Your favourite Christmas gaming memory?

Roar

musta been bout 1990/1, when i got my amstrad 464+, playing burning rubber, that theme tune is still stuck in my head, and my dad trying in vain to figure out how to load a game from the tape drive... getting my granda to play batman.. becoming addicted to dizzy... all in one day!

oh, and trying to type out entire programs!

christ they were simpler times..

Stephen

Christmas '92, I got my Amiga 600 with Grand Prix, lemmings and silly putty. That was the sh1t.

Giblet

Atari 2600, double dragon. The hardest game ever made I also played pacman for what seemed like forever.

TinCool

Pretty much every Christmas back in the days when I had a C64. I suppose the one that sticks out in my mind was the year I was given Head Over Heels, dont' ask me why. I could never finish that bloody game.

mewso

Ah 1986 or 7 (not sure) playing Jet Pac and Atic Atac on our new Speccy + no less. 10 minutes for a game to load. Those were the days of real games. We had a pack of 10 games or something with JetPac, Reverisi, Flight Simulator etc. Most were crap but it was just so new. So much better than the C64

Kristok

musician wrote:

So much better than the C64

You take that back or I sware [SHAKES FIST]

Linkdude

rainbow kirby wrote:

Afaik that game came out here last weekend... I know we got in at least one copy of it.

Yeah, I know, I meant Kirby is the only game out that I want. Such a shame all the good games come out after Christmas.

EDIT: Man, some of you guys are pretty old, well in comparison to me, I don't see people in their 20's as old at all, incase that's taken the wrong way.

ntlbell

musician wrote:

Ah 1986 or 7 (not sure) playing Jet Pac and Atic Atac on our new Speccy + no less. 10 minutes for a game to load. Those were the days of real games. We had a pack of 10 games or something with JetPac, Reverisi, Flight Simulator etc. Most were crap but it was just so new. So much better than the C64

no hungry horrace????

now that was a game

i_am_dogboy

My favourite christmas was probably 1998, because of battlezone, a wonderful game I got for free. Because of that game half life was left in it's box pretty much till I cleared it.

hamster

My older Christmas gaming memories are based around the C64 and later the Amiga. I tended to order four tape titles for xmas and in the summer.


Let's see - ORDER BY enjoyment, played most, nostalgia DESC

C64
Christmas 1987
S.E.U.C.K (A fair bit of staying power - kept at it til Euro '88)
Maniac Mansion (Got stuck several times but loved the xmas feel to the game - eg. the turkey in the Dining Room)
Nebulus (The Music is still Good - though short and the great scrolling - can be tough)
Zig-Zag (Didn't play much of it)

Christmas 1988
Driller (This was Awesome at the time, the atmosphere, music and 3D puzzles - load it occasionally)
Armalyte (Great SHMUP)
Hawkeye (That game has great music and Graphics - killing hundreds of sprites - frenzied game)

Christmas 1989
Storm Across Europe (My first real Strategy game - not much to look at now huh? And no real enemy information)
Turbo Outrun (Great Voice Samples and fairly ok racing game)
The Untouchables (I think this was a mistake - Multi-load killed this for me)

Amiga
Christmas 1990 - This Xmas was a classic!!!!!
Dungeon Master - Wow Wow Wow! (I played this for a looooong time!! Played 4 game campaigns for 2 years)
SimCity - Wow x2 (My first city Berlin.....) - My reason to upgrade after Dungeon Master
Elite - Deadly but not Elite... I didn't know about the meaning of "Right On Commander" then
Operation Stealth - Didn't get too far in it but had a good story. Too much dying in it.

Christmas 1991 - My brother joins in with another A500
Gods - Techically his... but I complete this dozens of times over xmas (Great Emu stuff by the way)
JWWS (Snooker) - Yep, this was the best Snooker game
3D Const. Kit - Like SEUCK - I spent months on this - especially over school Holidays. I loved putting conditions in here.
Pinball Fantasies - Thank God for Brothers. I would have missed this. Think Xmas week 3am night.. Tayto, Food, Coke, Pinball... aah

Christmas 1992 - Leaving Cert Year (winding down)
MegaloManiac - Oh yeah in your face by the Sensi Boys! I loved the phrase bites in this game. Easy to finish.
The First Samurai - Great graphical action adventure - never finish but loved the train ride later in the game.

486 DX2-66Mhz (8Mb, 250Mb HDD)
Christmas 1993
Ultima VII - OOOOh enough said. Nostalgia high here. Rated 2nd best xmas. The Map and the storyline. Brilliant!
Lemmings 2 - Annoying DOS version of the Amiga classic.

Christmas 1994
Tie Fighter - Oh yes! I love practising the training missions. This kept me going 'til Easter 95.

Dell Pentium P120 (16Mb, 1Gb HDD)
Christmas 1995
EF2000 - Never fully got into this... but got good at landing, mid-air refuelling etc.
Screamer - Blocky racing game. Most of my xmas. My 1st Internet Nick
Onto the Net December 28th 1995 - as Screamer - using IOL. Best time was 2am-6am weekends (Net line so bad!)

Christmas 1996
Blade Runner - Excellent Game. Finish only 1st chapter due to lack of time (25%). Bro finished it though!
Monkey Island 3 - Good at the time - near completion
VSnooker - Played with a friend over the phone a lot

Homemade P233 MMX (64Mb, 2Gb HDD)
Christmas 1997
Quake 2 - Completed on Voodoo2 card. First real eye candy version. Good at the time. Now a bore.


Homemade PII-266 (96Mb, 4Gb HDD)
Christmas 1998 Another Classic Christmas
Half Life - No question about it. Played it recently!
Grim Fandango - Very Good Click and point adventure. Completed it 2 years later over xmas again!

Christmas 1999
Half Life - Replayed again!
Ultima Online - Well... I did have Esat No Limits at the time! Stopped after March 2000 however.
Populous 3D - Enjoyed Briefly

P3-800Mhz (512Mb, 80Gb HDD, Geforce2)
Christmas 2000
The Sims - Enjoyed the Career progression of my characters.
Quake 3 - Best around with it - didn't really take a liking to it. Prefer the story type.

Christmas 2001
Return to Castle Wolf. - Yep, this was actually very enjoyable. A real Xmas blast! The Dynamic Music/Atmosphere

Christmas 2002
Thief 2 - I brought the original based on the quality of the warez version! I'm a rogue player type to this day!
Deus Ex - This game really knew how to tell a story! Wow!

Christmas 2003
Black and White - Good but Flawed AI - A good xmas memory playing it though
Amiga Emulation - Oh the Tears of good times gone by! Waaah!

Christmas 2004
Beneath a Steel Sky - Got so far. Must complete this Robert Foster classic this christmas.

Christmas 2005 ????

Who knows?
My idea - is to go Retro mad - Scumm v0.8 with BASS, Monkey1,2....

Can anyone recommend a classic I missed? For a P3-800Mhz (Geforce2)
Recommendations please!

Winning Hand

Either my first christmas with the nes mario/duckhunt pack or more recently, playing the AOE demo to death in the days before christmas.

jesus_thats_gre

The year I got my 32x for the megadrive.. Finally being able to play Doom was enough for me for life

Then finally getting my first PC - 486 DX2/66 - and being able to play Doom properly

Freelancer

One year my parents got myself and my brother an Amiga. We're in bed on christmas eve and we just hear my Dad pissing himself laughing all night as they're in the room downstairs.

We come down and find a pile of presents, it's been inexpertly wrapped and we can see a piece of the Amiga box peeking out. It's also apparently been taped together with what appears to be, a roll and a half of black electrical tape.

We shake the box and it appears to be weighty, and then proceed to hack at the mound of tape it's been mumified in. We marvel at how bloody thick are Dad is, and what the bloody hell has he been playing at it.

It takes about twenty minutes to pull it all off, and when we do, we find the packing and a load of bricks have been put in its place.

Storming out to go confront Dad, we find him sitting out on the stairs pissing himself laughing. We tried to interrogate him on the loaction of the actual computer but he couldn't breath he was laughing so hard.

Bastard had took it out and set it up in the other room. Rollerball set up to play.

God I miss my Amiga.

hamster

Freelancer wrote:

Bastard had took it out and set it up in the other room. Rollerball set up to play.

God I miss my Amiga.

Hey Freelancer,

Dig out the emulator and load her up. What was Rollerball like? Did you play Dungeon Master on it?

Giblet

hamster wrote:

My idea - is to go Retro mad - Scumm v0.8 with BASS, Monkey1,2....

Can anyone recommend a classic I missed? For a P3-800Mhz (Geforce2)
Recommendations please![/QUOTE

You need to get the CD version of "The Dig"

hamster

Giblet wrote:

You need to get the CD version of "The Dig"

Yeah... that Lucasart's Space adventure wasn't it? Got good reviews at the time too.

jaggeh

pretty much any point and click wit hthe lucasarts tag is worth having

December Son

Unwrapping my behemoth of an atari ST on christmas day 1992. Booted up F15 strike eagle 2, and hearing the voice actually say 'Strike eagle, clear for take off' at the start of a mission had my jaw on the floor.
The next year, palying street fighter 2 on 4 floppies, or indiana jones and the last crusade (adventure, not the poxy platform game) was all stuff i still remember fondly to this day