One of modern life's little joys (at least for me) is playing retro video games (my current addiction is Bust-A-Move).
Anyway, here's a bunch of fragments of my childhood, adolescent, and adult memories of video games:
The Early Years
My first video game memories come from the arcade. Sometimes my dad would play pool at Rocky J's (the neighborhood pool hall) on Saturday mornings when my mom was shopping or running errands. We would go once a month or so, and it felt like a reward every time. Occasionally, we might run an errand before or after the pool hall, but it still felt like we were getting away with something. My dad would give me one or two dollars' worth of quarters to keep me busy as he played pool.
I still remember the sights and smells of the arcade, the smoke, the cue chalk, the machine/wood-like smell from the arcade machines...yeah, it seems like it was yesterday.
I used my quarters very, very carefully. I would often watch other people play or watch the game "previews" as I would call them. My favorite machines were Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, and Mappy (I had no idea how to play Mappy, and I would usually promptly die). I remember staring in wonder at Dragon's Lair and believing I was living in the future.
Sometimes after playing a few rounds of pool, my dad would take me to 7-11 and get me a Slurpee. Days like that made a Saturday feel perfect.
Atari 2600
The first console we owned was the Atari 2600. We purchased the console when I was around 6-8, most likely during the Video Game Crash, between 1983 and 1985. At the time, my folks weren't rolling in it, so the price slashing of the system was critical for us to purchase it in the first place.
I don't remember being aware that the Atari existed, but just because I don't remember begging for it doesn't mean it didn't happen. One of my core memories about the purchase was holding the box on the way home in a darkened car at night, staring at the box in awe.
The console came with Combat, and my sister and I played the heck out of that. We had some epic battles that would occasionally result in near-actual combat in real life. We loved it.
Here are the games that we owned:
Asteroids, Carnival, Combat, Defender, Demon Attack, E.T., Ms. Pac-Man, and Pac-Man.
My favorites were Demon Attack, Ms. Pac-Man, and, of course, Combat if you had another person to play with.
I was utterly perplexed at how to play E.T. I didn't think the game was "bad" (although E.T. is considered one of the world's worst games), but I found it confusing and frustrating. Of course, I would wind up stuck in the pit, but I thought I was doing something wrong.
We usually had the Atari set up in the living room, but one day we had it hooked up in my parents' bedroom. I was lying on the ground, with my feet perched at the base of the TV as I played Pac-Man. I started rocking the television back and forth as I played because...I guess it was fun? Soon after, I rocked the TV a little too much, and the television came tumbling down on me. Luckily, I managed to "catch" it with my feet. I lay on the ground, compacted like an accordion. I screamed for help,p and my mom quickly arrived to help.
We would play the Atari in spurts, sometimes having it set up for weeks or months and then unhooking it because my mom thought it was unsightly. I think we ended up selling at a garage sale at some point in the 90s, but I'm not quite sure.
NES
I remember playing the NES (we just called it the "Nintendo") at my friend's house sometime in 1987. As it was the hottest toy in the country, I promptly started begging my parents for a Nintendo. I would have to wait until Christmas of 1987.
My sister and I loved playing Super Mario Brothers. A sibling rivalry naturally occurred, and we found ourselves in a race to see who could beat the game first. I was devastated that spring when she beat me to it. I beat the game a few weeks later, but it was cold comfort. After she beat the game, she didn't have much of an interest in video games (except playing a little Sonic 2 with me).
I never ended up having many games because if I had money, I was a sieve. Any extra money I earned or came into was gone within days, spent on comic books or baseball/basketball cards. Saving up $50 or $60 for anything was unimaginable at age 10-12.
For at least the first 8-12 months we had the NES, the only game I had was Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cart and I played Mario in every way imaginable, I would play to just get all the coins, get all the bricks, try to pass the game without killing anything, try to pass the game with no deaths, etc., etc. one time I remember I kept dying in the same spot....so I took the game out of the Nintendo and threw it across my front lawn, hitting my neighbor's tree. Immediately, this broke my rage, and I sheepishly picked it back up, and to my relief...of course, the cart still worked!
I borrowed Metroid from my buddy Adam. We all traded tips, secrets, and rumors with friends at school. I drew maps and wrote down the intricate and complex passwords. The passwords inevitably ended up written on tiny pieces of paper, all across my room....and losing them was the worst. When I passed the game, it felt like a real achievement (to be fair, passing almost any game made in the 80s or 90s is an achievement).
I also borrowed Double-Dribble from my buddy Adam, and I eventually bought it for ten bucks. It was so cool when a dunk would happen, and the game would break into those cool cut-away graphics. I loved the game, and yet I also hated it with all my passion.
I would lose my temper when the game would just decide to cheat and hit 12 shots in a row, all the while, my team missed two dunks in a row. Talk about rage. This was the main reason I never really loved sports games..... unless, of course, I had a friend over. The lack of fairness or realism always got to me in sports games.
I was beyond excited when Super Mario 2 came out. A few weeks after it came out, I was able to score a rental of the game, and I was HYPED. The game did not come with the manual, and I played the first world over and over again....I found almost every secret about that first level, all the power-ups, etc., but I never figured out I could lift Birdo's egg! I wasn't the brightest kid around, that's for sure! That said, the game was so good that I still had a good time playing the level, playing as all the characters, and discovering all the various secrets.
I ended up owning SMB/Duck Hunt, Wizards, and Warriors 2: Ironsword, Double Dribble, DuckTales (a blind purchase that luckily turned out to be a great game), and Stinger (also bought from Adam). I held onto the NES for a long time, and sometime in late high school or early college, I ended up buying SMB2 & SMB 3 at the used video game store. I was a huge Mario fan.
It's hard to imagine now, but this game box is what sold the game to me (I was 11-12). I hadn't read any reviews, and I didn't know anyone who had played it. I just liked DuckTales and this cover looked good, so I took a huge risk. I was in sixth grade, I was actually a little embarrassed that I still liked DuckTales, but I bought it anyway. The game still has a great reputation among retro game fans, and it's one of my favorites from the old days.
It's weird to think that I only owned a handful of games, but I borrowed a ton of games or played other games at friends' houses....the games I borrowed or have the most memories of include: Metroid, Kid Icarus, Bayou Billy, Double Dragon, and of course SMB 2 and SMB 3.
Here are some NES games I remember renting:
Abadox: The Deadly Inner War - a really hard shooter, especially for a 12-year-old, but the graphics were gross and kinda cool. I got pretty far from what I remember, likely because what else was I going to do over a weekend??
Amagon - This is a terrible platformer. I tried it out recently and was shocked at how hard it was. I think I was a better gamer back then!
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - I rented this with a friend at a sleepover and we played late into the night trying to figure out this weird game. We felt like detectives playing it without a manual. It always felt like figuring out the game was part of a game....maybe even we were to blame, but it turns out this is a terrible game. I have good memories, though. I remember we laughed a lot.
Taboo - Awful. I came home with this on a Friday night and felt instant regret. What a waste. I fooled around with it for about an hour and gave up. In case you don't know, it's a tarot reading card simulation. Definitely not something I should have been playing, and it wasn't fun, even in a naughty way.
Game Boy
One of the reasons I didn't have many NES games was that I got a Game Boy for Christmas in 1989. The idea of playing Nintendo on the road was just too hard to resist. I didn't think I would get much into Tetris, but, of course, I did. My main memories of the Game Boy have me hunched over or lying down in some weird position near a lamp or light source so I could see that damn screen. I have to admit, I didn't even mind it. It just seemed as if that was the price of admission to have a Game Boy.
I also purchased Metroid 2: The Return of Samus, Super Mario World 2 (I borrowed SMB 1), and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters.
All great games, and I think I passed all of them.
Genesis
My friend Eric was the first person I knew who owned a Genesis. Eric had Altered Beast, but I didn't find that game particularly fun as it was so slow and plodding. On the other hand, I was amazed by Lakers Vs. Celtics, and it felt like video games had evolved.
During 8th to 9th grade, I struggled with the weighty choice of buying an SNES or a Genesis. I was loyal to Nintendo, but something clicked with me, and I went in on the Genesis side. We bought it from an EB "Electronic Boutique" in the mall,l and I played Sonic for the rest of the afternoon. This must have been Christmas 1990, at least that's my guess.
Similar to my NES habits, I didn't own a ton of games, but luckily, I ended up with some great games: Sonic, Sonic 2, X-Men, Captain America and the Avengers, Rocket Knight Adventures, and Street Fighter 2.
My friend Eric had Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, and if I was over at his house or sleeping over, we played endlessly, deep into the night. A lot of great fun and memories....we still quote that game ("What a mistake!") or sign that bopping theme
I really liked the X-Men game on the Sega Genesis. Talk about a creative name, though, "X-Men"? That's the best they could come up with? At least it's short and sweet. Anyway, the game features classic side-scrolling action on the Sega Genesis: great graphics, creative gameplay, and that classic Genesis music.
But there's one legendary, fatal flaw of this game that is some "Grade A" fucking bullshit. This cryptic fuckover ruined the game for thousands of teenagers in the 90s.
In one of the last levels, you come to an apparent dead end, and the game tells you to "Reset the computer".
Okay, so what the hell does that mean?
I punched and kicked at the various computer panels and buttons in the background, as I had assumed I had to find this "computer" in the game. I did this on every screen I could, but the game just laughed in my face.
I searched everywhere to no avail..... like a fruit fly weighed down by piss in the toilet...with nowhere to go, I just sank into the toilet of my own self-loathing. That's the thing about these old games: they gas-lit players into thinking we were the stupid ones, when it was the game itself that was stupid. I once rented Bill & Ted's on the NES, and I thought it was a good game....Yeah, I was that gas-lit.
I invited friends over to help me, but no one could figure out this cryptic bullshit. There was no internet to figure this out. We were kids, what in the flying fuck were they thinking? How is a 14-year-old supposed to figure this out without the internet???
Decades later, I found out that to pass the game you had to press the reset button on the Genesis console itself, thus, "resetting the computer"..... creative, huh?
No, it was utter and total horse shit.
Let me get this straight, you're supposed to push the button that you have never pushed for gameplay..... EVER. It's basically never been done. It's the one button that gamers AREN'T supposed to touch. Remember accidentally hitting reset buttons on my consoles and feeling sick to my stomach, gamers were practically trained that the ONE button you don't hit during gameplay is the reset button. Everyone knew you ONLY hit that button if you're fucking pissed. Why did they even have reset buttons? It's not as if load times were an issue back then, I don't know if I ever had a game freeze up on me in the 8 and 16 bit eras.
I have read comments on the internet about how "genius" this idea was. No, it's buffalo bullshit. I'd rather drink my cat's piss, vomit it up, and drink it again before I would want to be that confused again. The game could have hinted at something, ANYTHING. Even if a clue was written into the manual, that would be something..... of course, not everyone would have it, or they might lose it, but at least it's something.
Geez, you might as well tell me to turn the power switch back and forth, I didn't know the reset button could be fucking programmed to work that way. Hell, they could have told me, "Just turn the game off, you moron, you're not going to figure it out".
Oh, and according to people in the comments, if you pressed the reset button too long, it would reset the game.
That's right, you had to TAP the reset button. What in the name of dog diarrhea is going on here???
I think it is important to point out that the game tells you to "reset the computer". Why in God's green earth COULDN'T it have said "push the reset button", that's at least more accurate of what I was supposed to do, and somewhat of a good clue. Sure, it's still mysterious, but it actually tells you what to do.
Besides, no one called the Genesis a computer; it was a console. Or give some other hint, any hint like, "reset the computer in the outside world," or "think outside the box," or how about this.... don't rely on such a goddamn cryptic bullshit for the person to pass the game. I ask you again,
Yeah, all that was scripted as if I were the Angry Video Game Nerd. I exaggerated for sure, but that reset button bullshit still boils my blood.
Ahem, anyway...
At some point, I fell in love with Street Fighter II.
I don't know how it happened, as most of my video game history was playing 2-D side-scrolling action games....but I did. I was waiting for months for Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, and in weeks I was a master player (okay, so basically none of my friends could beat me...the arcade I was okay). Even though I hated the character, my chosen fighter was Ken.
Anyway, I must have wasted 10% of that year playing that game.
I owned a PlayStation 1, but it just wasn't the same. I owned Mega Man X and, of course, SF II Alpha. I also played the heck out of SF II Alpha, even bought a book about the game. I also would pop in that legendary demo disc when I was bored.
I loved SF II Alpha, but as college was winding down, I was done playing video games, and I think I sold the PS1 for beer money.
It wasn't until my mid-20s that I would get back into "retro gaming"...but that's a story for another time. In the meantime, spend enough time reading about all the shit happening, but don't read or watch about it after 8:00 PM...I dunno, watch Seinfeld or something and think about it tomorrow.
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