreaking. Online I looked up how to build a 900+ horsepower Subaru. The fastest yet most pointless vehicle builds in the game. Damn thing cannot stay on the road no matter how you tweak it, so what is the point of all that power? Funny to try though.
N64- GOLDENEYE!!!! I hate playing First Person Shooters (FPS) games on consoles for the most part, but Goldeneye was definitely an exception. I could never get enough of the Multiplayer mode. There is nothing more satisfying, or more cheap, than camping in a room with the proximity mine supplies and covering the back side of the only doorway (read: not visible to anyone outside the room) with proximity mines. There’s almost no way to get through the doorway without exploding. Oh the hilarity. Even funnier when someone chases me into my own proximity mine trap.
Perfect Dark is a FPS for the N64 made by the same people as Goldeneye with a very similar feel. A few different weapons with one key addition: a fucking ALIEN weapon that can SEE and SHOOT through walls! Who needs proximity mines to be a cheap effing bastard when you can just shoot through walls?? The weapon does get old quick when you’re on the receiving end… ; )
GameCube - Playing Smash Bros Melee endlessly with my younger cousins. I would look forward to every holdiay season when my cousins’ visit so we could brawl for hours. What a simple yet challenging combination of fun, chaos and strategy. Street Fighter: Capcom vs SNK - wow every fighter I could ever want to use!! (Except Tekken fighters). Good ‘ol Haomaru and his Sake swig for victory.
DS - Honestly, not a very spectacular system in terms of memorable game experiences, but it can’t be beat when you’re traveling. Mario Kart is awesome. Brain Age reminds me that I’m dumb, slow and I STILL hate multiplication tables.
Xbox - I never owned one but I played on my friends’ a lot. Halo1 + 4 players +Unlimited Rocket Launchers + Unlimited Grenades + Vehicles - trying to achieve victory = FUN.
Modern PC games - Crysis looks so damn realistic that I almost feel remorse when I shoot people. It is also amazing at creating a sense of panic when you get into a tense situation. Spore is quite fun, and insanely large. Who would bother to create new houses and city hall’s for every planet? That would take a lifetime. That whole ‘getting to the center of the galaxy’ thing and the Grox are annoying. It seems unlike Maxis to make something that challenging or persistent.
Wii - Wii Bowling. ‘Nuff said. Zelda: Twilight Princess, Smash Bros Brawl and Excite Truck are pretty awesome too. This chapter is still in progress…
Arcade - Probably my very first video game experience. My mom would take me to her work sometimes, and let me play on the Galaga game in the break room. She had to hold me up the entire time to reach the controls. I don't think I was very good at the game, but kudos to anyone who will hold a kid up to an arcade for the duration of a game or several games. I love you mom!
Vectrex - My first game console. It blew my mind. Graphics were awesome if you can call vector graphics awesome. At first I was too young and uncoordinated to move my ship around on the Minefield (Asteroids ripoff) game so I just rotated and fired. I never lasted long until I could include movement. Don't remember why I got rid of this system in favor of the Atari. The only games I wish it had (maybe they were available) were the vector versions of the Star Wars, and Tempest! Those were two of my all time favorite arcade games.
Atari 2600 - Trying to figure out what the hell "ren-dez-vus" (rendezvous) was in the Space Shuttle game. I knew what the word meant, but had never read it before.
Trying to understand the point of the E.T. game besides eating Reese's Pieces and falling into pits. WTF?!
Rocking out to the soundtrack of the Journey Escape game before I realized they were actually poor Atari recreations of hit songs from the band Journey! …Duh!
Playing Combat on 2 player mode for hours with cousins. There were so many variations in this game! Tanks, tanks with bouncing bullets, airplanes. The Atari Joystick made my forearms sore.
Joust. I owned at Joust!
DOS PC - I was really into flight simulators and I'm actually surprised my IBM PC could play these 3D based games long before 3D graphics cards were even imagined. They ran at almost 1 frame per second at times, so they were frustrating as hell at critical moments. The graphics were absolutely nothing special. Mountains looked like pyramids. F-19 was my favorite flight sim game. It was about piloting the then top secret stealth fighter. They didn't know much about the plane since it was virtually unknown, but the game included detailed stealth strategies and techniques for avoiding radar detection. Very cool. The missions were real-time so you would literally fly for 3 hours on a single mission. You could “fast forward” to make it go faster, but I just used the time to turn on auto pilot and go into my “onboard kitchen” to make a sandwich, grab some Pepsi, while watching TV until I reached the next target. Once the real stealth F-117 was later declassified, it was discovered that it did not in fact have a fully stocked kitchen or a TV. HA! I WIN!
Another game I played a lot was Empire. It was a turn-based, military type strategy game. I really liked it. The game took forever because you took turns making your moves, especially if you chose a big map. It was like monopoly, in that it’s damn near impossible to come back once you fall behind, and once you do there is a long painful road to ruin ahead of you. There was even a “play by mail” option where you snailmail your moves (this was before e-mail mind you) to an opponent. I cannot IMAGINE how long those games must last. I bet two people are still finishing a game by mail as I write this.
Text based command games like Spiderman and the Hulk were bad. Bad bad bad! One false move and you had Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk at the wrong time and ending the game. I need to SEE the room and visualize the hallways/doors. None of this “turn left,” “go forward,” “open door,” crap. Where the hell am I?!? Spiderman sucked too. Spidey sense tingled, then game over. How do I shot web?
Captain Comic was a fun platformer style game where you shoot fireballs and drink cola. Think the original Super Mario Brothers with even less maneuverability and therefore more frustration…
Apple II - Playing Oregon Trail over, and over, and over at school. It was sort of like playing the schoolyard game of MASH because you could name the people in your party and laugh when your real life pal Timmy died of dysentery. Always throw caution to the wind and ford the damn river. Eventually the intended gameplay became dull, so I started spending all my money at the general store on ammo and killed every animal possible at every hunting opportunity. The result? The meat goes to waste but you’ll become a good shooter and excel at goals never intended by the game makers. :D
Mac - Loom. Loom was sortof like, Myst meets Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but before those games existed. You solve puzzles and learn spells to play on your musical magic Loom, which is basically a harp. I played this in my computer typing class in Jr. High. I was stoked when I finished my work early because it meant I could gather with everyone else around the teacher’s Mac and help play the game. We managed to beat it just before the end of the school year. SUCCESS!
NES - What a great system. I have a lot of good memories of games on this system. Defeating Ganon in Zelda. Playing Goonies for hours and being boggled by what a huge game it was. Even a level map I got in Nintendo Power magazine was huge. Finally whooping the seemingly impossible Mike Tyson. Finally beating Metroid. Being the fat guy in Ice Hockey cuz he could knock everyone on their ass. Mega Man games were ridiculously hard and frustrating. Building tracks in Excitebike with only engine coolers and 45 degree ramps. Radical.
SNES - Playing NBA Jam for hours with pals. Good thing the Suns had a good team back then. Playing skydiving on Pilotwings, but instead of flying through hoops and parachuting to the bullseye, we would try to hit the bull’s-eye on the ground without using a parachute. : D Nintendo’s Mortal Kombat with green blood for the kids and NHL Hockey with no blood and no fighting, WTF NINTENDO!! Smash TV was one of my all-time favorite games. Playing two player and finding all the secret rooms and keys while slaughtering hoards of mindless drones and robots was a blast. I spent countless hours on this one. They need to make an updated version of Smash TV. I would pre-order it right now. Mario Kart is classic!! Its is satisfying to stick someone with a red shell right at the last minute, or avoid a red shell shot at you. Two player is best.
Genesis - I only had 3 games for this, Sonic 2 (came with system), Skitchin’, and Dune II: Battle for Arrakis but each one was great. Not sure why I didn’t get more Genesis games. It was a good system.
Sonic 2 was awesome. It had all the speed the Mario games lacked. I would replay Casino, the pinball style level, for hours just because it was so fun. The time limit was a joy killer.
Skitchin’ was intended to cash in on the “rollerblading craze” of the early 90s. It was basically the motorcycle based beat-em-up game Road Rash, but with rollerblades and grabbing onto cars to really get moving. Nothing is more satisfying than clubbing someone off your car with a bat at high speed.
Dune holds a special place in my heart. It was the very first Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I ever played and was perhaps the first modern RTS ever made. I later became a big fan of RTS games without even realizing that it may have been because of this game. It is based on the Dune movie from the 80s, so you harvest “spice” from the movie/book to get resources and build buildings, units and vehicles. It really was the first game to have many features that all RTS games have today. The Genesis controller was NOT spectacular when you really needed to act fast. This is why all good RTS games exist on the PC and use the mouse & keyboard now. ; )
Windows PC - Myst was probably my first big PC game. It was a very unique game. Myst was mostly a puzzle game where you try to figure out wtf is happening on this small island. It was a bit hardcore, because it actually came with a journal for you to write notes in as you progress. That’s almost like a game that assigns you homework. Intense!
Beavis & Butthead was a point and click adventure game. Pretty simple, you just have to find the right stuff to click on. Mostly a long B&B episode where you interact to get jokes.
Full Throttle was another point and click adventure game. Good humor in this one too. My cousin talked me into going in halves to buy this and I’m glad he did. The end was a frustrating sequence of clicking the right things at the right time.
I got into First Person Shooter (FPS) games thanks to Wolfenstein 3D. I later progressed on to Doom and Quake. Quake was really awesome because the music and sounds were assisted by Trent Reznor. This was the creepiest game I ever played at the time, and I used to play it in the dark with the volume way up. I could hear the chainsaw guy grunting around the corner, yet I still wasn’t prepared for him. This game is child’s play compared to what is available now, but it was freaky at the time.
Age of Empires kept me occupied for a good chunk of time. I really liked all the AoE series of RTS games. Improving your soldiers and learning new technologies as you progress through different ages made this a fun and complex game. I would play AoE with my Dad and his co-workers at Microsoft in giant battles. I eventually formulated an almost unbeatable strategy using large numbers of archers and other ranged units. The only weakness was that it took time to level up and build the army. Luckily they didn’t play Starcraft or know of the “zerg rush” strategy.
Speaking of zerg rush, I played a bit of Starcraft in my time. I actually wasn’t a fan of the normal game mode. Probably because everyone online was an idiot zerg rusher, and also because I never developed a winning strategy like with AoE. I spent my time teaming up with a cousin on special mode maps, and owning complete strangers, only to watch them cry and label us cheaters. If knowing better strategy and utilizing more effective teamwork makes us cheaters, then yes, we’re cheaters.
My biggest video game time vaccuum of all time has be Unreal Tournament. I got hooked playing a free copy of its predecessor, Unreal, which came bundled with a video card I purchased. The multiplayer modes in Unreal eventually became a separate game, Unreal Tournament. My game mode of choice was Instagib Capture the Flag. Instagib mode starts you with a gun that kills instantly and has unlimited ammo. Needless to say, it is a challenge to carry a flag from one base to another without dying. However, I loved the level playing field this created, and that you no longer had to spend time collecting weapons and ammo. I eventually created a team, or clan, to play together online and competively in leagues. We held the #1 Instagib CTF spot for a time on the Online Gaming League (OGL) site. Eventually my grades in college suffered, so I had to step down from playing to focus on school again. I barely had time to manage and keep the team together. Luckily a teammate stepped up and they enjoyed continued success without me until Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 came out and the league lost popularity. One of my favorite elements of Unreal Tournament, and one of the big reasons I played too much, was the online players. These were some of the funniest people, from stuff they’d type in game, to their timing of triggering game voice samples in relation to in-game events. I never LOLed so much in my life.
Playstation - Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Metal Gear Solid, Xeno Gears. All classics. The graphics on Gran Turismo were absolutely groundbreaking. Online I looked up how to build a 900+ horsepower Subaru. The fastest yet most pointless vehicle builds in the game. Damn thing cannot stay on the road no matter how you tweak it, so what is the point of all that power? Funny to try though.
N64- GOLDENEYE!!!! I hate playing First Person Shooters (FPS) games on consoles for the most part, but Goldeneye was definitely an exception. I could never get enough of the Multiplayer mode. There is nothing more satisfying, or more cheap, than camping in a room with the proximity mine supplies and covering the back side of the only doorway (read: not visible to anyone outside the room) with proximity mines. There’s almost no way to get through the doorway without exploding. Oh the hilarity. Even funnier when someone chases me into my own proximity mine trap.
Perfect Dark is a FPS for the N64 made by the same people as Goldeneye with a very similar feel. A few different weapons with one key addition: a fucking ALIEN weapon that can SEE and SHOOT through walls! Who needs proximity mines to be a cheap effing bastard when you can just shoot through walls?? The weapon does get old quick when you’re on the receiving end… ; )
GameCube - Playing Smash Bros Melee endlessly with my younger cousins. I would look forward to every holdiay season when my cousins’ visit so we could brawl for hours. What a simple yet challenging combination of fun, chaos and strategy. Street Fighter: Capcom vs SNK - wow every fighter I could ever want to use!! (Except Tekken fighters). Good ‘ol Haomaru and his Sake swig for victory.
DS - Honestly, not a very spectacular system in terms of memorable game experiences, but it can’t be beat when you’re traveling. Mario Kart is awesome. Brain Age reminds me that I’m dumb, slow and I STILL hate multiplication tables.
Xbox - I never owned one but I played on my friends’ a lot. Halo1 + 4 players +Unlimited Rocket Launchers + Unlimited Grenades + Vehicles - trying to achieve victory = FUN.
Modern PC games - Crysis looks so damn realistic that I almost feel remorse when I shoot people. It is also amazing at creating a sense of panic when you get into a tense situation. Spore is quite fun, and insanely large. Who would bother to create new houses and city hall’s for every planet? That would take a lifetime. That whole ‘getting to the center of the galaxy’ thing and the Grox are annoying. It seems unlike Maxis to make something that challenging or persistent.
Wii - Wii Bowling. ‘Nuff said. Zelda: Twilight Princess, Smash Bros Brawl and Excite Truck are pretty awesome too. This chapter is still in progress…