Disclaimer: This complete history will make the article exceptionally long.
I figured the best way to introduce myself would be to let you all into my world, so hi there!
My name is Daav and I'm a 26 year old guy that has been gaming since he was 3. That's right, when I was just 3 years old, my parents thought I'd get off their backs if they bought an Atari 2600 for me. By then those were fairly obsolete and my pleas for a NES weren't answered, but the Atari did usher in a new world for me. Since then I've amassed over 400 games and I've played even loads more.
I'm thankful to have started games at such an early stage in life. It made me appreciate games for their entertainment value, rather than just for their amazing display. You see, an Atari game usually looked a lot worse than modern pixel art and sounded even worse. The beeping sounds and shapes were usually so universal; you’d have to turn to the box art or game name to figure out what you were playing. Your imagination would have to fill in the blanks from there.
Before I get shaking with the walking stick, let me tell you not everything was better back then. Like I said, a lot of imagination was involved and even then some games were dreadful to figure out. It would just be a few colored lines across your screen going wild. Even some of my favorite games sounded like a fork on a chalkboard.
All that changed when my parents made the horrible decision of buying a SNES. Suddenly, games became more important than school or even trivial things like food or sleep. I remember vividly that when I first experienced Super Mario World, I cut a week’s worth of classes. And I was about 8 years old at the time, so that was a pretty daring endeavor. My teachers had to force my parents to bring me back to class, because Mr. Mario was my teacher now!
Super Mario World
Gameplay was king on older consoles and any attempts at graphical boasting didn’t arrive until somewhere around Starwing. Looking back on that, it’s humorous that Starwing was even considered to be a graphic milestone, since it looks so awful. Anyway, it separated games in an entirely different genre. You had the Nintendo hard games, the bold Mega Drive games and the very first all-out wars between Sega and Nintendo, which Sony joined in later on to switch things up. That’s enough history for now; I just wanted to show what games were like back then.
As an oldschool gamer (I don’t use the term “retro”, as I’m not reverting to anything) I always look at games from a gameplay value. To me, a game is still true to its definition and should be viewed on the aspect where you can play games with it. It’s the main reason why I stick to all the older systems, other than current generations just being too expensive for me to get into. I’ve felt the pain of paying 60 bucks on a new, disappointing game more than often enough now. I don’t want to experience paying hundreds to see an entire system fail on me. I do enjoy current handhelds however, but their capabilities are also more limited. This ties them more to older systems and that’s probably the reason why older games are ported on them so often. They do share the same fate as their current brethren though, as my Nintendo DS has recently died on me, while I was getting a cosmetic makeover for it done. Can you imagine that? An operational system dies out because the outer shell needed a change. My 20 year old Gameboy weeps for it.
The first game I remember striking my undivided attention was Keystone Kapers on Atari 2600. In fact, that game was my Super Mario Bros 1. It had every basic aspect of an incredible platform experience. You could run, duck and jump over things. And you were playing cops and robbers in the process, so what could be better than that? This was later followed by Mario Bros on Atari 2600, not to be mistaken with Super Mario Bros. For those of you who don’t know this game, it’s the battle level you can do in Super Mario Bros 3 with those crab things and flies going about those tubes. Me and my brother played and destroyed 2 TV’s playing that game. I guess television sets of old didn’t agree with our playing methods.
Mario Bros on Atari 2600
As mentioned before, Super Mario World created the next milestone in the gaming era, but it didn’t just stop there. Between that, Zelda: A Link To The Past, Donkey Kong Country, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and so many others; the SNES offered a unique experience with almost every game.
But the first real time eater I ever played would be made by the best programmer on this planet: Sid Meier and his Pirates on Commodore 64. This game is similar to the modern adaptation available on Xbox and PSP, only a lot simpler of course. Yet it got the free roam aspect down like never seen before and this decades before GTA made that element a genre. And so I, my brother and even my mother would take turns at sailing the Caribbean seas, trying to become the next governor. It was the first game where proceeding with the story was more of an option and just sailing about and sinking ships was more fun.
Pirates! on Commodore 64
When the Playstation came along, we were then introduced to another captivating genre. Final Fantasy VII was about to come out and prior to that we hadn’t seen a lot of RPGs. It’s not that they weren’t around, but they weren’t released in my backwater town. Final Fantasy VII was also the first video game ever to be cool enough to be advertised on TV. I remember everyone’s eyes opening in awe of the graphical power and my brother assembling everyone in front of the TV every time the commercial came on. We played that game through so many, many times and every playthrough would have more than a hundred hours on it. I spent more than a hundred hours on playing mini-games alone. To this date, Final Fantasy VII is in my top five favorite games. From then on, we even started attending game conventions to get the first news of any other games. It was also the opportunity to purchase the new Final Fantasy before everyone else.
Then the PC hooked me into more time eaters than ever before. Even though I couldn’t own a computer, I did my best to go to any friend that did have one. There I played games like Diablo II, Quake and any football manager and played those for hundreds of hours each. I abused one friend’s hospitality so much; I’d spend 3 days in his house playing Counterstrike on his computer. I’m lucky to still have this friend to this day. It made me realize that the PC was the greatest platform ever created, as it was like a console, but ever changing and ever updating.
I got myself a hold of Civilization II on Playstation and the family would once more wear out equipment playing it. Sid Meier has perfected gameplay to such a degree, there’s really little else one can add to that. It would also mean the first console wearing out its days and 2 Playstations have since bitten the dust.
Civilization II on Playstation
The Playstation 2 would then revolutionize the gaming world once again, be it after a rocky start. I remember being in the store and having to make a heart breaking choice between a Sega Dreamcast and a Playstation 2. It was a hard decision, but in the end I already had an affectionate connection to Sony’s machine and there was little love lost on Sega’s child. I think time has proven me correct on the choice, although the Dreamcast still is a quality platform.
And so came along a large string of classic games such as Final Fantasy X, GTA III, God Of War, Killzone, Star Ocean and many others. With its astounding library of games, it’s not hard to understand why the PS2 is still supported by Sony to this day. And that’s 10 years later!
A Gamecube would also make its way into the game room, because of the nice exclusives it had going. Such games include Super Smash Bros Melee, Doshin The Giant, Mario Kart: Double Dash and more. Nintendo has always marched to its own drum and back then the Gamecube was the second console to be branded “kiddie”. After the Nintendo 64 releasing more colorful games en masse, the gaming community started looking down on the Gamecube. Even the new Zelda game received a more colorful appearance and sparked quite some controversy. In the end, I believe it’s commendable to stand true to its own beliefs and make that work for you.
Doshin The Giant
If that wasn’t enough, I’d soon sink my teeth in even more games. When I was over at a friend’s house, I had to entertain myself for a few hours while he was running errands. He had an Xbox hooked up and some random games lying around. I decided to start with the title that piqued my interest the most. Popping Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Repulic in, I was amazed at the quality of the game and Xbox. I tried out other games with Jade Empire and Fable and after just a few minutes I was completely hooked. More so, I was severely addicted and I would get my hand on those games by any means necessary. I went out and bought an Xbox just 1 month away from the Xbox 360 release.
As a whole, I’ve discovered that the Bioware formula for games always stands for a quality gameplay experience. With games like Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire, KOTOR and Dragon Age they’ve been consistently bringing out some of my favorite games. It might not be the most original approach, but if it’s not broken…
Around my 22nd birthday Sony had jumped into the handheld market, until then monopolized by Nintendo. Prior to this people didn’t even refer to “handhelds” but “Gameboys”. That’s how rooted in Nintendo was in the portable gaming world. My love for Sony was big and the potential of the machine was quite impressive, compared to anything else available at the time. My luck would have it that a friend bought a launch model and had another one given to his brother a week later. Seeing no need for 2 PSP’s I got to purchase a new model for an incredible discount. But unfortunately the games would not live up to the systems potential. The Sony handheld would be used more as an mp3 player and expensive paper weight, than it would for boring games like Untold Legends. Luckily, Final Fantasy: Crisis Core was released and another part of that franchise had me playing non-stop for days. The conclusion from that game is still burnt into my memory as the greatest and most moving handheld experience I’ve encountered.
Crisis Core
Once I moved out of the house, the craziness was allowed to blow with full force. Since then I’ve tried acquiring any system that would allow me to live the great gameplay days and great gameplay games I love so much. I currently own a NES, SNES, Gamecube, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, Master System, Mega Drive, Game Gear, Xbox, Playstation, Playstation 2, PSP and a PC. I would continue to gain games and systems, but after a dozen platforms and 500 games my tiny, one room apartment is becoming cramped. If I’d like to create an exhibit, it’d make an excellent museum, but I have to live here. Allow me to present some very outdated picture of my collection so far.
*Click the 3 pics to enlarge*
As this history lesson finally starts drawing to a close, I’d like to offer my services to you all. If you can recognize a game you’d like to know more about, feel free to contact me. But please, I beg you, try to refrain from asking about popular franchises, such as Final Fantasy. It’s not that I wouldn’t love to indulge, but I’d have no real informing additions to bestow to a classic everybody knows. That’s basically why I spend my time playing the strangest, most obscure titles I can get my hands on and pay for myself from my hard earned cash. If you’d like to hear my take on a game I haven’t yet acquired, you can always send me a copy, as long as it’s in the appropriate region code.
You can also get first looks at the games I’m playing and all sorts of previews if you subscribe to my Youtube channel. Not surprisingly, this channel is almost completely dedicated in bringing consistent game content.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must get back to playing more games, as my backlog stretches far into the dozens of untouched masterpieces. Each and every one of those I would like to see through to the end.
Let the naysayers hate; telling me to get a life. From 1987 until now, I am a gamer and this is my life!
Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed.
