My First Gen.
I’m not going to give you a full history of my life but I was born in 1984 making me 37 at the time of writing. I was around 4 or 5 when I got my first console. It was a Nintendo Entertainment System. I can’t remember everything I had with it, but I know I had Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, yep Hero, in the UK they replaced Ninja with Hero. Odd I know. Along with Turtles, I had Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt with the NES Zapper. I honestly can’t remember what, or if I had anything else for that Christmas, but I know it’s how I really got into gaming. Over the years I got more games. Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros 3, The Simpsons Bart vs The Space Mutants and more, but my parents gave away my NES to a family friend after I had my Super Nintendo Entertainment System for a while. I later got myself a Master System and a ZX Spectrum +2, I can’t remember which I had first, but I played them on and off, and while enjoying both I always preferred the NES.
16-bit Bliss.
After years of fun with my 8-bit consoles and Spectrum, new consoles were on the Horizon, and I wanted one, In fact, I wanted Sonic more than the consoles. Then Christmas rolled around and I open my gifts to find a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for those in the US) bundled with Sonic the Hedgehog. I was ecstatic, I honestly don’t know if I had any other games with it, and I only remember getting Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Streets of Rage and Streets of Rage 2, I know I had more games, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what. After the Mega Drive, I saw adverts for a new game coming out I wanted that game really badly, to me it looked amazing, both in terms of playability and visuals. That game was Donkey Kong Country. I was surprised to see how much Donkey Kong had changed from playing the arcade game. It was a real change in direction and I had to have it. Luckily for Christmas, I had just what I wanted a Super Nintendo Entertainment System with DKC. The SNES then became my preferred console of the two, I played through DKC and really enjoyed it, I got Super Mario All-Stars along with the SNES and loved replaying Super Mario Bros, with a new lick of paint. Again, memory is awful for remembering what games I had altogether, but I know I had Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past and more.
It’s A Strange New 3D World.
I made the leap from 16-bit to 32-bit gaming with the PlayStation, again I had it for Christmas with 4 games. I can’t remember what they were, but again I was overjoyed. I played it all Christmas day… until it broke. Yeah, on Christmas Day my Playstation broke, I was extremely disappointed. Turns out the spinning mechanism warped, my parents took it back the following day and the Playstation was replaced with another. It had 4 different games, and the only one I remember was a game called X2: No Relief, and while not a massive fan of the genre (because I am very bad at them) I really enjoyed this, I liked that it would switch from a horizontal to a vertical shooter, and I just generally enjoyed how it played and the powerups. I didn’t get a Nintendo 64 or Sega Saturn for a long time after getting the PlayStation, I used to visit a friend who had many a game for the Nintendo 64 and I would play on his and controversially I didn’t like Super Mario 64. I genuinely hated it, I don’t know why, but I could not enjoy it. I did enjoy the game eventually though, that was from playing it on my Nintendo DS, where I fully played through the game. I eventually bought an N64 second-hand with only two games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. I also had a friend with a Sega Saturn and a lot of games, I would visit him regularly and we’d play Steep Slope Sliders, Sonic R, Crimewave and more. Again, I got my Saturn second-hand, I actually bought it from my friend for a very low price and with all his games.
If you want to see where I want from here, then check out the follow up article A Brief Overview Of My Gaming History (Part 2)
Pingback: A Brief Overview Of My Gaming History (Part 2) - Pedz' Game Shack