While I was watching my niece and nephew play Minecraft over these past few weeks, I couldn't help but look back at how gaming has changed as I helped them explore and build.
The first gaming device my family ever had was an original pong system that was hooked up to a small nine inch black and white television via alligator clips connected to a UHF receiver. To play against each other we would have to lay on the floor of our living room and play with the two connected controllers only six inches away from each other. Now this system only allowed you to play pong, yet we would still play for hours on the special occasions that we were allowed to play.
The second gaming console that was ever in our house was a Nintendo Entertainment System. This system was bought by my older brother from saving up his money by mowing lawns five dollars at a time. His system was packaged with two controllers a zapper, and a dual disk of Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. While mom and dad still limited us on our playing time, typically an hour a day, they were not as strict as it had been a few years before, usually they only enforced that rule when we would begin to fight over whose turn it was to play. The first games that was bought for the system was as a Christmas present for my eldest brother and myself. He was given The Legend of Zelda, while I received Batman based off the 1990 Tim Burton film. We played these games for almost 6 months without even thinking of asking mom and dad to purchase a new game for us. The idea didn't even occur to us to ask until the town wide garage sale happened and our neighbors where selling their games for only five dollars each. We were granted a single game purchase and we chose Excite bike. We continued to get one or two games a year until the sad day that the system died three years later.
The third console that was ever in the house was an original Gameboy with Tetris that I bought with money from my birthday and First communion. It only took mom and day 3 months to decide that both my older brother and sister each needed their own Gameboys to stop our fighting. One of my fondest memories of the Gameboy was the system link option to play the VS mode on Tetris. Any time we would go on vacation or even a day trip we would load up all three Gameboys, with Tetris Super Mario Land, and a twenty pack of double A batteries. It only took mom and dad a few trips to find the rechargeable battery packs and game us them for an early Christmas present. We never really bought many Gameboy games, we were always content to really play Tetris against each other.
From the age of 14-20 I wasn't really into gaming anymore usually because I was concentrating on either getting a car, fixing a car or just plain working to pay for my car. Now what brought me back in to gaming was playing Halo on the Xbox my sister got for her boyfriend back in 2002. Since then I've bought myself an Xbox, a 360 and now an Xbox One. To this day I still only really play one series faithfully, however I have developed a fondness for Fallout, Destiny, and even occasionally Minecraft.
VGChartz's Evan Norris: "In the end, Mario Kart World doesn't surpass its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But that's like failing to surpass Resident Evil 4 or Half-Life 2; there's absolutely no shame in it. Judged on its own mechanics, systems, and merits, it's a brilliant racing game, a GotY contender, and one of the finest entries in the entire Mario Kart canon, not to mention another in a long line of exceptional launch titles from Nintendo. Is there room for improvement? Yes. The open world could be more organized, the 24-player Grand Prix races could be less chaotic, and the online customization options could be more flexible, but these are relatively minor issues in such a polished, daring, substantial, and joyful game that promises to provide reliable entertainment for years to come."
EA Sports is teasing the announcement of a new college basketball game. This would mark the publisher’s return to the sport since 2009.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is not just one of the best offerings from the series, but in the genre as a whole.
Great story, except for the car part. :)
Gaming has changed immensely over the years and people play games for all sorts of different reasons.
Merry Christmas to everyone, except for the The Lizard Squad.
Nice blog cl, it certainly brought up all my fond memories of gaming over the years. Ahh nostalgia :)
Merry belated Christmas everyone! And here's hoping for less gaming related hacks in 2015.
I like your take on how 3 or four games a year was it. That's the way it was for me when I was with my trusty Master System. I'd get two for my birthday and one or two on Christmas. So when people talk about larger game libraries I'm thinking that's great. 200 games versus 80 games, it didn't matter because I only had 8 games in two years.
So I played my Phantasy Star, Shinobi, Afterburner, Black Belt, Hang on, Safari Hunt, and Double Dragon games just fine when my neighbors played Mario, Final Fantasy, Double Dragon, Excite bike, and Karate Champ. Kids were too happy to complain or compete. We played everything and loved it.
I got some fire tablets for my kids and put 10 games on them and they already want more. We just opened them YESTERDAY!
Times do change. It's definitely the reason I can finish Nes Contra without cheats while my son can't get through the first level without the Konami code.
I still remember when i got my first videogames on Christmas, great memories.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, in 2001, anyone? :)