The Gaming Nostalgia Thread

johnny_ultimate

With all these new fangled consoles finally out, and threads here about quitting gaming once and for all, I thought it was time to bring up the topic of early gaming memories.
What was your first console? Your first game - Childish nonsense or all time classic?
Personally my earliest gaming memory was playing Sonic 2 over in my cousins house. Used to love going over there and hitting the Megadrive. Games I also remember from the early days are Crash Bandicot and *cough* Die Hard Arcade.
The first console I owned was *second cough* Sega Game Gear with a copy of Sonic 2 (the GG version, naturally).
But my early gaming memories are blighted with memories of Disney licenced garbage such as the Lion King. There is the odd good memory in there - Castle of Illusion, Sonic, Marcos Magic Football - but mainly the time that should have been full of Zeldas and Marios were full of Disney Interactive cash crops.
Playstation was the first console I started to play some decent games - FF7 etc.. but wasn't until the Gamecube that I really got into the classics with the Wind Waker / Ocriana of Time bundle.

Creamy Goodness

my earliest memory of playing a computer game was playing leisure suit larry 1 and police quest 1 on an old 486. probably was about 5 at the time.

first console was the nes with light gun and duck hunt.

tman

Seeing a Gameboy and Tetris in action for the first time. (think they had one on display in a local Quinnsworth) Everybody must've been so sick of me going on about it for weeks afterwards:p
Don't think I owned one until another 2 years after that though...

Earliest gaming memory is the loading screen on a Spiderman game that my older bro had... can't remember which machine it was on, just that it was tape loading and had an awesome loading screen:p

My first memory of falling head over heels in love with a game was Super Metroid, I had played ****loads of games before it, but this was the first game that made me realise that games are quite possibly the greatest, most immersive form of entertainment out there. It's still my favourite game of all time:)

Rhyme

First gaming experience, believe it or not, was the tabletop version of Pacman in a pub in Donegal.

First console was me buying a NES from a friend with Mario Bros/Duckhunt, Trog, Rad Gravity, Low-G Man and a few other non descript titles for £60...

From then on it's been triple pack games on Sega, hours of consecutive play on Mario Kart and Street Fighter II for the SNES, midnight Virtua Cop marathons on the Saturn, Rage Racer tournaments on PS1 and laughing while playing Turok 2 on the N64. I don't own a PS2 and the Gamecube was only last year.

There's more but those are the memories that are sticking right now

Reaver772

The original Atari 2600 with the hand destroying joysticks, space invaders, berzerk and a 32 in one cartridge back in the mid-eighties.

K.O.Kiki

I can't wait to run through Secret of Mana again - with people who've never even HEARD of it before!

Rabies

K.O.Kiki wrote:

I can't wait to run through Secret of Mana again - with people who've never even HEARD of it before!

I was really tempted to pick it up on the DS. Only seen it last week. Memories

Going back a bit, IK+ on the C64. Who could tell that one button could do some many moves

TinCool

Rabies wrote:

Going back a bit, IK+ on the C64. Who could tell that one button could do some many moves

Man, what a game, although the Amiga/Atari ST versions were so much betetr with digital sound affects

My first gaming experience was probably Jelly Monsters (Pac Man clone although bloody great version of it) on the trusted Commodore Vic 20 back in 1981. What game needed more than 3.5k I ask.

Home gaming came in to it's own when the Commodore64 was released. That machine was streets ahead of anything at the time and stayed on top of the 8bit home computer for many years. 3/4 of my favourite gaming moments were had on that machine. They don't make games like that anymore.

Great memories.

TC.

Darnell13

Loads of memories to put here, but the one that stands out straight away is a memory form the Square, Tallaght. There used to be some sort of electronics store, on the middle floor, near the customer service desk, in what is now a travel agent.

It would have been some time in 1991, I think, not too far before Christmas. SNES was beginning it's dominance in Ireland, and for me there was only one game - nay, one thing - in the world that mattered.

Streeet Fighter II.

That store had a SNES up and running the demo of SFII on a tv in the window. You know the demo where there is a little bit of game action, and then a quick file of each of the fighters? That one. I must have stood there for half an hour at least. I'm pretty sure i went off shopping with my dad, but came back again just to see it one more time.

Anyway, he must have noticed how much interest i had in it (how couldn't he, i didn't shut up about it for weeks), cos that Christmas Santa Claus left us a SNES action pack. Dad didn't want us playing fighting games, so he asked the guy in whatever shop he got it for a game that involved more thinking. The guy gave him something in a gold cardboard box, by the name of Zelda: A link to the past.

6 weeks ago i spent €60 on the latest entry in that series.

That Christmas is the Christmas against which all others are measured in my house. Best Christmas ever by miles.

Jip

I came here thinking this was a nostalgia thread but with all these mentions of NES, Megadrives and StreetFighter 2, to me they're all relatively advanced and recent.
Tincool and Reaver are spot on, the original Atari that was made or looked like wood is where it all started for me, whoever thought controlling little blocks that were supposed to be tanks could be so much fun. Then came the stream lined black 2600, looked much better but did just the same.

Atari 2600 -> Atari 600XL (keyboard with a memory expansion kit at the back the size of a brick that added a massive 8k of memory or something like that), many an hour did I spend playing Miner 2049er on it, -> Commodore 64, must have been about 20 years ago now, -> bit of a stagnant period then as got nothing until the Super Nintendo arrived -> Nintendo 64 and P.C. arrived around the same time -> Playstation 2, xBox, Gamecube, 360 and Wii all arrived as the years rolled by. xbox and 360 are mine, the others belonged to one brother or another.

ixoy

Ahh my earliest memory was playing 'Jet Set Willy' on the Speccie. I recall collecting the tap in the first room (the Bathroom) and then heading left, going onto the steps, and entering "TYPEWRITER" to get my cheats going

scargill

Atari 800 - Joust.

played it for months and months - addictive game. It must have been around 1985 or thereabouts.

I must have a look to see if I can get an emulator anywhere to have a go now!

c - 13

Atari 600, my first gaming machine.
Christmas when I was about 7/8.

Hours spent playing putty, pushover and the other basic games that came with it. Before branching it out to Street fighter (1+2), MK and other newer releases as they were released.
Enchanter - The first text based RPG i ever played.

It was all boxed away nice and safe in the attic at home with all the games in their origional boxes. Then I came home one weekend about 5 years ago and my mother casually said "Oh, I got rid of that old computer you had in the atic.", I nearly cried

koneko

Earliest gaming memory is Centipe and Pacman on our Atari 2600. Favourite memories are probably from the Megadrive/SNES days.

Mr_Overlord

Earliest gaming memory was playing Q*Bert on the C64 in my cousins house.

Then I got a nes with mario/duck hunt and a light gun one christmas. Best christmas ever!!

My first real addiction to a game was shortly after the release of the SNES I was again in my cousins house who had all his mates over. I was a bit younger than them at the time and they were playing Winner stays on in SFII. After I had gone round the room four times beating all his friends I had to have one!! So I went out and got one the week after. Still the greatest beat em up of all time followed closely by the Dead or Alive series. :cool:

Trying to do the fatalities in MK on the Sega Mega Drive with a printed off sheet of the buttons was quite a challange!

Then came the N64... WOW! With great titles like Zelda : Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye of course. This console was fantastic for its day creating timeless games which im sure most would still give a bash today!

Playstation 1 next and my first final fantasy experiance. After finishing FF& 3 times killing all weapons and having a stable full of Gold Chocobos I had to go play the previous installments. Although I was dissapointed by FFXI the rest have been fantastic.

After all consoles between now and then none of them have grabbed me like ones in the past.

I Stick to my P.C for gaming now. Started off with Counter Strike 1.1 / Half Life, Age of Empires & the C&C series!!! Now playing WoW, Warcraft III : TFT , COD 2, Warhammer Dawn of War + Mark of Chaos.

Mr E

Earliest memory for me was Atari 2600 (Pacman, Phoenix, Pitfall, Space Invaders, Combat, Centipede, Asteroids etc.)

A neighbour of mine had one too, and some import games for the 2600 - the cartridges were a different shape, so he had to take them apart and insert the raw chip into the slot (Region locking has become more sophisticated in the last 20 years!)

Kiith

The first game i remember playing (or at least really wanting to play) was magic carpet on the pc. I was on holidays with the family, and my brother had bought a new cd-drive (wow!!) and magic carpet. I remember the amazing intro and big giant worms, and building your castle to bigger sizes...oh the memories.

Also remember first playing Tetris and Mario 2.

Retr0gamer

My parents have always been against me playing videogames for some reason so my earliest memories are sneaking off in the airport or to the local arcade to play Mercs, R-type and then SF2 when it was released. My first console was the C64 (I asked santa for an Amiga which all my friends had :rolleyes: ) at the time it was coming near the end of it's life. I found the games terribly dated compared to the japanese classics in the arcades and on the consoles and the excellent 16-bit titles of the Amiga. Of the hundreds of games I amassed there were only a handful of classics such as Turrican 1 + 2 and Creatures.

Next was a Gameboy which I bought for myself. Loved it especially games like Megaman 3 and Super Mario Land 2.

Was looking for a Super Nintendo for years and eventually got a Megadrive at the end of it's life (which I only got because the parents got a display model somebody wanted to off load for free). It wasn't a Snes but it did have a lot of great games such and Probotector, Gunstar Heroes and Rocket Knight Adventures.

Next I wanted a Playstation or a Saturn but got the more educational PC instead. It introduced me to new concepts like online gaming and FPS. However it was a low spec machine when it was bought so started to struggle after less than a year. I still don't know how I managed to play Half-life and Quake 2 at slideshow speeds.

I asked for a PC upgrade and got a much cheaper PS1. This console re-introduced me to japanese gaming and my love of japanese RPGs thanks to FFVII. I bought everyone that I could get my hands on and the quality of them back in the day was surprisingly high.

Sarky

My earliest gaming memory is watching "the big boys" playing Pacman in a pub in Dingle during summer holidays, and begging for 10p coins off the parents in order to get eaten by a ghost within 10 seconds EVERY TIME. It was brilliant. Pacman was later joined by Donky-Kong and Kung Fu Master (One day, a Kung Fu Master and his girlfriend...)

My first machine was either an Amiga 500 or Atari 2600, I can't remember which. I can remember playing Ikari Warriors with the chicken pox, and F-18 Interceptor, and Altered Beast on the Amiga, and Centipede on the Atari. Not to mention Golden Axe, North&South, Zool, Civilization, Stardust, Supremacy,Project X, Micro Machines, and OMG Tron! I was an Amiga fanboy, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I even went to the convention in London. Twice. I think it took Quake for me to finally say "Wow. I don't think my Amiga can do that..." Of course, That didn't stop me still firing it up for a quickie of Sensi Soccer or something else.

I completely overlooked games consoles for ages (apart from the Atari 2600, which quickly became outdated), in fact, I only played Mario Bro.s once, at a computer shop display cabinet! The first console I bought as a PS2 about a year ago. Followed swiftly by a Nintendo DS, and now a Wii. They're great and all, but I still often find myself thinking "Y'know, I should reassemble my Amiga and have a go at [insert game here]"...

monument

What was your first console?
My first was GameGear, I was really a PC head first, but as a child I can remember err renting consoles a good bit.

Your first game - Childish nonsense or all time classic?
I can remember over doing a Junge Strick demo! But Monkey Island and the Indi games are sticking memories

Personally my earliest gaming memory was
I can't put my finger on mine. Or maybe it was Hugo's House of Horrors in NS school, or some friend’s house playing a Amstrad (Prince of Persia, possibly), or a Sega console, or something.

18AD

Not my first but my best gaming experience when I was young was definatly playing super metroid. Best game play and best story line for its time.

steviec

Very earliest gaming memory was Spy Hunter in Mosney, it seemed amazing at the time.

First machine I actually owned was a C64 and my first game was New Zealand Story. I still think of it as one of the best 2D platformers I ever played.

I had literally hundrds of C64 games, some classics among them, from Flimbo's Quest, Microprose Soccer, Boulderdash, right up to Mayhem in Monsterland, which I believe was the last game properly released for C64. Crazy loadtimes(and to think people complain about PSP) but it was amazing at the time.

Went from that to a Gamegear of all things. Gamegear Shinobi was brilliant, and I'm pretty sure unique to the system. Micro Machines was another great game, but that's about it as far as fond gamegear memories go.

A Megadrive was finally my first proper console. I do think I missed out on a lot of the 16 bit era due to not having money or being very well informed, but of the games I played I absolutely adored Syndicate. To this day I refuse to play that game or it's sequel on a PC with a mouse. Other favourites were Theme Park, Populous, I became a bit of a Bullfrog fanboy

After that it was the PS1, at which point I could afford many more games and fully explore the Playstation's incredible catalogue, and the rest is history! Currently own a PS2, 360, Wii, PSP and DS and the PS3 will no doubt be adopted sooner or later.

My first PC was sometime between the Megadrive and PS1. It came with Doom and Duke Nukem installed. Never got into FPS games though, or proper PC gaming in general really. Console games are just more relaxing and entertaining. Of course there's always been exceptions, like Civ or Starcraft

i_am_dogboy

I've loads of earlier memories of gaming, but the first thing that really stuck with me was the panic during the ending to sonic 2 while sonic fell to the earth, then the delight as tails came along on his little airplane with all the cute little birds to save the day.....they don't make endings like that any more....I'm actually humming the music that plays as we speak, thankfully none of my workmates are gamers and don't know quite how sad that little tune I'm humming is.

Cuddlesworth

steviec wrote:

I had literally hundrds of C64 games, some classics among them, from Flimbo's Quest, Microprose Soccer, Boulderdash, right up to Mayhem in Monsterland, which I believe was the last game properly released for C64. Crazy loadtimes(and to think people complain about PSP) but it was amazing at the time.

Damm you, that music is going to be stuck in my head all day.

Reku

Earliest gaming memory: Pacman and Battle Valley on the C64

After that it'd be Mechwarrior, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Captain Comic and Kings Quest 3 on my aunt's 286, oh yeah Duke Nukem and Crystal Caves too.
Some of these were childish nonsense but Mechwarrior and F-19 were certainly good. Took me ages to learn how to land the plane in F-19 without crashing, I was only about 7 or 8 though.:o

Was years before I owned a console, we got a Megadrive for Xmas back when I was about 12 or 13. Mostly played the RPGs and Beat-em-ups like Shining Star 2, Phantasy Star 3, Super Hydalide, Streets of Rage 1&2, Mortal Combat. Do remember Gods & Toejam and Earl being a laugh. Lethal Enforcers was too easy.
My dad got hooked on the Jungle Strike series via the Megadrive.

Best game I ever played on the Megadrive was probably Dune 2 the Battle for Arrakis. Man that game rocked!

Borat_Sagdiyev

Earliest gaming memory would have to be Chuckie Egg on a mitsubishi computer! There was another game as well, which was hilarious - "Eric and the Floaters"

Spose I'm showing my age there though

Moved onto playing the usuals, Sonic 1 + 2, street fighter on the snes, mario, sensible soccer (what a game), fifa soccer 95(another class game, why it decended into the crap it is now is beyond me), championship manager 2 96/97 edition, savage game.

I actually remember having a football manager game on the commodore 64 which showed you highlights of the game, they were awful admittedly but they were still nearly 10 years ahead of Championship manager/football manager! :D

Sarky

steviec wrote:

but of the games I played I absolutely adored Syndicate. To this day I refuse to play that game or it's sequel on a PC with a mouse.

Pity, Syndicate Wars was quite fantastic. Nevertheless, Flimbos Quest \o/

Gizzle

Ahhh, the Atari 2600 with Double Dragon and Centipede... *sighs*

Then came Rampage, Pinball Dreams and Ghostbusters where they told you how to beat Stay Puft, the end of game boss, in the instructions.

I'll never forget how many TV's my beloved 2600 destroyed.

uberpixie

First memory of gaming would be a ZX spectrum. I was only about 6 and got it off a frined of my mother's as it was gathering dust in her house.

Used to drive my father demented because I always had to get his walkman when I wanted to play.:D

After that I got a gameboy when I was 10, parents resisted getting me a SNES. Still got many hours out of the gameboy and adored Links Awakening.

Then around the age of 13 we got a Mitsubishi Apricot PC.
A P1 120mhz, 16mb of ram, 1.2 gig harddrive and a 2mb ati rage 2 onboard gfx.

Played Crusader:No Remorse and Fade To Black 2 to death, (both came with the PC.) Followed by Half life 1, Diablo mulitplay across serial cable!, Starcraft and Thief 1 and Close Combat 2, F22 ADF.

Even managed to swipe an old 4MB Voodoo 1 3DFX card off a mate for £15 in order to make rainbox 6 run better:D. And of course added another 32mb of ram..

Managed to get 5 years out of that machine because I had to!

After that built my own PC and got a gamecube.

User45701

johnny_ultimate wrote:

The first console I owned was *second cough* Sega Game Gear with a copy of Sonic 2 (the GG version, naturally).

My first one was the sega mega drive but i did have a pc before that

Cremo wrote:

my earliest memory of playing a computer game was playing leisure suit larry 1 and police quest 1 on an old 486. probably was about 5 at the time.

first console was the nes with light gun and duck hunt.

Leisure suit larry was good but not amazing but i did enjoy duck hunt

Darnell13 wrote:

Loads of memories to put here, but the one that stands out straight away is a memory form the Square, Tallaght. There used to be some sort of electronics store, on the middle floor, near the customer service desk, in what is now a travel agent.

It would have been some time in 1991, I think, not too far before Christmas. SNES was beginning it's dominance in Ireland, and for me there was only one game - nay, one thing - in the world that mattered.

Streeet Fighter II.

That store had a SNES up and running the demo of SFII on a tv in the window. You know the demo where there is a little bit of game action, and then a quick file of each of the fighters? That one. I must have stood there for half an hour at least. I'm pretty sure i went off shopping with my dad, but came back again just to see it one more time.

Hmm thats odd was the square built in 91? i don't remember the square being built when i got my mega drive

Mr_Overlord wrote:

Trying to do the fatalities in MK on the Sega Mega Drive with a printed off sheet of the buttons was quite a challange!

That brings back memories

Mr_Overlord wrote:

Then came the N64... WOW! With great titles like Zelda : Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye of course. This console was fantastic for its day creating timeless games which im sure most would still give a bash today!

Playstation 1 next and my first final fantasy experiance. After finishing FF& 3 times killing all weapons and having a stable full of Gold Chocobos I had to go play the previous installments. Although I was dissapointed by FFXI the rest have been fantastic.

After all consoles between now and then none of them have grabbed me like ones in the past.

I Stick to my P.C for gaming now. Started off with Counter Strike 1.1 / Half Life, Age of Empires & the C&C series!!! Now playing WoW, Warcraft III : TFT , COD 2, Warhammer Dawn of War + Mark of Chaos.

Goldeneye was amazing i loved it and there is goldeneye coming out on the source engine so that could be good crack, never liked many games on the playstation except the first gran turismo game then after that they got ****

Go CnC!

_____

Man this is such a depressing thread i was in a alright mood until i read this thing. i miss the old games and i miss the way games made me feel as well they have some some absolutely amazing new games but i lost interest in multiplayer with friends many years ago because in my group of friends everyone seems to specialise in a game and then when that game is played i do not enjoy it because there is no suspense i already know who will win

The only multiplayer friend game i enjoyed in the last few years was defiantly burnout 4, very good multiplayer game because noone i know was amazing at it we where all just pretty good at it.

Eh what can you do i was surprised at the games that are missing from this thread.

Saga Mega Drive

streets of Rage was one
Mortal kombat and Sonic where both included
Used to love atomic bomberman (new 3d versions are shight)
Desert Strike,Jungle Strike, Urban Strike all SAVAGE games i loved them so much, i still remember when quinsworth had a demo of it in there games section.
I didn't see Road Rash I or II either VERY disappointing

N64

Goldeneye, i got a n64 just for this game, i played episode 1 racer it was alright but god ive always hated zelda and never found another good game for the n64

PC

I got a pc when i was quite young i don't even remember the age but i do remember the specs it had and remember this was a new PC!

2mb ram
Windows 3.1
em ok thats all i remember about it...

But it did have tetris! and solitaire i think thats when i started to love pc games.

Breakout/bustout was a very fun game

My first real love on the pc was CnC, my gods what a game, when RA1 came out i was in 3rd class i think and i was young so i could take the day off lie to my mom say i went to school and tell the teacher that i forgot my note a few days later and i got away with it

Half life was a good game i fell in love with armada 1 (not armada2)
Recently i thought freelancer was quite good along with KOTOR I & II both AMAZING games

I know i left out allot of pc games but even thinking about all these old games is depressing me so im going to cut this short.

DarkJager

My earliest system was an IBM 286 on which I played Police Quest, Kings Quest, Space Quest, Commander Keen (see who remembers this), Blake Stone, the orginal 2 Doom games, Freddy Pharkas, and some text adventure games which really got me hooked.

My intro to consoles came one Friday night when my mother decided to rent out a mega drive with a copy of Fireshark for me (i was 7 or 8 at the time and remember staying up nearly the whole night playing that game)

The following christmas and I finally owned a Mega Drive 2. Had the Shinobi, Streets of Rage and Golden axe pack, Alien Storm, super monaco GP and super thunderblade. Rented out The Haunting starring Polterguy, Streets of Rage 2 & 3 (2 is my favorite game of all time), Urban Strike, Judge Dredd, WWF Wrestlemania, Altered Beast, Sonic 2 & 3, Two Crude Dudes, Captain America and The Avengers...

From there I moved to a Playstation with titles like Wild 9, WWF Warzone, Attitude, Smackdown 1 + 2, Syphon Filter, FF7 + 8, Grand Theft Auto 1 + 2 etc.

I've owned the Dreamcast, XBOX and currently my Xbox 360. Must say its great to have been around through the different generations to see how things progress from console to console.