The five videogames of your life.

[The Curmudgeon]

Now then, this isn't asking what your favourite games of all time are (although they may be linked), but rather - what games do you remember playing the most? What memories do you have playing them?

Not to sound elitist, but I think this is something that, 15 years from now, 30 year olds won't be asking each other. I don't think games have that... I dunno.. something.. that makes the likes of Mario and Sonic and Pac-Man so adored even now. Can you imagine people gushing about the (admittedly) glossy, hi-octane thrills from the Xbox 360? I doubt it.

Anyway, here are the five games that shaped my life..

1. Black Tiger - Arcade.

I was madly, utterly devoted and addicted to this game. All the killer ingredients were there; it was cheap, the cafe it was in was two minutes from my house and if you were rubbish at it you lasted two minutes. A fairly bog-standard platform slasher, granted, but the playability is nigh-on perfect.

2. Street Fighter II - Arcade, Snes.

I was a Megadrive (or Genesis) kid, so this game was always tantalisingly out of my reach, only available in other people's bedrooms or in smoke-filled arcade halls. The Genesis version finally arrived and was good (if a little lacking) but it couldn't compete with the ease of play the Snes port had. Quite simply the best fighting game of all time.

3. WWF Wrestlefest - Arcade.

I think I may well have pumped more money into this game than any other in history. It just had EVERYTHING - superb, cartoony graphics, those awesome snippets of speech that I STILL quote ("OH NO! Cobra.. Clutch!") and there really were rewarding differences in who you tagged together. Words cannot express my love for this game.

4. Pro Wrestling - Master System.

It sucked ass. It looked horrible, it was flawed, it was repetitive and there were eight moves. But you know what? It was fucking BRILLIANT. If you timed it right you could make the whole game freeeeeeeze and the characters became distorted because you had just pulled off a move that you weren't actually really supposed to do, and even though you had to beat the same team TEN TIMES in a row before you moved on, somehow it never got old. The horrid, tinny "van... dooot... traaay!" speech still lives on in my dreams.

5. Rescue - ZX Spectrum

A real old gem, this. Time really hasn't aged this game at all, because while it doesn't look great, everything that is there does look like what its supposed to look like (except for the weird alien in a wheelchair bad guys) and it just plays like a dream. You can either just run around and shoot shit and blow up rooms, or you can have an in-depth, rock hard game where you have to save the scientists from destruction. If you ever feel like getting a spectrum game from an emulator - make this one of your first choices.


In short, I used to play games ALL the time. I had hundreds of the damn things, and even though I don't play games nearly as much now, there are still enough games to have me bleary-eyed at 3am, swearing at the screen... long may it continue!

Get those rose-tinted glasses on, Dwellers, and let's hear yours.

[trashcanman]

Five, huh? This will be a toughie despite (or because of) my status as a gamer since Atari 2600. The first two are probably the only ones I would say shaped my life, the rest were just damned awesome. Well, here goes:

1) Final Fantasy 2 (aka FF4 Japanese) (SNES)- This game damn near ruled my life for YEARS. I rented it over-and-over, played it every night with little or no sleep, struggling to beat it before i had to bring it back (it's was very long) and always returned it late. Finally, I got it for Christmas and then it was really on. I beat it more times than I can count, often spending days on end doing nothing but fighting random battles to level up and see just how powerful I could make each character before I lost them. It was ridiculous, even by loser geek standards. The story is the most well-crafted EVER in a game, it sports the best and most memorable cast and musical score of any RPG, the graphics were awesome for the time and surely contributed to my future ravenous appetite for anime, it was packed with side quests, drama, awesome powers, and epic boss battles, and it was the first game that really made me love the characters and the world they inhabited. The game never got the respect it deserved since it was one of the first RPG's to break ground in America and few people ever played it. FF7 for Playstation is the one they all know and love, but it will always be a mere second-best of the series in my mind. Or third if you count FF Tactics. They are re-making FF4 for the DS and I am seriously considering buying one just to play this one upgraded game again.

2) Street Fighter 2 (arcade/SNES)- It's a given. I haven't touched the game since the old days aside from a disappointing demo on the X-box live arcade (the controls just felt all wrong) where you can download it and play it competetively online if you're the nostalgic type, but I seriously remember every single move for every single character. I mastered them all (except for that goddamned spinning piledriver....stupid Zangief ) and wasted more quarters then I feel comfortable admitting today perfecting the dragon punch and pwning motherfuckers before the term even existed. The SNES version was the best arcade translation of any game ever at the time and saved me buku bucks playing at home. Plus, I could now pause when Chun-Li was upside down and check out her panties. Hey, I was 15 all-right! Who am I kidding, I do the same thing now with DOA. ;D

3) Halo 1&2 (Xbox)- It's a relative newbie, but some day it will be an Olympic sport. The experience of playing the first game and fighting enemies with real AI for the first time was astounding. The enemies commented on what you were doing, ran in terror when you outgunned them, flailed their arms and screamed in panic when you stuck a grenade to their ass; it was AWESOME! The second game took the action online and holy shit are people dicks! It's alright, though; that just makes it that much more amusing to beat them to the ground and squat on their corpse's face repeatedly (this is known as "teabagging" for those not in the know) while talking mad shit about their female relatives. You could also carjack the bastards out of vehicles and run them down a'la Grand Theft Auto. Never, ever gets old. Only one more month until part 3!

4) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)- and here I thought the SNES was ging to dominate my list. A Star Wars RPG that lived up to every possible hope and then some. Great story, dialogue, characters, and arguably the best battle system ever in a turn-based RPG. You were in complete control of your actions and every decision put you closer to the dark side or light side of the force. Plus you totally got to mack on and score with a hot female jedi. Then I killed her (mwa-ha-ha). The character interaction was amazingly deep and the gameplay was always challenging and engaging. The perfect use of a perfect license.

5) Ogre Battle (SNES)- Another one nobody but me played and another one that set me back a lifetime of lost sleep. THe perfect real time strategy war game of the day. Build, equip, level up, organize, recruit, and command your own fantasy army using an endless array og good, evil, and neutral creatures and warriors. The sheer size and scope of this game makes my head hurt even now. Single battles took over 5 hours at times, making it almost impossible to beat -and I never did. But I didn't care because when it got too ridiculous, I'd start over and rebuild my army in a completely different way: "Hmmm... this time I'll seperate them into two factions, paladins, mages, clerics and other heroic fellows to beat the enemy back during the day and occupy the towns at night, then under cover of darkness I bring forward the werewolves, ghouls, necromancers, and vampires to clean house." The tricky part being that you had to win the hearts of the people as you gained ground and using the undead and monsters near populated areas scared them shitless. If you played like a reckless, evil warlord you became one; powerful, but with fewer resources and support from the people. But if you played your cards right, you were rewarded well. Like I was saying, a huge, huge game.

Well, that was long-winded of me. I seldom get my fill of games anymore and that's a shame because there is a lot of quality out there right now for a 360 owner to indulge in. Oh well, just a few more years and my son can join me instead of distracting me and we can both get our fill. ;D

[xfiruath]

1) Final Fantasy 2 (AKA Final Fantasy 4) - I too spent days at a time playing this game as a kid. Awesome story, the graphics were great for the time, and the game was just so huge! I also remember it as being one of the first games I'd played where there were optional side quests that I could spend hours wasting time on. This game was great because there were actual consequences for actions. Characters died during war, and they didn't come back.

2) Ogre Battle - Sorry if this is starting to look a lot like the previous post! I probably spent just as much time, if not more, on this game than on Final Fantasy 2. I was probably in the fifth or sixth grade when I discovered this game, and it took me two maddeningly long weekends to figure out how to get the termites to break down the walls in the "Slums of Zenobia" level.

3) Planescape: Torment - This is my favorite game of all time, and I've yet to play a game since that has had as much depth of gameplay or managed to be so engrossing. The one and only game I'm aware of where the Intelligence and Wisdom statistics where far more important than Strength or Dexterity. I've played this game through eleven separate times, and each time I've discovered a new character, quest, or dialog tree that I hadn't noticed before.

4) Street Fighter 2 - Who didn't spend a near endless horde of quarters on this game, or for those lucky enough to own a SNES at the time, spend an absurd number of hours trying to figure out each combo for your favorite character?

5) Super Mario Bros - When I first got a SNES this was the only game I had, so needless to say it got played out. I still hear all the awesome sound affects like the "boooiiiing" or the "BRM-BRM-BRM" when the big doors opened up.

[trashcanman]

Xfiruath, you are the man!

[xfiruath]

Heh, thanks!

All this talk of SNES games made me go get an Emulator and I've been playing Ogre Battle all day. That game is still awesome after all these years. Anybody remember Act Raiser? That game was pretty sweet too.

[trashcanman]

Act Raiser was another one of a kind. In retrospect, my life in the 90's would have been meaningless without the SNES. (sniff) Here's to the good old days.

[hackersanonymous]

5, eh? Well, I'm not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but here goes..

I loved Rescue on the Speccy as well - the challenge of seeing just how badly you could wreck each screen almost put the point of the game on the back burner... I should also mention the cost - £1.99 - awesome!

www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=^Rescue$&pub=^Mastertronic+Ltd$

Another Speccy gem - Target Renegade... Quite possibly the most fun beat em up... As a one player game, it was great... Get your brother/sister/friend joining in, and it was fan-bloody-tastic.

www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004087


I was never a console kiddy, so the next leap is to the PC, and Half Life... In my first real computing job at a University, my workmate used to set up get-togethers where a group of folk from different departments would pretty much take over a lab and play multiplayer Half Life on the last days of terms... That was the only time I ever played it, and loved it for the whole social aspect as we hurled abuse at each other...

It was about 5 years and 2 jobs later when I was bored one afternoon and found a copy of HL.. The next thing I know is I can hear people leaving for work, the shops are opening up for business, and the 48 packet box of crisps (chips to our US friends) is looking pretty damn close to empty!!

Choice number four should be obvious.. Half Life 2... Oh, mamma.. After finding how much I loved HL1, I tried more games - loads of them.. They all bored me quickly... Then HL2 came out - mmmm, mmmmm! Crowbar-smackin' good!

I should say here, I'm absolutely rubbish at both HL games - I just keep playing them until I've pretty much memorised what's happening so I can move onto the next section.. It still doesn't detract from the whole "Oh. Sweet.. Jesus... I think I may have leaked manmilk" thrill of the whole thing (eurk! Ed)...

And for number 5... I'll be a geek (as opposed to? Ed)... Rick Dangerous on the Spectrum... While it was a good game, it was a rock hard bastid to play... It was also the first game that I learned how to disassemble and find cheats for..

Toodles!