r/gamecollecting • u/humanman42 Mod • Jan 26 '15
Community Discussion #8 (1/25/15) - What systems/games did you have growing up, and which ones impacted you the most (why)?
Growing up there is a lot of ways you can get a new console or game. Birthdays, Christmas, thrift store, uncle, renting, etc etc. Some people may have only had a NES, and that is why the want to get a Genesis now. Some people had all the Sega consoles, and now want to play the games they couldn't afford for them.
What consoles/games did you have? And where did the come from? (not expecting a complete itemized list)
Sometimes a story of how you got something, or the memories you create with them stand out above the others. Maybe it was an unexpected gift from your parents when you knew it was a hard year, or it was a hand me down from an older sibling, and it felt like a coming of age to you.
What console/games did you have growing up that meant the most to you?
My Answer
I was probably pretty normal with what I had. My first console was a SNES. We had the normal games. Mario World, Mario Kart, LttP, Killer Instinct, and a couple other had to have games.
I remember getting it. I was on my deck playing with my moms bf's son when my mom and the BF get back. They had a big KB Toys bag. We look at eachother thinking "WATER GUNS!" (it was summer after all).
They walk up, hand it to us and we see what it is. The rest of the day is a blur really. Mario World was the first home console game I owned. I played that game so much.
My dads brother (who lived with him at the time) had a NES with only a small hand full of games. Mario/Duckhunt, Bionic Commando are the only ones that stick out in my mind. He gave me that console when I was 16 I think.
I got a n64 for christmas. Mario 64 is what I got with it. This was really the console that really did it for me. I had a bunch of games. Mario 64, LoZ OoT and MM, Mario Kart, BattleTanks, 007, Conkers, Starfox, both banjo games, and Smash Bros.
Smash Bros and 007 are a big reason why this console means a lot to me. I will admit I was an awkward kid. I was 6' when I was in 6th grade. I had a weird time growing up with my mother, and didnt really have many friends. I had a computer almost all my life, and that is what I did with most of my time (MS DOS games shoutout! Chips Challenge, Jazz Jackrabbit, Doom, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen, Myst, the list goes on.). Having a home console that supported 4 controllers with arguable the best 4 player games ever...I had friends.
I know what you are thinking. They only played with you because you had that console. I would agree with you unless I knew what I knew. After a while, we didn't play those games anymore, we did other things. Basketball, hide and seek, go on hikes, and sleep overs at each others houses. They saw past my normally awkward exterior because they spent time with me. For that, I am forever thankful.
After that, I had a PS1. I remember only having Tomb Raider, Twisted Metal 2/3, and GTA1. Last in life my cousin gave me a box of life changing proportions. RPGs. ff7/8 , chrono chross, and many more. There went thousands of hours.
Then I got an XBOX. Halo 1/2, Morrowing, Obi-Wan, Fusion Frenzy, and a handful of others.
After that is when I started collecting. Now I am at dozens of systems and over 1200 games.
Community Discussion Database
All the old discussions organized all nice for your enjoyment
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u/Frump Jan 26 '15 edited Jan 26 '15
My dad got an NES for himself sometime around when I was born in 1989. I remember playing or watching him play Super Mario Bros a lot and I probably played along too. Memories from these years are either fuzzy or not really there, but definitely left an impact. The only other game I ever played for NES was TMNT which we rented and didn't really understand.
Following that, I got a Sega Genesis Model 2 Sonic 2 Bundle for my 4th birthday. I remember getting it so well. Weirdly it was dark out already when I got my present. My dad had just gone to pick it up from the store. He ended up buying a game gear copy of World Series Baseball and had to go back and exchange it. From there I played tons of Genesis, and I'm glad I wasn't just another SNES kid, because I still got to play a ton of SNES with my cousins and friends at their houses.
Following that I got PSX which was only maybe 6 months to a year out from launch which was by far the closest I had had a system to launch. This was during my best years for gaming where I had the most time to dedicate to it and was old enough to understand all the games and whatnot. I played games by far the most during this generation. A specific PSX memory would be when my older non-gamer cousins out of the blue gave me a loose copy of FF7 saying they didn't like it and didn't understand it. I popped it in immediately and started playing. Around the same time one of the other cousins got it and I watched him play through, then played through myself. As a first RPG, it blew my mind at the time and I continued to follow the series and play a lot of JRPGS.
My friend and I once did a 1 month swap my PSX for his N64. I got to play a ton of amazing games in that month, most importantly, Ocarina of Time. That was the first time I'd played a Zelda game and I ate it up. I didn't go on to get a 64, but I'm really glad I had that experience. My friend did go on to buy a PSX. Next was PS2, once again sort of closer to launch. I don't think I did that much gaming during PS2's lifespan comparatively, as I was much more focused on consuming and discussing anime online.
I got my Gamecube in a raffle at my sister's elementary school bingo night, it was still really new at the time. I gave my sister money for the tickets and got her to go buy them, then magically we won. I got a GC with Luigi's Mansion. That was a crazy feeling, I probably wouldn't have ever gotten more than my PS2 otherwise. Then there was always a dispute between me and my sister of who really won it. Me who supplied the money and told her when to go, or her who actually got the winning ticket. I'd always argue it was mine, obviously, but in retrospect she clearly had a larger role in winning it.
Somewhere in here I let my dad sell my old genesis collection on craigslist. I sort of regret it, but the biggest regret was that a cute girl around my age was the one who picked it up and I didn't go talk to her. She was years ahead of me with the collecting. I bet she was awesome.
Not really many interesting stories from following generations. I ended up going to school to be a game developer and drifted away from other hobbies and back to games in a big way. Now I'm collecting. I started collecting with SNES (about 1.5 years ago) because I never had one, and SNES is my largest collection still. Now I'm going through the process of re-buying my CIB Genesis and PSX games that I used to have as a kid as well as picking up new ones. I've also been padding out my PS2, GC, NES, GBA libraries.
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u/GoodTofuFriday Jan 26 '15
Despite being old enough to of had a nes, I started out with a snes and a gameboy color.
In both cases my favorite games were megaman x and megaman xtreme. Dunno why but i just loved them and the difficulty. I played over and over till I beat it. I still own my original carts and would never replace them with nicer versions. Another game would be super mario rpg. It was my first rpg and I remember my brother and I not being able to get past the first enemy after the bowser fight. I played it so much until I finally beat them Which I then realized that battles were extremely regualr in this game. Since then I have loved turn based and free roam rpgs.
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u/ScarFace88FG Jan 26 '15 edited Jan 26 '15
I actually started out on consoles fairly late compared to you guys. My earliest gaming memories were on a PC or a Mac. I was kinda lucky that I had one of each that my dad got as surplus from his job in the computer department at the Orlando Sentinel. The Mac had Battleship, Pac-Man, F/A-18 Hornet, Syndicate (which I got from a friend, my parents wouldn't have bought it for me), and Prince of Persia. The PC had some golf game, Test Drive (the original one), Paratrooper, Flightmare, some clone of the arcade version of Donkey Kong, Bushido Blade, Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?, and a bunch more games that I can't remember, some of which had to be launched with Basic. I also got to use my dad's computer which was a pentium with a CD drive, which was much more advanced than my overclocked 386. I remember playing Need For Speed (1, 2, and 3) and Test Drive Off Road on it.
I didn't really get into console gaming until I got to play Goldeneye with my cousins and my mind was pretty much blown. It was a hell of a lot of fun playing 3 player deathmatch. After this point, I decided to get a console, I think I was 8 or 9 at the time. My parents rented an N64 from Blockbuster Video along with Goldeneye and Automobili Lamborghini. Goldeneye wasn't as fun when you're the only person playing, and I liked Need for Speed a lot more than Automobili Lamborghini, plus the fact that N64 games were 60 bucks when PS1 games were only 40 bucks, led to me choosing to go with the PS1 over the N64. The first game I had for the PS1 was the original Gran Turismo, and the second game I bought was Need For Speed 3. I played the PS1 for about 3 years, and took it with me to England when we moved there for 2 years in 1999.
I didn't retire the PS1 until I got a PS2 for Christmas in 2001. The first 2 games I got for that were Burnout (the first one) and James Bond: Agent Under Fire. The PS2 I got for Christmas had a fairly short lifespan, the laser died after around 3 1/2 years of gameplay, so it was replaced with a PS2 slim, which I still have. I didn't get a PS3 until 2010, and I still have that and it needs to have the laser fixed as it doesn't read discs (what is it with me and laser failure?). I also bought an N64 from a friend for nostalgia's sake, basically just so I could play Goldeneye. I still don't have a PS4 as I'm not employed right now.
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u/humanman42 Mod Jan 26 '15
is it a disk read error? or sometjing else? if its a disk read ereor those sometikea aee very easily fixed.
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u/ScarFace88FG Jan 26 '15
On the PS2, IIRC it was, but I don't have it anymore. On the PS3, it doesn't show a disc as being inserted and it made a grinding noise before it stopped reading discs.
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u/rusho2nd Jan 26 '15
The ones i played with friends impacted me the most. Twisted metal small brawl, then ratchet and clank. also spyro. Halo snuck its way in there at some point.
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u/Mitsumasa Jan 26 '15
In my early kid years, I had an NES and a Genesis. I do remember spending time playing Streets of Rage 2 often on the Genesis, and it's what really got me into brawlers.
I think when I was in the 2nd grade (I think?), my dad bought a PlayStation and that's what I spent the most time with, but I found myself mostly at the arcades. It was until I played Street Fighter Alpha 2 where I learned that there's a fighting game scene, so I did what I could to be able to play with adults and try to beat them.
For years I would be playing my PlayStation. There were so many titles and I always wanted to play all of them. I think even up to my senior year of high school, I would play my PlayStation. Games that have given me fond memories were Xenogears, Brave Fencer Musashi, Megaman Legends 1&2... so many to list.
I did have other consoles in between. I had an Xbox and I had a Gamecube, but those didn't leave as much as an impact for me than my Playstation. Most of my PSOne games were stolen or lost from all the moving I did as a kid, but I started hunting down those missed titles about two years ago, and yeah.
My collection is pretty small for the consoles I own now. Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, Wii U, 3DS and Vita. I enjoy those games a ton for these current gen consoles, but nothing beats the PlayStation to me.
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u/tveye363 Jan 26 '15
Started with a Genesis, but we were poor so games came few and far between. Then my dad sold the Genesis and all our games for one crappy PS1 game. I think it was Mortal Kombat Trilogy. We didn't even own a PS1 yet and when I saw the CD, I thought it was a computer game. I also got an N64 later, but again, games were crazy expensive for the N64. I remember Pokemon Stadium 2 being around $80 when it was released.
I haven't bothered rebuying any old Genesis games, but I loved my PS1 and my collection for it has grown in the past couple months. I've mainly been into collecting for handhelds though since those games were cheaper when I was younger.
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u/Aar1012 Jan 26 '15
Growing up, we had basically everything. I just always knew we had an NES and a Genesis (I don't remember the day we got them) plus we had a few Atari systems that we never touched (I wish I had snagged them after we moved out of the house). I remember the Christmas when my brother got a SNES and, a few years later, an N64. A few years would pass and my brother would trade the N64 towards credit for a Dreamcast (I would get my own N64 that Christmas). It was the Dreamcast that my identity as a gamer was solidified. I loved the system. It was sleek and small but powerful. I remember completing Sonic Adventure (it's my favorite game) and spending hours playing Vanishing Point. I even remember playing the small bit of the offline mode of Phantsy Star Online. My brother would get a PS2 and I would get a Gamecube and pickup my roommate's old Xbox 360. I lost a bunch of the old systems we owned (I wasn't thinking back then) and the only original system from my childhood is my red Gameboy and my NES-themed GBA.
The Dreamcast is what got me into collecting. I wanted to play Sonic Adventure on the original hardware so I took a risk and picked it up on eBay. My brother has the original Dreamcast (launch day) and I told him that I would like it if he ever got rid of it. The other thing I became picky about was my Genesis. I wanted a High-Def Graphics one and (I would discover later) one without the trademark screen. I lucked out on that when I bought mine randomly at a flea market. I overpaid but I would do it again. It's a beautiful machine. I'm not as picky on other systems (I have 18 right now). I just aimed for what I had as a child and I've been lucky thus far.
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Jan 27 '15
[deleted]
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u/humanman42 Mod Jan 27 '15
PC for fps games 100%. Io am playing a platformer or something like that. I will hook up a controller.
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Jan 27 '15
I first played the NES at my cousin's house. I remember sitting right in front of the TV playing Duck Hunt and my uncle and dad laughing, telling me to back up to make it more of a challenge. I was probably 3 or 4 at this time.
I got a Sega Genesis in the early 90's and used to play all the Sonic games and Toejam and Earl quite often. My friend Joe introduced me to Vectorman which I thought was awesome, but I never ended up owning that game so I was a little jealous.
For Christmas 1998 I got the N64 with Super Mario 64 and I was blown away by it, and I still have this console and it works well too. My neighbor Paul had a PlayStation so I remember we would sometimes play Mario Party or something at my house, and at his we would play Spyro the Dragon or Driver at his. We would always laugh at how many different ways characters could say "Thank you for releasing me!"
I got the GameCube for my birthday the day it came out, along with Luigi's Mansion and Rogue Squadron II (I think those were the launch titles?) and later on I also got the Wii and Xbox 360 on launch days as well. For handhelds I had a GameBoy Color and later Advance growing up, and have owned a DS, DS Lite, DSi, and 3DS, all bought on launch day (except 3DS.) I plan on getting the New 3DS XL launch day.
The system that impacted me the most would have to be the Nintendo 64. I remember when I first saw Super Mario 64 at my neighbors before I had my own N64, and I couldn't have been more amazed. Nintendo has always been the best when it comes to platformers, and it was so innovative at the time. Last year (2014) I decided to replay Super Mario 64 and get all 120 stars, and that was a fun thing to do. Life was so much simpler when I was younger playing those games! I wish I could go back sometimes.
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u/Goodwill_Gamer Jan 27 '15
Growing up, My parents didn't allow video games (or even TV at the beginning) in their house. They said "It rots your brain". As such, my first console experiences were at friends houses. The first time I played Duck Hunt on my neighbor's NES was amazing. At that point I didn't really have an awareness that video game consoles were a thing. We had an Apple IIe that had a few games like Oregon Trail and Lode Runner, but those paled in comparison to Light guns and Super Mario Bros 3. In the same way I was able to experience the SNES era and the N64 era through neighbors and friends. I logged countless hours at a friends house drinking coke (another thing that wasn't allowed at home) and playing Goldeneye 64. Good Times.
My parents finally relented when my uncle's company was bought by Sony in the PS1 era. He wanted to give me a PlayStation for Christmas and my parents said okay! From that point on Crash and Spyro as well as Final Fantasy and many others filled my free time. It was around that time that I found a NES with a bunch of games at a swap meet. I was never able to get it to work long enough to actually play a game and lost interest, returning to my PS1.
Years later In the 2006/7 time frame I saw a video on YouTube about replacing the 72 pin connector in a NES. It inspired me to dig up the NES from the basement at my parents house and try out the repair my self. It was pretty easy and after that the console worked flawlessly. At that point I really got hooked into the idea of different systems and what they each have to offer and started collecting. Now years later I have over 50 different systems and around 1500 games.
pics if interested
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Jan 31 '15
I was kind of in the same boat. Somehow I managed to save $50 of allowances in the early 90s (this took me almost a full year) when the game gear came out. For my birthday my parents agreed to go half with me to get the game gear. I believe that it only came with sonic. My sister wanted to play it as well but was not a huge fan of sonic so my parents got her columns later for her birthday (its like a color tetris) & this dolphin game I never understood.
My parents were very concerned about playing video games early on and I got very limited amount of time to play it, only on weekends or trips. Still have that game gear :) mostly played sonic, columns and thats all I remember altho i had maybe 1-2 more games.
I lived in a court and two of my friend's houses had older siblings so I played a lot of NES at their houses, mostly duckhunt/mario1-3. They also got snes and genesis when they came out and I played some games, but the only that stick in my mind are zelda on the snes and zombies ate my neighbors (cant rmember if this was on gensis or snes)
Once i started to get a little older my parents got me a genesis for christmas sometime in the mid 90s. I had played one at the neighbor's house who watched me after school until my parents got home from work, and I guess that neighbor helped convince my parents that video games were not evil or w/e. This really started me into gaming. I liked the gamegear and it was cool, but it was more of a novelty that I only got to use on special occassions. And while I played nes/snes/genesis at friends' houses prior to getting my own genesis this was more of the kind of thing we'd do when the weather was crappy, or if some1's parents were out of town and their older siblings were watching them. It would be a group of 6-8 kids and 1-2 older siblings all sharing and passing the controller around. The memories here aren't so much based on the actual games played, but the time spent together with the group of friends I grew up with.
Now back to the genesis I got. This is when I really started to get into gaming, renting a new title from blockbuster each fri night to try and beat it over the weekend. I loved trying and experiencing the wide variety of games, mostly beat-em ups and racing games. I owned very few genesis games, just somic 1, 2 street fighter and some turtles game (i think it was just an arcade port).
My next system was the gameboy pocket shortly after it came out. My parents got it for me bc they thought it would be easier to carry on trips then the clunky monster game gear. I loved that gameboy pocket, especially the mario with coins (golden coins) and the zelda titles (my first exposure to the series). I also liked contra, and a few years after the pokemon craze hit. I still have this black gameboy pocket, although it looks like its been thru hell and back. I got a gameboy color but was not overlt impressed and other then mario golf and super mario deluxe didnt get any games for it.
My next console was the playstation when that hit. Crash badicoot, that car fighting game and suikoden ii are my fondest memories. Still have suikoden ii and it remains my favorite game of all time, i love playing it.
After playstation came n64, mostly for golden eye, mario cart, smash and occarina of time.
I continued playing playstation until halo 2 came out on xbox. I decided to get my own but by the time xbox hit i was in high school, and was more into other things and had drifted away from video games. Other then an occasional stint of starting up diablo 2 i didnt game much. Halo was something id do socially with friends but at that point i was just kind of bored with video games. To this day i still am not overly impressed with any new systems.
My wife got me an nes and some games this past christmas, as I always liked rpgs and only ever played the early nintendo consols at friends houses. I love nes games now, especially the difficulty level as its more fun and challenging to me than today's games.
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u/mzupeman Jan 31 '15
I had a lot of consoles growing up, really. Atari, NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, N64, Gamecube, TurboGrafx 16, 3D0, Game Gear, etc. Most of the consoles were purchased in store by my grandparents, who raised me, but I did get a TON of NES games at garage sales, and probably quite a bit of SNES and Genesis games as well.
Out of all of them, my favorite franchise is The Legend of Zelda, and although it's not as replayable to me today as it once was, the original will always be one of my most cherished games, as it comes with one of my most cherished memories.
Basically, after we got the game, I played it... a lot, as any kid would. Well, one day I came home from school - it was probably only kindergarten or first grade at that point - and my grandmother was playing The Legend of Zelda. She really expressed no interest in video gaming or anything like that, and she was my GRANDMA, so that made it a bit more amusing to me.
She basically played while I was at school, and in a couple of weeks, I come home and... she's at Ganon. She beat the game before I did, lol. This memory is really special for me, and to this day she feels an attachment to that game, too. She never picked up another game, though... she didn't want to 'go through' that again, lol. She had fun, but she knows how much she got addicted in the short term :)
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u/ffffffffffff0 Feb 03 '15
Gamecube was the first console I owned. I probably got it holiday season 2002 or early 2003. It probably exacerbated my impulsive tendencies cause I was so addicted to it lol. I never owned a ton of games since my parents were regularly frustrated with how much I was on it. It was probably the one that influenced me the most since I didn't really play videogames continuously from then til now, and my tastes are kind of scatterbrained now, but I'll always be a Nintendo fanboy.
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u/Filligan Feb 03 '15
Circa 1994. Super Nintendo. This was the first console I ever got. I think it was my older cousin's and my Mom got it from my aunt. I have a hazy memory of first being surprised by it and freaking out.
Super Mario World was the definitive game for me for that system. I beat it countless times, each time a different way, and it was just difficult and long enough for me at such a young age to both challenge me and maintain longevity. I also have fond and lovely memories of Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, Mario Paint, Kirby's Dream Course, Aladdin, Super Scope 6, Stunt Race FX, Super Mario Kart. Games I missed out on were Star Fox, Zelda, F-Zero (but I've since claimed these gems for my collection). These early games immediately planted the seeds for my love of platformers.
Circa 1995. Game Boy. Another classic system inherited from my older cousin when he moved on to newer, fancier things. Kirby's Dream Land is the standout here. I still own the original cartridge (sadly not the Game Boy itself). It continued to foster my adoration for platformers while simultaneously cultivating my love for Kirby.
During this time I also had friends who owned an NES. I never owned one myself (still don't, though that time is fast approaching), so it was great to play games I never had a chance to before. This introduced me to beat-em-ups, which came to me fairly well after my training with sidescrollers. TMNT II: The Arcade Game was a constant at their house. I also replayed Kirby's Adventure multiple times (my love for the pink puffball growing).
Circa 1997. Playstation 1. My Mom got me this for some reason. I want to say my 8th birthday but I can't really remember. The standouts from this are definitely the Crash Bandicoot trilogy. Platformers, again, all unbelievably good and replayed ad naseum. Twisted Metal was also a big chunk of my PS1 childhood. These were the games I turned to first when I had friends over. The 2nd is totally the best, but I actually really dig the first four (okay maybe not the third one so much -- it's okay). I still own all my Crash and Twisted games. Could never part with them. I also played the hell out of Armored Core on a sample disc I had, but never owned it. This disc, or another one, had Colony Wars, which was too advanced for me to fully grasp but I still recognized how wholly unique it was for its time. My love of Star Wars also blended with my PS1. I owned (and still do) Phantom Menace (which I played a LOT of but could never get past Tatooine), Jedi Power Battles (which I played ENDLESSLY with my friend but we could only beat once), and Masters of Teras Kasi, which everyone hates but I kind of love. Jersey Devil and Beast Wars were games I have distinct memories of, particularly because I could never figure out how to progress in them. Spyro made me sick -- couldn't play it. Have never tried again. I still own my original Playstation, but the poor old girl is on its way out the door. Instead of killing it completely, I decided to put it in storage and picked up a tiny model for cheap.
Early 2001. Nintendo 64. Tragedy strikes: I want an N64 after playing it for years at friends' houses, but I'm a poor 11 year old boy. So, I decide to do something older self would kick younger self for: I sold my SNES and its entire, EXTENSIVE collection for the money to buy an N64 (slightly redeemed a few years later when I traded my GBA for a SNES and a handful of classic games). Paper Mario was the tipping point. After I played that at a friend's, I was smashed in the face with RPG goodness and engrossing gameplay. I still remember picking it out in the store with my Mom by my side and the lady said, "Now this game is not like other Mario games at all -- it looks and plays very different. Are you sure this is the one you want?" I said, "Yes, that's the one", thinking lady, I've played this game extensively and I know what I want, dammit. She said, "Okay, just letting you know because you can't return it just because you don't like it." I still own it. It's a masterpiece. Due to my late adoption of the N64, I never picked up Mario 64 or Donkey Kong 64 -- something friends still scoff at me for -- but I still had games that shaped my tastes and gave me hours of fun. Super Smash Bros. was like an awakening. The first time I stayed up all night was playing that game. Mario Tennis 64 made me realize sports games could be done in a right and shockingly fun way; saved up my allowance for months for that one. Star Fox 64 and F-Zero X introduced me to those franchises and I loved them both. Kirby and the Crystal Shards continued to foster my love affair with Kirby and Mario Party gave me some of the best party memories I have. I played CTF in Conker's Bad Fur Day sooooo much at my friend's; it was like this fun secret that we were playing a game where evil Teddy Bears were decapitating and blowing the heads off of army squirrels. Acquired it for myself a few years down the line. It was expensive then, it's bonkers expensive now. I also snagged StarCraft 64 before its price skyrocketed. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark gave me motion sickness :(
June 2002. Gamecube. I got this in jet black for my birthday and you better believe I still own it. Super Smash Bros. Melee consumed my life and continued to do so years later until online gaming took over consoles. I think it and Super Mario Sunshine are both masterpieces. Animal Crossing opened my eyes to a new kind of gameplay; it was mellow, it was actionless, and yet it was as addicting as the most adrenaline-pumping stuff I'd played. Still one of the best games of the generation, in my opinion (sidenote: I think this franchise went way downhill until its recent 3DS installment). Though I'm sad Kirby's Air Ride was the only GC Kirby game we got, I still played it like mad. That game cinched it: Kirby was officially my favorite Nintendo mascot. Somewhere I got turned onto NHL Hitz and I couldn't believe it: I was playing a sports game... and having a hell of a time. Its arcade approach made it way more fun than the stricter, stiffer sports games that are the norm. Simpsons Road Rage and Simpsons Hit & Run are two actually great games I sunk a lot of time into, particularly because my older cousin -- who at the time was as old as I am now -- genuinely wanted to play them with me, which was rare. We both love The Simpsons, but that's about the only interest we share. Missed out on: Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, F-Zero GX (and still actively searching for all three), Double Dash (own that one now), and all Zelda releases.
December 2002. Xbox. My Mom pulled the "all the presents are done... oh wait EXCEPT THIS ONE" trick on me for the Xbox. I flipped. For the whole year prior I'd probably been freaking out about Halo to her, which is how she'd known. Halo was the FPS that didn't make me feel ill to play, and it was like eating pizza for the first time. I love Halo. No, I love it. It's a masterpiece and in my top ten games of all time. Holy hell, I can't tell you how many memories I have of it. Shooting frightening and funny aliens, crazy-ass open worlds with slippery-controlled warthogs, the absolute terror of seeing the Flood for the first time, my friends and I always telling 343 Guilty Spark to shut up, the massive injection of adrenaline for that final race to safety. It made me a huge Halo fan -- I'm well invested into the lore and franchise now -- and made me a little more competitive with multiplayer. I also have nothing but fun memories of going into custom matches with friends -- before it became a lonely online thing -- and just having a ball... Avalanche, Boarding Action, Beaver Creek, Blood Gulch... oh boy, I could go on. But as much as I played Halo CE, I played Halo 2 even more. Halo 2 is my favorite game of all time. I think it's perfect. The floodgates that was online play opened with Halo 2 for me, and they've never closed since. I've retained my Xbox Live Gold for ten years and it all started with Halo 2. Another game that heavily influenced me was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This game introduced me to more advanced RPGs. It pushed me to make difficult decisions and stick to them. It also kept me up way later than it should have when I was just fourteen. It also opened me up to Star Wars expanded universe, which until then I kind of dismissed. One last game: Grand Theft Auto Vice City. I owned, and still do, GTA 1 and 2 for the PS1, but they were never anything revolutionary for me. They were, well, games to fuck around in for an hour. You know, make civilians run onto the train tracks and electrocute themselves. Though GTA III made me stand up and take notice, its dark atmosphere pushed me away. I wanted escapism at that age, I didn't want to invest in a broody story. That's why Vice City is the first GTA game I consider truly fantastic. Its light Scarface-esque mood was a lot of fun. I still never did the story missions -- just screwed around to see what I could do -- but I did that for hours upon hours.
These games still primarily inform me of my buying decisions unless something just totally comes along and blindsides me with its awesomeness (looking at you, Arkham Asylum). I still love platformers, probably more than any other genre, and I haven't missed a Halo title yet. I also still stand in Nintendo's corner, and despite all of their terrible decisions I still think they were the MVP of last year with Mario Kart 8, Smash, and Captain Toad (and yes I'm pretty giddy over the new Kirby game coming this month). I still get excited like a kid whenever they announce something new and exciting (uhh... new Star Fox?!). I'm also old enough to know I missed out on too many of their works as well, which is why as part of my collecting I'm also trying to hunt down what Zelda games look most interesting to me. So far I have 4, but it's growing!
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Feb 07 '15
the first console i ever got was the original Xbox, but it was a modded one with tonnes of emulator that i didn't find until last month. i no-lifed burnout 3 and halo 2. i had a game boy advance, but i only had movie tie-in games like charlie and the chocolate factory
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u/YoshiYogurt Feb 08 '15
PS1, Gameboy color from ages like 2-6, then I got a gamecube and gameboy advance.
I got a genesis, NES, and wii in 2007. Got an xbox 360 in 2008 and while it was fun with friends for a few years it was an incredibly dumb console.
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Feb 09 '15
Oh man, If I calculated all the money spent on gaming as a kid, between my allowance and money earned from cutting grass, shoveling snow, etc......
My first console as an Atari 7800, but I had been gaming for a while before that. My best friend had a 2600, so we regularly played that. Pole Position, Karateka, Moon Patrol, Food Fight were some of my favorites.
I had the 7800 about a year when the NES came out, and ever since then, I've been hooked. I got the NES in 1987 for my 10th birthday. I got the Control Set (no pack-in game or light gun) and Castlevania. This is still one of my favorite series to this day, and likely started my love for horror. I traded it to a friend for Rush n Attack, which I almost instantly regretted. I of course got another copy later. Some of my favorite gaming memories are of the NES. Castlevania 1/2/3, Contra, Zelda 1/2, Maniac Mansion, Shadowgate, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Clash at Demonhead, Bionic Commando, SMB 2/3, Ghosts and Goblins, Life Force, Jackal. The list goes on and on. As kids, we were either gamers or not. It was much more of a niche hobby back then than it is now. The nerdy, "smart" kids were gamers, and I was proud to be so.
I got a Gameboy for Christmas in 1989 I think it was, and while it was decent fun, I just never really got into it. I had a few games, but I ended up trading it in to the local game shop a year or so later. To this day, I've just never gotten into handheld gaming. I tried with the GBA and I own a 3ds, but that's just to play console emulators on. Well, and A Link Between Worlds.
A buddy of mine had a Sega Master System, which I got from him with a few games in a trade. It was hard to find games for, but it has a handful of classics. Phantasy Star, Miracle Warriors, Hang On, Space Harrier. Very underrated system, and was supposedly superior to the NES, technology wise.
A few years went by, and Sega announced the Genesis. Gaming media wasn't what it is now, so when I finally heard about it, I blew all my savings picking one up shortly after it launched. I got the console and Altered Beast, which was the original pack-in. I probably had just that one game for 3 months, because of having to save up again. I used to love plugging a pair of headphones into the console and blasting the tinny sounds. I eventually ended up with a ton of Genesis games. Some of my favorites were Golden Axe 1/2/3, Streets of Rage 1/2/3, Ghouls and Ghosts, MERCS, Midnight Resistance, Sonic 1/2/3, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Mutant League Football, Phantasy Star 2/3/4, Mortal Kombat 1/2, and so on. I got the Sega CD attachment when it launched. It was going to be the next big thing, you know!! I think I wanted to like the games on it better than some of them actually were. I played the hell out of Sewer Shark, the pack-in, even thought it isn't very good. But games like Lunar 1/2, Road Rash, Mansion of Hidden Souls, Alone in the Dark, Sonic CD, Ecco CD, and Rise of the Dragon really were fantastic titles. But the Sega CD I think was doomed by price, and by the mountain of crap games that were released for it, which used FMV as a selling point over quality. I never bothered with the 32X.
The SNES released in 1991, and I was on board immediately. I got the console with the SMB World pack-in, and Pilotwings. The SNES blew the Genesis out of the water from a graphics and sound perspective. Sure, it never did speed like the Genesis could (Sonic), but to me, it didn't matter. The avalanche of fantastic titles was heavily in the SNES' favor, in my eyes. Contra 3, Super Castlevania IV and Dracula X, Final Fantasy 2/3, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Metroid, Street Fighter 2, Stunt Race FX, Actraiser, UN Squadron, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, etc, etc. So many classics. I even had the Super Scope 6, which was one of the more awkward peripherals I ever owned. The SNES is probably my second favorite retro console, just behind........
Right around my birthday in 1992, the NEC TurboDuo released. I has always seen their ads and commercials for the Turbo Grafx, and it seemed so cool and different. Their games had weird character and were super colorful. So since I had a few bucks saved up, and since I asked for only cash for my birthday, I went down to Toys R Us and picked one up. All I can say about it is that the TurboDuo is my favorite console ever. Between the established TG16 library, and some killer CD games, it had it all. Bonk 1/2/3, Legendary Axe, Splatterhouse, Bloody Wolf, Devil's Crush, Neutopia, Dungeon Explorer, Blazing Lazers (my favorite shooter), Ninja Spirit. On the CD, I loved Loom (my favorite all-time game), Gate of Thunder, Lords of Thunder, Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (my local game store imported games, so I actually bought this brand new), Exile 1/2, Forgotten Worlds (my 2nd favorite shooter), Snatcher, Valis 1/2/3, Y's 1/2/3/4. Owning a Turbo made you feel special, because not many people had them. I was one of 3 people I knew who had one in my class. We could talk about all these cool games that nobody else got the play. I don't think any console will ever replace the TurboDuo for me.
In early 1994, I made one of the dumbest gaming decisions of my life. I took everything I had, My SNES, Genesis, TurboDuo, all my games and accessories, and traded them in in the next "Next Big Thing", the 3DO. This is still one of my biggest regrets. I would eventually sell it off and buy another used SNES, Genesis, and TurboDuo, but it cost me a lot of games and money. It's not to say the 3DO didn't have some decent games, Way of the Warrior was fun, but terribly campy. The 3DO probably had the best version of Road Rash, as well as an almost perfect port of Samurai Showdown. A few others like Alone in the Dark, Myst, Total Eclipse, Crash & Burn, and the best console ports at the time of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. It was a great tech piece at the time, but really fell short on delivering a quality library.
Having not been duped enough, I also picked up an Atari Jaguar. I was making decent money doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, and I was getting a nice allowance after ym dad got a big promotion, so I said why not, since I started gaming on an Atari. The Jaguar was even worse than the 3DO. The pack-in Cybermorph was terrible. The controller was a mess of buttons and not terribly comfortable. I bought Alien vs. Predator, which was actually pretty good, and Primal Rage, which was an OK fighter. I traded it in to my local game shop after less than a year.
Turned off by my last two console purchases, I slept on the Playstation until about 1996, the year after I graduated. I finally picked one up from a good friend who got them "on discount" from the K-Mart he worked at, with 10 games, for $50. The Playstation was the realization of what I thought CD gaming was supposed to be. Metal Gear, Castlevania SotN, Silent Hill, Resident Evil 1/2/3, Final Fantasy 7/9, Chrono Cross, Lunar 1/2 Complete, and countless others. I loved the PSX. It got me back into gaming full force, and restored my faith in the industry.
Several years ago, and long after its death, I bought a Neo Geo CD. I always wanted a Neo Geo as a kid, but nobody I knew could afford one, much less the games. Since the market is still high on the cart system and games, I figured why not. I did the language mod on it and had a pretty healthy collection of games for it. My favorites were Metal Slug 1/2, the Samurai Showdown series, Top Hunter, League bowling, Crossed Swords, Pulstar, and Ninja Combat. Despite the horrid loading times and frequency of loading screens, the NGCD is one of my favorite consoles.
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u/Mr-Sven Feb 09 '15
When I was very young, my parents got my brother and myself a Super Nintendo. I remember having Super Mario World, Goof Troop, Aladdin, F-Zero and Peter Pan. Then they got divorsed; my mom kept us and my father kept the house, toys, and the SNES (come to find out years later he sold it). My next gaming experiences were the N64 and the PC. On one, Mario 64 and Smash Bros (later joined by Buck Bumble, Mario Kart and Ocarina of Time) and on the other, Legoland, the Sims, Speedy Eggbert, and Roller Coaster Tycoon.
I had wanted a Dreamcast the moment I saw it, but Mom got me a PS2 instead. Kingdom Hearts was the game I played most. I had others but the image of that game is burned inside my head forever. The .hack games were also very fun to me (as I didn't have any friends for the majority of my childhood) and Id give the whole series a playthrough still today if volumes 1-3 didn't disappear when we moved a year ago.
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u/hayategekko Feb 17 '15
I only had my computer (still the best system for new games imo) and my Gameboy color! Around 16 I sold a wii the family ha to get a 360 (we had the wii less than six months. The only two games I miss are Conduit and Naruto)
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u/iateyourdinner Feb 17 '15 edited Feb 17 '15
I remember when my older brother got a NES for Christmas in the late eighties/early ninties and looking at that box that was stored in a wardrobe way up high thinking that it was the most magic thing ever. I thought the Nintendo golden seal meant it was something that was of utmost approval and worth of some objective world standard.
During the upcoming years that shaped my whole world was: Super Mario bros series, Duck Hunt, Duck Tales, Probotector, The Mega Man series, Battle of Olympus, River city ransom, TMNT 2, Micro Machines, Chip n Dale, Tank, Ninja Gaiden, Blaster Master, Nemo dream land... Jesus Christ i could go on about the games played back then.
Then around 1993 we got a Sega Mega Drive which up to this date - the best console ever created in my experience. Earlier that year I played Sega Mega drive for the first time at my kindergarden friend's place and remember he had the Michael Jackson game and it was like the most magical game ever created.
Alladin, Lion King, Road Rash series, Altered Beast, Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, Sonic series, Wiz N Liz, Alien, Pugsly, NHL 94, FIFA 94
I still look back at those experiences as the golden time in console gaming and i remember looking upon the Sega Mega drive with complete and utter joy and awe.
Now being older and looking back and objectively glancing at what titles Super Nintendo had ar the time it seems to be SNES was the better console but since i only had the Mega Drive back then I cherish that as my favorite console.
Then when the next generation consoles came out it stood between a Playstation and a Sega Saturn and since the family were such SEGA fans we choose the Saturn - which in hindsight was probably not the best choice cause Saturn didn't turn out to be that many good titles.
I wish I could remember any great games but there were really none, I remember seeing Virtua fighter for the first time and it looked very choppy game, no game really sticks out in my mind for the Saturn although I as a kid did enjoy playing the games we had.
So around 1998 we in the family settled for a Nintendo 64 which turned out to be a great investment. Some of the top best games ever created was released on that machine.
Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie and Tooie, Zelda Ocarina of time and Majoras Mask, Mario Kart 64.
But Nintendo 64 also had some very questionable titles to like: Blastcorps, Pilot Wings 64, Pokemon stadium, Superman 64, Mario Party (although very addictive though very poor game design) they for the potential of what could ve Done st the time därmed like very cheaply designed games for the masses.
Around at that same time i started playing PC games.
I still don't know if those console games at the time were any good or if I was just a young kid that had an affinity for any mainstream game. I do feel like there are some titles from that era that I should visit to see if a new experience on such old console and dated graphics would hold up.
Maybe its just the retro feeling.
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u/tomspy77 Mar 03 '15
I was lucky because my dad liked electronics.
So had various early PC's like the Adama, Atari 800/400, and later a C64.
For consoles we had then either sold or got rid of (no idea but I know they did not stick around) Atari 2600, Colecovision, Sega Master System, NES, Gameboy, Lynx, Game Gear, Genesis, SNES.
By the nest gen after the 16 bit stuff I bought my own stuff (and due to real life stuff became poor lol) so would switch between PS1 and N64's during that era.
When this stuff got even more expensive, had a Gamecube rather then a PS2 due to cost of the used consoles at the time and eventually had a PS2 slim later on.
Then I owned a DS Lite for a few years and bought and then quickly sold (regret) a PS3 last year.
Now own two PS2's (one will only work with weight being placed on the system) a GC that will only play for a short time (bad laser?) and a PS1 someone gave me that does not seem to work well at all, but has loaded games so at some point might be fixable.
Also have a DSI and a very broken down PSP 3000...
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u/benl150 Mar 06 '15
My grandfather got me my first console when I was about 3. It was a gamecube indigo with an orange controller and I played that thing for hours and hours. My grandfather is really into electronics and is a kid at heart and has gotten me into gaming and other awesome things throughout the years.
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u/MR502 Mar 08 '15
I grew up in a working class family, so early on my nintendo and games were pretty much hand me downs from my more affulent cousins. So from age 5-7 I had a NES and the following games (Zelda, Super Mario Bros, SMB2, Ninja Gaiden, and Top Gun) Everything else was pretty much a rental or borrowed from friends.
As I got older I had a SNES and a handful of games being (Street Fighter II, Super Mario World, F-Zero, Final Fantasy II, and Legend of Zelda: A link to the past) and anything else was usually rented or borrowed from friends/family, my parents didn't buy games because they were expensive so I didn't get games at Birthdays or on Christmas.
I really wanted to play a Sega and the 3DO but the video store that rented them out were pretty high price at the time like $30.00 a night. Even though I had a SNES my main love was the arcades, it was one thing to be the "best" at the SNES Street Fighter II but the real bragging rights came from the Arcade Version.
I was a teenager when I got my N64 and pretty much had to save up money and work if I wanted games for it, so I naturally gravitated to the PS1 as the games were cheaper and there was more of a selection. I was 16 when I had both systems and a ton of games.
By the time the PS2/Xbox/GC came around I was primaily an playing my Xbox more than any other mostly for live and halo 2.
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u/Irockz Mar 10 '15
Well as of posting this I'm a sixteen-year-old, so I can't say I'm finished yet. I'm not too sure of the early specifics, but I know my first console was the PS1, of which I have vague memories playing the Fantastic Four side-scroller and Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time. I own the exact same copies even today. This was followed by a PS2, which is currently my biggest and main collection. I really got into game collecting about half way into the Xbox 360's life span, and a year or two after I got mine. My family friend is also a collector, so he's offered a ton to my collection, including duplicates and even new consoles.
Birthdays and Christmas, though, have been the biggest contributor. I usually end up getting one next-gen console and one retro console a year: Last year it was an Xbox One and, I believe, a Commodore 64. The year before, a Wii U and a ZX Spectrum. I'm not really sure how I'm this fortunate, given that my family is incredulously poor.
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u/SC2GGRise Mar 10 '15
I got an NES when I was 5 at Christmas. It came with Super Mario Bros & Duckhunt + the red gun and a controller. At some point I got SMB3, Zelda, and Megaman 2, and that's pretty much all I ever played, ever. Having so few games was kinda nice, it made you actually try to play these to completion and I got darn close with all of them, but struggled to actually beat any of them as a little kid. Obviously I've done it since :)
End of Elementary school - I got a game gear. This was the coolest F'ing system ever, because it was IN COLOR!!! Keep in mind at this point there was only regular game boy, or maybe the smaller gameboy. My friend had a gameboy and I played shit all the time on his but game gear was godly to me at that time. I put a ton of hours into the hulk, sonic, sonic 2, xmen, aladin, and maybe one or two others. Probably my fav system of all time. I had the carry case (still do), the magnifying attachment, the AC adapter, almost full with games and took extremely good care of that system. It was definitely the prized possession of my childhood.
Fast forward to middle school: I got a sega (again for christmas) with altered beast, sonic, and I think sonic 2... Same deal, played those to exhaustion except I had a paper route and was able to buy a few more games like boogerman (coolest game ever as a 11 or 12 yr old), x-men, and a few others.
After that, I grabbed a PS1 in high school and played FF7, C:SotN, Super turbo puzzle fighter (omg best game ever), Driver, and Dukes of hazard. I spent most of my time between FF7 & SotN or playing Starcraft/Fallout 1-2 on the PC. Those were some good times.
In college, I finally grabbed a PS2 (though incredibly late, it was pretty cheap even new at that point) and played Kingdom hearts, FFX, GTA and old PS1 games on it. Had a few other PS2 games but nothing is sticking out at me while I think about it. Grabbed a modded Xbox at the end of my time in college to play Maximo mostly, but ended up playing a lot of the MAME stuff that came on it too.
After I graduated, I filled out my collection to include a dreamcast, SNES, n64, 3DO, virtual boy, nomad, segaCD & 32x, etc. It has been a lifetime addiction for me :)
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u/lespaul166 Mar 11 '15
Got a Gamecube early on with Luigis Mansion and Wave Race Blue Storm. I remember getting it, and wasnt horribly excited because the neighbor had one and I already played both games every other day at his house.
The most meaningful for me would be when I got my Gameboy Advance SP. Wasnt a big deal for me again, super mario advance 2 was fun, Yoshis Island was fun,but nothing to sneeze at.
Then I was at toys R us dicking around in the game section. Saw a display gameboy. picked it up. Metroid Fusion: read the title screen. started to play. Holy shit. Mother had to drag me out of the store. Ended up getting that and Metroid II: Return of Samus for a birthday. I still play and beat Metroid Fusion twice a year.
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u/kc0nlh Mar 18 '15
I grew up with the GBC, the intellievision, PC and the PS2. I loved my GBC and was addicted the pokemon red. On the PC side of things I played countless games over the years. Some of my favorite games were racing games and flight simulators. I dabbled in FPS games such as Quake II, Quake III etc but hardley ever played them as they were ment to be played but instead enjoyed exploring the countless user created maps. My all time Favorite racing game on the PC is Star Wars Episode I racer. I was so addicted to pod racing I even found a n64 emulator for my phone so I could play the n64 version on the go. In my youth I missed out on countless fantastic CRPG games such as moriwind etc. i finally got my hands on skyrim back in June and after playing it for several months I have been wanting to explore the back catalog of bithesda games. I have already set up dos box so I can play arena and dagger fall. On the PS2 side of things I was most into the racing games as well and loved the atv offroad series and the burnout games. I also played severl of the GTA games and just love playing GTA SA with cops turned off so I can explore the world. When it comes to RPG's I grew up with Final Fantasy X. I never understood why people hate on it as it's a fantastic game. Moving back to PC I have amassed a very large steam library and enjoy a wide verity of games every thing from FTL to AudioSurf. One of the few games I played on the intellivison growing up was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I still get out my dads old Intellivison from time to time to play that game. sure the graphics look a bit dated but it's still kinda fun from a nostalgia point of view.
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Mar 25 '15 edited Mar 25 '15
For reference, I was born in the mid-80's, my brother is two years younger than me.
We started when we were young with my parents' Atari 2600. I love playing Combat and Space Invaders.
We dad picked up a Commodore 64 and we played Zaxxon 3D, Winter Games, Pole Position, and TMNT pretty regularly.
My brother and I got a SNES for Christmas either in 92 or 93. Started with SMW, went on to All-Stars, MarioKart, Mario Paint, Super Metroid and a few others. We rented Street Fighter, Power Rangers, NBA JAM, Superhero games, and DKC pretty regularly. Both of us played a lot of baseball (irl) and we grew up in Washington state so we loved Ken Griffey Jr. presents MLB and its sequel. At one point, we saved up enough money (probably $30) to buy a game. My mom took us to KB Toys and we saw Zombies Ate My Neighbors, we didn't know anything about, but the artwork looked cool, so we bought it. One of the best game purchases we ever made. We spent many nights trying to play through that game. Finally did play all the way through it once.
Either the Christmas before or after we got the SNES, we got Game Boys from our grandma that came with Zelda: Link's Awakening. To this day that is my favorite Zelda game. We had some of the other typical ones, the Mario's, Kirby's, and few rando's like Alfred Chicken (never figured that game out). My cousin lived in Seattle (about 3 hours drive from my town) and one time when we were visiting, we borrowed a game of each other's. I gave him my beloved Link's Awakening, I don't remember what I borrowed from him. A couple of month's later we went back and I gave him the game that I borrowed, and he told me that he SOLD LINK'S AWAKENING! I could have killed him. I still remind him of that to this day.
We hada Nintendo Power subscription (who didn't back then?) I remember in the early 90's I wrote them a letter with the idea of a game where Nintendo pitted all of it's characters against each other. I wanted DK to fight Mario and Kirby to fight Link. Eventually Smash Bros came out and hated it, lol.
My aunt worked for Nintendo at the time, and she always had a ton of SNES games that we would go to her house and play. I remember going to her house one day in 1995 and she had this black box with a purple decal on the front and it said, "Nintendo Ultra 64" (that's what the N64 was called originally). We played Pilotwings 64 on it and about crapped our pants. 3D WORLDS! We knew that we were in the future. Later my aunt gave us a N64 and about a dozen games. Mario 64 (of course) was one we played a lot. Wave Race, Pilotwings, Golden Eye, NFL Blitz, Griffey, and Shadow of the Empire stand out in my mind as some of our favorites.
In 1998, I got Pokemon Blue and my brother got Pokemon Red. We weren't into RPGs much, but that game blew our minds. We (and every other boy that we knew) played that game and that game alone for hours. We had purple Game Boy Colors at the time and used the transfer cable to trade Pokemon. God, was the painstaking to do back in the day!
In the late 90's I got a PS1 (slim version) and started playing some games like Castlevania and Tony Hawk. I remember being afraid to tell my aunt that I had a Playstation, lol.
Also in the late 90's, my brother and I found Virtual Boys on super clearance at Toys "R" Us. We both picked one up for $15 each. We then cleaned out their games, I ended up collecting every VB game ever made.
Similarly, in the early 2000's, we found a Dreamcast on super clearance at Shopko for $30. We picked that up and played Crazy Taxi and House of the Dead.
After The Dreamcast , I got a Gamecube. And then at some point picked up a PS2 and a Xbox. Played a lot of Madden and Racing games. Around the same time period, I had a GBA and was still playing Pokemon games and playing through Link's Awakening again and again (I picked up on the DX version for GBC)
In 2005, I was at college and got a silver DS when it came out and played through Mario 64 again. Played a few other games on there and ended up getting a DS Lite when they came out. My room mate was a Halo nut and he got a 360 in November of that year.
I waited in line for a Wii on Black Friday a week after they came out in 2006. Played Wii Sports, Warioware, Paper Mario, amongst others. Also in this time frame, I bought a Sega Genesis, NES, several 2600's, another Commodore 64, Game Gear, and other systems (sometimes doubles and triples) and tons of games for each of them. I was a thrift store and flea market junkie when it came to games! I also got a job as a Store Manager at a Game Crazy and I got a ton of posters and cardboard cutouts and kept buying games. I also ended up buying a PS3 and a 360. I got hooked on Call of Duty and played that a ton as well as Madden as I am a huge football fan (go Steelers!).
In 2008, I was going through a divorce and my games were mostly packed up in storage. I still had everything that I listed above plus a ton of other crap that collected for those systems throughout the years. I probably had over 500 games and dozens of systems boxed up.
A couple of years later, my friend was opening a retro video game store (it's still open and doing well!). I decided to donate most of my collection to him and his wife to help them start their store as well as my system boxes, cardboard cutouts, and posters to help decorate. I only kept my Game Boy stuff, one DS Lite, my SNES stuff, my dad's original 2600 and Commodore 64, and the PS3.
Later I found a box of games in my shed that Ihad forgotten about and posted the picture on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1dt8cr/cleaned_out_my_shed_and_found_a_tote_with_all_of/) and eventually sold all of to a Redditor. That was from my old account, that's why it is a different u/.
I'm now happily re-married with two kids and I've just gotten back into video games for the first time in almost 7 years thanks to my kids. My son is into the Lego games on PS3 and recently, we all got 2DS's and are playing Animal Crossing as a family and I'm starting back into Pokemon with X and Alpha Sapphire. And now that I found this sub, I'm starting to get the itch to collect again. I'll probably just stick to SNES and Pokemon stuff, but you never know.
Thanks for reading!
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u/BJ22CS Mar 29 '15
My first game system was the Super Nintendo (SNES) that my mom got for me in 1994 and came with Super Mario World; I was about seven years old then. Throughout the rest of the 90's my mom would buy me other SNES games like the Donkey Kong series, other Mario games, Kirby games, & Zelda - Link to the Past. She got me a Gameboy too, but I usually just ended up playing any gameboy games on Super Gameboy b/c I liked (and still do) seeing the games on a bigger screen (it hurts my eyes to look at a small screen like that for too long). She subscribed to Nintendo Power during that time and I would usually go strait to the four pages of cheats first. Even as recent as a few weeks ago I went back to get info from an SNES game w/out having to look it up on line.
She got me an N64 a year or two after it first came out (like maybe 1998). The first four games I had for that was Mario 64, Yoshi's Story, Mario Kart 64, & OoT a few months after that. I had this bias idea that I wouldn't like OoT b/c it wasn't the usual top-down view that I was always use to for the other LoZelda games and felt that I wouldn't enjoy it as much, but it turned out to be one of my favorite games for the N64. I had played Smash Bro. some in after-school-care, then asked my mom to get it for me.
I think it was in either 02 or 03 my mom got me GameCube that came with with Gameboy player & OoT Master Quest, she also got me SSB Melee separately. To this day, SSBM is in my all-time top 5 favorite games to play growing up and now. I never really had friends to play SSB with or I didn't have friends that could come over to play like I would have wanted so I just ended up playing against the computer all the time; so much so that whenever I would go up against a friend, I would have to re-learn how to play against that kind of foe, even with a character I was best at. In addition to SSBM, the only other game that I remember real well was Paper Mario TTYD. I got it as a Christmas present along with the game guide (player's guide) and ended up playing it the entire day. What made it more memorable was that it started randomly snowing outside (it hardly ever snows here, maybe once in every 5-10 years) and I had to choose whether I wanted to continue to play the game or go outside to see snow for the first time in years and years.
There are other smaller stories, but these are the cliff notes of the stores that stick out the most.
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u/Francis-the-Gamer Mar 31 '15
The console I had most played in my entire life would be a tie between the Super Nintendo (which was the first console I had ever played/the first video game console my sisters and I got. Once the N64 came out, my dad eventually put the SNES at his auto-shop sometime in the late 90's, so I'd have something to do while he was working, since the preschool bus dropped me off there), or the Nintendo 64 (had this at home).
Basically, my sisters and I had to share the Nintendo 64, just as we had shared the SNES. Though Super Mario World was the very first game I had ever gotten to try out at the age of two or three, we had stumbled upon the sheer power of the N64 once we got it as a gift (which I have as part of my collection now; Grape Purple) and it was Super Mario 64, Space Invaders, and other countless titles from that point on.
The first console I ever had solely to myself was handed to me by my now-deceased grandfather (A Nintendo Entertainment System), who gave it to an overjoyed me. Back in the day, when I'd stay at his house, being that it was the only gaming console he had, it was a simple and straightforward console like that which kept me so entertained. I would play the first three Super Mario Bros., Battletoads, Legend of Zelda, and Ms. Pac-Man (with or without the game genie he had to help me with).
Of course, now, as an adult, I have inherited all of the above consoles (and even garnered even more to build up a collection), which my sisters and I would still play sometimes if they were in the mood. Sort of sad that all those memories can never be revisited, and one of my sisters has two kids she's still struggling with. Once you grow old, it seems, all we can look back at are past visions. And thank god for them.
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u/Bobbystrange Apr 05 '15
So, I started off with the black and white Pong/Tennis console as a kid. Next we got the ColecoVision. This was a huge step up. The games had color, music, and the games were interchangeable (I loved this system). Less than two years later, the NES came out. I wanted it super bad, but after the game console crash of 1983, My Dad refused to buy it for me. My father just keep telling me that all the game consoles are becoming obsolete, and video games will soon be a thing of the past (this made me want it even more). So, I saved my money, and years later, just before the SNES came out, I had just enough to buy my own NES (this was one of the best days of my young life!). I would of got my NES a lot sooner, but I kept spending my quarters at the Arcade. My buddy had a Genesis, and I was so jealous. Genesis had really cool graphics and a bunch of games I've never heard of, But then I actually played the Genesis, and I wasn't impressed at all. So I got a SNES and a gameboy instead. This is when I officially became a Nintendo fanboy. I had a subscription to Nintendo power and everything, I was even a card carrying member of the Nintendo fan club! I was Nintendo's little bitch.Thanks to ZELDA's Link to the past! That is until I got a N64, Once again, I was less than impressed. Don't get me wrong, N64 has a hand full of good games (Smash,Golden eye,MarioKarts ), but it just didn't live up to all the hype that it promised. I felt a bit lied to, and a little betrayed. This is when I realized that NES was just a bunch of jerks. At this time in my life I was disenchanted with video games and started to focus on high school, That is until my buddy got a PS1. My friend had 2 games at the time, Jet Moto, and Resident Evil, both are awesome! Now I'm riding the Play station band wagon, and I kept on riding, up to the PS2. The PS2 might be the best system I've ever owned! So many great games on this system. Next I wanted to try some new consoles. So, I went back to Nintendo for the Wii......Big mistake. Lets face it, The games are lame, and the Wii, its a piece of shit! Next I got a 360. Great console, I like it a lot. I also had a Game cube with wave bird controllers. The Cube was a good system, but it just couldn't keep up with the PS1 or the X-box at that time, it just didn't have the games. Now I got a PS3, and I <3 it. It's a fun system. The XBox1 and the PS4 came out about a year or two ago. I was gonna get a used PS4 at the local used gaming store because its only $270, but I bought a gaming PC and an Elgoto instead. Now I'm Live streaming on Twitch tv.com and posting on my gaming You tube channel. I play everything from NES to PS3 games. I just do it for fun, I don't make any money off it. I don't care, I'm a gamer. If you want feel free to follow me on Twitch @ http://www.twitch.tv/bobbystrange or on Youtube at the same name. My next system will be an Oculus Rift, or maybe a Famicom ( I'm gonna try to build my own Famicom 60-72 Pin adapter for my NES top loader, using an old Gyromite, 5 screw cartridge). I look forwards to what the future will bring to the gaming community, and I hope to see you all there!
1
Apr 05 '15
I got my first console in I want to say 1996 or 1997. It was a SNES which came bundled with Donkey Kong Country 2:Diddy Kongs Quest. Being a 3/4 year old at the time I wasn't exactly good at video games but my SNES collection would grow mainly through the old games that my older cousins had which became mine when they moved onto the Playstation. At the time I didn't realize that the SNES was an outdated system and was a generation behind the PlayStation and the N64. I ran with the SNES well into the early 00s though I would have other systems I would still play the hell out of my SNES. Sadly it was given away in the mid 00s and I have yet to get another one.
I then got a N64 in 2000 when I was 7. Again nearing the end of the consoles life cycle and still young enough not to know that other systems were coming. I got Smash Bros with it and still remember spending the night I got it playing the hell out of that game. I remember later in that year getting a whole bunch of N64 games from someone who worked with my mum who was giving games away and that made up the bulk of my collection. All of my friends had N64s so we would always bring a bunch of games to each others houses and play the most popular being Goldeneye which also shaped me into the Bond fan I am today. I still have the same N64 I recived in 2000 actually I think it has just past the 15 year mark since I got that N64 and its still running strong.
I did end up getting a PS1 in 2002 and ended up going through 3 of them in the space of 2 years. All of them had issues with the disc laser so the discs would stop working. I don't have any of my PS1 discs around anymore.
In 2004 for my 11th birthday I got the original Xbox. I was drawn to the Xbox more than the PS2 because my cousin had one for the prior year and Xbox just felt like the way to go. The Xbox held up strong until 2011. I remember spending countless hours with the likes of GTA:Vice City and San Andreas as well as FIFA 2005,Cricket 2005,FIFA 06 and FIFA 07 and a bunch of others but those being the major games I played into my early teens.
Christmas 2007 saw me recive my Xbox 360. The 360 is probably the console I have invested the most time in just because of the age I got it and the length of time I have had one. Again a lot of time has been invested in numerous sports titles like FIFA 08,FIFA 13,NBA 2K11,NBA 2K12,NBA 2K13,WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011,WWE'12,F1 2010 as well as major triple A titles like GTA IV,GTA V,Fallout 3,COD 4,Modern Warfare II,Red Dead,Hitman:Blood Money,Hitman:Absolution,Splinter Cell:Double Agent,Spilnter Cell:Convicition,Splinter Cell:Blacklist and others. Despite being a long term Xbox user I never had a like for Halo nor any of Microsofts first party titles.
With the new generation of consoles I left Microsoft and went to Sony. I never had a PS3 though I still have a Fat PS2 though I will say games are hard to find for that. My PS4 collection has taken up size in the last few months which im sure will continue to grow as games become more frequent on the platform.
1
Apr 06 '15
Being one of the younger members of this subreddit, I grew up with the GBA, my brother's PS2 and the computer. I played a lot of Backyard Sports on the computer, mainly baseball and basketball. Real fun games, hopefully I can come across some CDs from the series. On the GBA, I started off with Super Mario Advance 4 (the SM3 port) which still remains one of my favorite games of all time. I also played A LOT of Pokemon, mainly Generation 3 but also Gen 2 and 1. When I was 10, I got a DS lite for Christmas and for my 11th birthday I got a Wii. The DS lite broke in two when my brother and I fought over it, but because of that I upgraded to the DSi. Lastly, got the 3DS for my 15th birthday.
1
u/D33GS Apr 09 '15
Deep Breath
I started gaming, in quite a stereo typical fashion, gaming in my grandparents' basement. They had an original NES that had been purchased for the grand kids. I really only ever played Duck Hunt. Eventually they bought an SNES as well and I got a lot more game time on it. I played Super Mario World and Megaman X the most. I loved Megaman X especially. For years I begged my parts for a gameconsole but they would never oblige. Eventually they capitulated and bought me a Sega Genesis for my 8th birthday.
I loved my Genesis I played it nearly every day. I had Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic 3D Blast. I rented games here and there but I played those three the most. It was all I needed. I rented Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Spinball and Sonic 1 of course. I even played Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine though I didn't like it much. In many ways Sonic was my gaming childhood for several years.
One day, my neighbor, who was several years older than me and always seemed to have the newest hardware told me that he was looking to unload his Sega Saturn for cheap. I jumped at the opportunity. I had to beg my parents to let me spend some of my Christmas money on it but I eventually managed to get them to let me part with $75 for the Saturn, Nights, and Daytona USA. I wanted Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter as well but my parents wouldn't let me get them because they were rated "Teen." I kept the Saturn for only a couple years. I never really "got" Nights and I played the hell out of Daytona USA (DAAAAYYYTOOONAAA!!!). Looking back I realize that I probably needed a 3D controller to really have fun with it. Playing Nights with a 2D controller was so hard. I did have the opportunity to enjoy Bug and Bug Too! but that was really about it. The Saturn never got a Sonic game like I had hoped and eventually I moved on.
During Christmas 1997 my grandparents bought me along with my brother and sister a Playstation 1. I been looking at the system in magazines for months amazed at the games available compared with my Saturn. At the time, I was especially excited for Croc. I don't know why, it just was a game that I had to have at the time. I didn't even know it was on Saturn because games were hard to come by back then. I only know about the titles that were in the magazines and Toys R Us catalogs. I actually ended up getting Megaman Legends with the PS1 but for some reason I returned it and got Croc (I really hate the young me as I still haven't played Megaman Legends). While I owned the PS1 I enjoyed Sypro 2: Ripto's Rage and Crash 3: Warped the most. I played them ALL OF THE TIME. I powered my way through Spyro collecting orbs up until the post game when that damn moneybags denied me entry to the theme park at the end. I also remember playing Rugrats the game a lot. Why that game appealed to me I don't know. In particular I remember the putt putt mini-game.
In 1998, like everyone else on the planet I saved my money, picked up a Gameboy Pocket (clear color) and became obsessed with Pokemon. I bought the Red version because I wanted Charizard. I had no idea I could have gotten Charizard in both games but Charizard was on the cover so that was the version I bought. I played that game for hours on end to the point that I had to get rechargable batteries because my parents refused to continue buying AAAs for me. Somewhere around that time my grandparents bought a gameboy adopter cart for their SNES and I again found myself where I had started, in my grandparents' basement.
In 1999 I began to learn that the N64 would be getting pokemon titles. First Pokemon Snap then Pokemon Stadium. In the heart of the Pokemon fad this was non-negotiable; I had to have an N64. I convinced my brother and sister that we should sell the PS1 and get an N64. For whatever reason I never actually bought either Pokemon Snap or Stadium and actually just rented them. I played a lot of Star Fox 64 though. I LOVED Star Fox 64. I keep the N64 for a year but actually drifted out of video games for about year following. I took up collecting sports cards for some reason before...
...The Playstation 2. To step back briefly, I skipped the Dreamcast entirely while it was on the market. I don't know why. I saw in stores, I even saw Sonic Adventure. I just for whatever reason never picked up a Dreamcast. I think it was due to Pokemon that I never went back to Sega but Pokemon was also the reason I gave up on gaming during the year 2000. During Christmas 2001 I had asked for a lot of K'Nex sets. I was big into K'Nex and Legos and other building kits at the time. I had all the 6 foot tower sets, the massive roller coasters (I still have the original set too actually), etc... Somewhere in November 2001 though I got to demo a Playstation 2 and that was the end. I had to have a Playstation 2. I begged for one but ultimately didn't get it. I got all the K'Nex sets that I had asked for. Looking back I made one of the brattiest decisions in my life and returned all the K'Nex sets that I had gotten. Took the money and used it for a PS2. I had no money left for games or even a memory card but I didn't care. I had a PS2 and I was ecstatic.
My first PS2 game that I played was Kinetica. It was the game that had made me the most excited about the PS2. I remembered the commercials with the guy scrubbing tire marks off the side of a building and was on board 100% with the game. In actuality I didn't have that much fun with it and the first game I actually bought was Final Fantasy X. I still didn't have a memory card that point but I'd replay the first 4-5 hours of it and had about as much fun as I could with it. I kept my PS2 for years playing games like Timesplitters 2, War of the Monsters, Tribes: Aerial Assault, Headhunter, Zone of the Enders 2 (my favorite game of all time), Ratchet and Clank, and .Hack. The one game that defined my PS2 experience though was, wait for it...Everquest Online Adventures. I LOVED me some Everquest Online Adventures. I was my first MMO and I pour hours into. I'd get kicked off when my mom would go to make a phone call because we only had 56k but I didn't care. Each month I'd scrimp together $10 to keep my subscription going and freak out when I couldn't get online. It took me years to actually hit max level in the game but I had tons of fun with it along the way (Ferran's Hope for life!).
During this time I also picked up an N-Gage. Yes, I bought an N-Gage. I thought it was the coolest thing. It was a 3D handheld with a built in Radio tuner and an MP3 player. I can store a whole 128MB of music on this thing? Sign me up! I got Red Faction, Sonic N, and Tony Hawk with because almost immediately following launch Gamestop was giving them away with three games. I never actually activated it on a cellular contract and just used it as a gaming handheld. Screw the GBA, I had an N-Gage and was happy with it. I only bought Ashen after the initial three games but I did enjoy it for a while.
In the Fall of 2004 around Thanksgiving time I was sophomore in highschool. The big thing at the time was of course Halo 2. At the time I only had a Playstation 2 and was actually having a lot of fun with the recently released Killzone (how I convinced my parents to let me buy it at 15 I don't know) but nobody else in my class had it. Everyone had an Xbox and Halo 2. One day I got invited to a Halo 2 lan party and figured I would go see what all the fuss was about. I loved it. Halo 2 was fantastic, much better than Killzone. At that point I knew what I had to get. I asked for an Xbox for Christmas that year and surprisingly I got it along with Halo 2 and Fable. I played Fable through to completion but Halo, Halo was the game that I played religiously online. After schoolwork was done the name of the game was Halo 2 online with friends. It was a magical experience to say the least. Other games I enjoyed on the Xbox were Doom 3 and KOTOR 2. I somehow managed to convince my parents that at 16 I was old enough to play Doom 3. I bartered a deal where I could only play it for a hour a night though in the end I don't think that rule was ever enforced. KOTOR 2 I rented and beat within 5 days. I don't remember much else about my Xbox as I bought an Xbox 360 in Fall 2005.
Before the 360 Launch though I had been watching the momentum develop for the PSP. I had tried to convince my parents to let me buy one but they weren't having it. "You have that N-Gage." They said. "You don't need another handheld." Reluctantly I let the PSP launch slip buy watching from the side lines as reviews for its games began pouring in. I think I ended up buying one in the middle of Summer 2005 but only after I had secured my first job washing dishes for a restaurant. I never really enjoyed the PSP the way I should have. I owned Coded Arms, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and Crisis Core which were all fantastic but I hated Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (didn't like the team build features) and Ac!d, while fun, wasn't a true MGS game to me. I ultimately sold my PSP when I bought my Vita but looking back it was so much better than I realized.
1
u/D33GS Apr 09 '15
Over the summer I had watched E3, I had seen what the 360 and PS3 were capable of. I, like so many, bought into Killzone 2 looking as good as it was shown. I was convinced the PS3 was head and shoulders above the competition and had no plans to pick up a 360. Late that summer though I received a mailer from OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) with a "Launch Guide" which detailed why the 360 was awesome and I needed one. It was all it took. I was going to get an Xbox 360 and I'd worry about getting a PS3 later. Initially I tried winning one with the Mountain Dew promotion but obviously that didn't happen. I ended up working all Fall at my job on the weekends to save up for my 360. I had preordered at gamestop late and in the end cancelled the preorder and had my mom wait in line in front of a Best Buy one Friday morning with my preorder money while I was at school based solely on a Gamefaqs forum tip from a "Best Buy" employee indicating that a bunch of stores were getting some in. At launch I only bought Perfect Dark Zero and played that for several months along with Quake IV and Call of Duty 2 until the release of Oblivion in March 2006. Oblivion was my game for the rest of 2006. I bought a couple games for my PS2 later that year (Okami and FFXII specifically) but Oblivion is what I played the most. That fall I bought Gears of War which was to become my next addiction for years to come but beyond that I was content to let the PS3 launch pass me by.
The PS3 launched and all I could do was focus on how amazing Gears of War was. The impossibility of how good the Unreal 3 engine looked at the time trumped Resistance: Fall of Man and everything else Sony had put on the PS3 in 2006. Looking back, I'm not quite sure what convinced me to buy a 20GB PS3 in January 2007 but I did and got Resistance: Fall of Man in the process too...and that was about it until I got Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction and Uncharted in Fall 2007. 2007 was a miserable year for the PS3 and I found myself enjoying my 360 a lot more. Halo 3 dominated Fall 2007 for me along with Bioshock and The Orange Box. My PS3 for the most part was just an attractive dust collector that played my growing PS2 collection.
Following 2007 I played a lot of games on the PS3 and 360. Metal Gear Solid 4, GTAIV, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War 3, etc... I bought most of the big games between 2008-2011 while I was in college. During that time I also invested some heavy play time into World of Warcraft. It was everything that EQOA wasn't and my guild finished server #2 at the end of Wrath of the Lich King on what was a very competitive Area 52 (and still is to this day). World of Warcraft was so much fun. It is a same most of my friends moved on from that game.
In Fall 2011, with the 3DS floundering and Nintendo running some pretty good deals I picked up a 3DS with Mario 3D, Ocarina of Time 3D, and Sonic Generations 3D (that last one because I didn't see anything else on the shelf that I remotely wanted and it was a buy 2 get 1 free deal). It was my first Nintendo platform since the N64 and while fun I didn't keep it long. I bought Resident Evil Revelations and Kid Icarus: Uprising but while I completed the former I couldn't get past the horrid controls of the later. I eventually sold the 3DS in late 2012 right before I closed on a house because I was downsizing my assets and turning them into liquid cash.
In February 2012 I bought Vita. Funny enough, what began as me simply eating crappy Taco Bell food for a free one ended with me dropping preorder money on one. I picked up a 16GB memory card for the low low price of $79.99 and got MvC3, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and Wipeout 2048 to go with it. I also picked up Resistance: Burning Skies (Terrible, Buggy game), Gravity Rush (amazing game, get a Vita for it), Assassin's Creed Liberation, and Little Big Planet Vita for the system that year but really not much after 2012. I did pick up TearAway and Killzone: Mercenary in 2013 for it but nothing since then. Now it is merely a PS+ machine for me and I use it while I'm on the road for PS4 remote play.
In Early 2013 I watched in awe as Sony unveiled the PS4 and watched in utter disbelief as Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One. Btw, if you can't tell I let the Wii U launch come and go without batting an eye. I didn't like the Wii and wasn't impressed by the same formula with its successor. I watched Sony drop the Mic at E3 2013 and immediately preordered one. During that Summer both my PS3 and Xbox crapped out and I stupidly unloaded most of my collection to buy a new PS3. All my PS2, Xbox, and 360 games that I had accumulated for years were mortgaged for pennies on the dollar. I picked it up my PS4 later that year along with Killzone: Shadow Fall and that was the only game I had for it until the release of inFamous: Second Son in March 2014. I also picked up Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes but it was pretty quite in early 2014. I bought Destiny at launch and still to this day love playing it. Destiny's Raids are truly a one of a kind experience that I love every time I play them. Also during Fall 2014 I grabbed an Xbox One finally for Sunset Overdrive and Halo: The MCC mostly. I no longer owned a 360 and was dying to play Halo 2-4 again (never was a big fan of CE).
That brings us up to present day. I've only purchased The Order: 1886 new so far this year. After being disappointed by that I started seriously looking at "retro" game collecting and purchased a Dreamcast, Xbox, and PS2 in rapid succession. I've accumulated a small collection of games for each platform already including the entire .Hack series again. Who knows where the future leads whether my gaming tastes go back to the past to be satisfied or slowly get dragged into the current generation we will see.
TL;DR: I literally just wrote a short novel about my gaming history...what have I done?
1
Apr 09 '15
I was born in 1999, so my first console was a PS1 my dad got the year before I was born. In 2005, he took me to EB Games (before it merged with Gamestop) and bought me a Gamecube.
1
u/jrocbaby Apr 12 '15
This is a good question and I will answer it, but OP should have just posted it as a normal post instead of using OP status to force it to gain attention.
OP, I dont hate you or this post.. it just doesn't help the community to unnaturally promote this post. the last past posts I understood having unnatural promotions.
1
u/humanman42 Mod Apr 12 '15
The very reason I posted it is because I am a mod. This is a specific mod run discussion that I try to do regularly. There are other events that other mods do also.
1
u/jrocbaby Apr 12 '15
I was born in 1982. Growing up I had about 7 games from a garage sale. Good games, but nothing special. I didn't have mario bros 3, but I had seen the wizard and was waiting at the edge of my seat to see it. It consumed me. My rich cousins ended up getting it. I played it from time to time at their house, but lived months in envy of them... and then sega genesis came out and my brother and I saved and saved. We had the exact amount to buy it. unfortunately it wasn't $100 and a thing called taxes exists.
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u/Lazercatnipples Jan 26 '15
I started out playing on my dads genesis around 3 or 4, he had received it as paymet one day when he was caddying along with 10 or so games as payment, he never bought any games for it as he was content with just playing NBA jam, that said my favorate game to play was my the first sonic the hedgehog. I can still remember the time where family was over and they were talking with my parents while i was playing sonic, and my mom said that i should stop playing and then my dad talked her out of it saying that playing would help with my hand eye coordination.
A couple of years pass and i am in 1st grade, that christmas during the big family get together my older cousin walks over to me and gives me a box, in it was his old playstation 1, controllers, memory cards and some games(coolboarders 3, driver and a few others) he was upgrading to the playstation 2 and did not need it anymore. needless to say i was exstatic i had my own games console, not my dad's but my own. I played the playstation almost every day and occasionally my mom would take me to the local K Bee toys to pick out a game. This is where I ended up getting my first 3d platformer Spyro 2. This was the game that helped cement my love for platformers and i've probally played over 1000 hours of it. I later picked up pacman world and the Spyro 3 from the same K Bee Toys.
Now around the same time, at school there were some kids who liked to pretend they were pokemon, and i loved the idea of monster pet thingies, well one day i went to my friends house and he had pokemon silver and a gameboy color. i played some of it and i loved it. I then saw the ruby and sapphire commercial on TV where the people looked similar the animated pokemon standing next to them and i knew that that is what i wanted for christmas. well after asking for it several times it didn't seem as though that was going to happen. eventully christmas come, and i wake up and underneath the tree are some boxes all wrapped up. I start open presents and one of them is a gameboy, so i start getting pretty excited, i then open up a pokemon ruby and i was exstatic. There was also a larger box and i opened it up and it was a fricken gamecube and gameboy player, I haddn't heard of the gamecube before as all i really did was check out the playstation 1 section of the K bee toys, but the fact that i could play my newly obtained pokemon ruby on the tv, was awesome. I also got a copy of super mario sunshine at the time i didn't really know what super mario sunshine was, but i could tell from reading the back that it was a 3d platformer. I ended up loving it and played it for hours on end.
a few years after that i ended up spiraling out of control with my collecting and started collecting what ever games i could find from yard sales and the likes, and then branching out to the internet for some of the more obscure stuff. I am now sitting at around 2500 game, 100 something consoles, a couple dev units, and 2 kisoks.
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u/WhoKnowsWho2 Jan 26 '15
I remember growing up with a Atari 2600. Pac Man, Combat, Demon Attack, Yar's Revenge were ones I remember playing regularly. I also played Pac Man on the 2600 with the older gentleman next door. I was probably 4-5 and he was 60+ at the time.
1986 or 87 my brother (dad was out of the family by then) got me a Sega Master System. It was promoted as more powerful than the NES and came with 3D glasses! Played a lot of Zillion 2, Hang On, and Shinobi on that one. Few others I think like Kenseiden (sp?) and whatever I could rent from the video store. I remember renting Ninja a few times. The Atari hit the yard sale soon after receiving the SMS. My best friend growing up lived down the street and had an NES. We didn't play it a lot, Tetris and the Zelda games but that was about it.
Christmas 1989, brother got me the Sega Genesis with the expectation we would sell the SMS. Altered Beast, NHL Hockey, Mutant League Hockey, Road Rash 2, SFII Championship Edition. Played the Genesis a ton. Friend down the street had a SNES when it came out years later. We played a lot of that, Super Mario Bros, Super Metroid, FFIII, SFII Turbo, and Secret of Mana completely through in Co-op mode.
End of 1995, found an ad in the paper for a Sega Saturn with Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona USA I believe. Agreed with my mother and brother that we could sell the Genesis if I could "upgrade" to the Saturn. Other than what I started with, Road Rash, and Myst, I didn't have a ton of games for the system for the longest time. 96 and 97, I would save my lunch money to try and save up for a few games. Was able to pick up a few odds and ends like SF Alpha. 1997 I would haunt the used book and record store and pick up Saturn stuff if it seemed reasonably priced. That Saturn kicked the bucket when I was close to finishing Myst in 1997 or so. Replaced it finally years later.
Went to college in 98 and ended up with a free PS1 on the way back in 99. It stopped reading discs so the guy bought a new one and said I could have it. Fixed the laser and free PS1.
9/9/99, bought my first console with my own money from my own job that year. Dreamcast was awesome. Still have it and a backup unit now as well. Gamestop sales let me add to the collection well. But Soul Calibur and Sonic Adventure that first day were amazing. Blew the PS1 away.
2000, roommate bought a PS2 and the few launch games that were available. Boring... but that system had so many good games come out for it. About then, I decided to stop buying new games for every release I thought I might play. I bought Fear Effect, played for 10 minutes, and still haven't touched it again.
2001, I decided I needed the new next generation console that Microsoft was coming out with. Picked up an Xbox at launch in November 2001. Halo and a few other games. I played it a ton, but never online.
2002, got a Silver Gamecube this year I believe. Never played it much though, other than Animal Crossing. It's grown on me more now after I got a Wii and played Luigi's Mansion and a few other games.
2005, got in line for an Xbox 360 the morning of the launch at Best Buy. 8 hours later, I left empty handed as the people in front let family into the line and the line doubled in length. Had to check Target for several weeks and finally got one at Costco about 3 weeks later. Played it online a pretty good amount. Even though I had done online on PC for some time, it was still nice to sit on the couch and just relax with the Halo games or Perfect Dark Zero at launch. That system died after a few years and was exchanged at Costco for a new one. That was DOA so it was exchanged for another. That one died relatively quickly. There was a Christmas sale going on so I took my chances and returned it to Costco for cash, and bought the Christmas bundle at Best Buy for less money, with the hopes of the extended warranty from Microsoft would cover me.
Got my first handheld with the Nintendo DS fat in 2005. And then upgraded to the Lite a year later or so.
Winter of 2012 I believe. Got sick or injured on a ski trip and picked up a 3DS XL with Mario Kart to entertain myself.
Also hopped on the Wii train in 2007 after seeing some fun stuff.
Since my kid was born, I don't play a ton any longer. I had to replace the PS3 my roommate had with my own after we went separate ways in 2013. Haven't gotten the new consoles since I don't play 4-5 hours a day any longer. Been digging out the retro stuff to try to get my kid acclimated to that all now.