Gaming; Everybody Has A Golden Era [9 comments]
Jill
Posted in Gaming.
Ahhhh childhood and video games! Such magical memories! And everyone has that one game or console that started it all; the beginning of our beloved hobby and obsession with video games.
I can remember as far back as playing NES & SNES with my brothers in our old playroom, shouting for joy when I shot a duck (I GOT ONE!!!) or running around dancing to the songs on Mario Paint. (Believe me, those are the JAMs!) But the earliest, most significant games I can remember playing were Gyromite & Contra when I was about 6 or 7 years old. Playing those games was about the time that I really started to ditch playing with Barbies and started playing with the games & toys that I thought were much more fun! (Or, at least they were to me, being an only girl with 3 brothers & finally having someone to play with!)
My appreciation for video games started as a youngster, however I never found true love until I discovered the masterpiece which is, ‘Zelda: Ocarina of Time.’ This was the pinnacle of gaming in my childhood. Those were the days with my best friend Jordan, my little brother and I all huddled up around the TV every night after school, trying to figure out what happens next- it was like a whole new world to us!
I remember not being able to figure out why hardly any of the kids I played with, shared the same love for video games as I did. I don’t know if it was just my friends at the time, but it seemed like everybody wanted to do sports or clubs after school, and all I wanted to do was play games and do flips on my trampoline! That’s not to say that I didn’t try.. I attempted to participate in many sports and clubs! Like basketball, soccer, track, volleyball… even dancing! My family encouraged me to try a lot of fun activities, but I never had a passion for anything like everybody else it seemed. I felt different and out of place, and especially being a girl with uncommon interests.
As I got older it became pointless to share my interests with others. It was a lot less “Awesome!”and a little more “Why do I even bother!” So, I conformed like most teenagers do in one way or another and attempted to fit in by not playing as much. I occasionally played alone at home from time to time but usually spent my nights on the computer AOL instant messaging all my “BFFS!~!*!~*!~*!~” (Punch me.) Gaming usually only occurred in the summer or when I wasn’t out doing things with my friends.
It wasn’t until after High School that my love & passion for console gaming was truly restored with Halo 3. Thank you Bungie! I became completely consumed! Once I got on, I played 8 hours a day, 7 days a week or even more! I played before work, after work, I called-in to work… I finally felt at home again and this time I was proud to share it!
Everybody has games & interests that truly mean something to them and just because I felt different growing up, didn’t mean I actually was.
Everybody has their special games or special time period where gaming felt magical to them. Whether it be on NES, PC, Playstation or Xbox 360, it doesn’t matter how many people you played with or what somebody thought about it, it was all about the love of the game!
Looking at gaming now with all it’s cool new features, like friend messaging and voice communication, it’s not hard to find/hear negativity that spreads up gamers like you and me. Call it “shit-talking” but just because you played Gears of War and not Call of Duty doesn’t make you cooler than anyone else and it doesn’t matter if you play Modern Warfare 2 and hate the Halo series, your no better than the next person! People just have different tastes!
“I watched my friend play his SNES throughout childhood, but my own gaming started with the launch of N64. My parents always said we’d never have video games, but they surprised us with an N64 for Christmas, right when they came out. We got Super Mario 64 and Cruisin’ USA. Great times. Since then I’ve had a Gamecube, and still own a Wii and a PS3, both my own. The PS3 easily gets the most play time.” – Justin James Dixon
“SNES when i was being baby sited by my cousin in mexico played duck hunt alllll dayyyyy it was awsome. dint have my own consil ttill the genesis came out i was like 4 5?? then ps1 xbox and now 360 thanks cuz!!!!” – Julio Martinez
“It may actually be in my blood…as a younger one, my mom played D&D and Gamma World…as for me, it all started with NES/SMB3″ – Xerosthemonk
“super mario land on original gameboy. played it for the first time in the dentist office while waiting on getting braces. blew my mind” – Richard Desire
“i’ve been playing video games since i was about 4 yrs old on old school atari, but real gaming started with Diablo 2 i suppose. My first real multiplayer was DaoC and i loved it. i miss daoc.” – Chris Farnsworth
“My first gaming was on an old Tandy computer playing Learning Company DOS games. Super Solvers all the way” – gregmurph
“saving the princess started it all for me. back then i spent hours saving her ass lol” – James Lapp
“Dude, what about Oregon Trail? The game Elementary Schools allowed you to play during class!” – ZaxyTara
“I learned to read by watching my parents play Legend of Zelda and making them read every bit of text to me when I was four.” – f0cus
“It wasn’t so much a game that got me started in gaming, as much as the system. SNES. 5 years old. First Love.” – Blackflame619
[These are responses from people via @Zaxydotcom & Facebook. Join the conversation!]
Just remember that it’s all about the love for the game. It’s not about ‘who plays what’ and how big eachother’s game collection is! It’s all a part of the same love, the same golden era we all once had, no matter how different our tastes are!
Tags: Gaming, GOLDEN ERA, GOLDEN GAME, it, Nintendo, OLD SKOOL, THE WONDER YEARS, What started it all..
Wow great article!
I really love the part about having different tastes in games. I really dont like it when people put down others because they like Gears and dislike COD or the inverse.
Reading this article really made me feel nostalgic for the good old days of Zelda and Halo. I’ve spent many many nights on both of those games :]
I loved the part about us all being gamers albeit with differing tastes. Some say Halo suck, some say it’s Gears, some say it’s JRPGs… Everyone likes something, no need to diss everything else.
I started gaming at age 7. I’d been around arcade machines and Atari before then, and was interested, but I didn’t understand the joy until I made Mario jump over that first Goomba.
I’ve put in 10s of thousands of hours into gaming since then. My first love being Super Mario Bros. My deepest love being The legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (I’ll share her with you Jill). I’m currently seeing quite a few games, main squeezes being Left 4 Dead 2 and Phantasy Star Universe.
Like I say: Gaming is Life.
Gaming has place in my heart that can never be taken away.
The earliest console I remember having was a Sega Genesis (over here it was called the Mega Drive), then there was the N64 but the Playstation got my full attention, since then I’ve been a loyal Sony customer. But PC gaming comes a close second.
Half-Life was the first game I played over and over, still do every year. I consider it the game that molded my gaming interests and even my life, thats how much gaming can have an effect on someones life. I agree with what Tekknight said ‘Gaming IS Life’, pretty soon I’m sure my gaming hours are gonna be limited by my studies.
With technology constatly making games look more epic and real, more complicated to keep up the challenge, yet more recent games are simpler to complete than older ones. It makes me wonder was the challenge or simple nostalgia that people remember these games and whether newer games can top such masterpieces.
In my opinion no game is ever gonna top Half-Life 2 in my book, but ask me 10 years later it might be something else.
My golden era hasn’t ended it started with getting the PS1 that one fateful day and its still going strong today, with me making my living probably being the factor that ends it. We’ll see.
Aww thank you for sharing! I’ve been in an very happy “remember the good ol’ days” mood today and your comments made me go a little bit brighter!
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Contra as well. Thanks for bringing it up again! I remember the first time I learned the secret code of up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. I really thought I was in a secret club that nobody knew about. Now I see it all over varied apparel and feel silly that I might have been one of the few people to know the secret. Maybe that’s why Mortal Kombat felt so fun when you would execute a fatality properly. It wasn’t easy to figure one out without any cheats.
First console I got was NES when I was 4. I went absolutely nuts. I remember getting super mario bros/duck hunt from my cousin and playing it for hours. The game that really sent me down the road I’m on today was Dragon Warrior 4. I may have played through it a half dozen times. Its still in my top 5 games of all time. Oh, the good old days…
It was definitely Super Mario Bro’s for the NES, then of course Legend of Zelda: OOT (acronym). I still play Mario on the NES a lot during the summer. All we have is NES at the lake, so Noah and I spend most of our time seeing who can beat the game the fastest.
Also Track and Field for the NES with the pad. That’s how we got our exercise. Ha ha. Oh and Duck Hunt, man I could go on forever.
The first video game I ever played, that brought me into the tech world, was super mario 64. Soon it followed a flood of games that I played and I’ve never put them down since. When I first got my Nintendo64 it was because my mom asked me if I ever played video games (I was 6) and I answered- “what is a video game?” Pretty sad looking back, but now they are a major role in my life thanks to Mario.
I have so much love for this. I’m glad I was a part of this!