After reading so many people write about their gaming histories. I started to feel nostalgic and inspired to write about my own gaming experience.
For me it all started with first being shown my parents Colecovision when I was 3 or 4. With this wonderous console came my love for games as well as my very first scary gaming experience. The first I remember playing was a game called Mousehunt, a pacman style game that made use of the Colecovisions unique controller that had a number pad on it. You would be chased around the screen, whilst collecting cheese dots, but cats. Along the way you could collect bones to summon a dog by pressing '5' on the keypad. The dog would put the cats back to their starting points for a limited time. Oh the memories with this game. I loved that they never ended, there as no 'clocking' a game with these systems. They were basically endless. But the games did gradually get harder and you would eventually die.
For those who have played this system would surely have played 'Venture" a treasure room game filled with different enemies. This game gave me my first real scary experience. If you didn't leave the treasure room within a certain time limit, a green creature 'Venture' would come in to kill you. Good luck escaping the room with this around, he could travel through walls to get you. your heart would throb knowing that you have stayed in the room too long and HE would soon come for you. My heart beats fast even now thinking about the music that came with this green ghostie.
Ahhhhh good times. We were also lucky enough to have the rare Atari attachment for this. Just plug it into the Colecovision and plug the controllers in and off you went.
It was only after finding out about this system that I found out that my parents had an old Pong gaming system. My childhood was filled with so much gaming history that I never realised.
In the late 80's to early 90's my parents brought my Sister and I a NES that came with the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt game. So many good times with those games, and I still have it too as well as the Colecovision. I soon got into renting game from the videostore round the corner. It was the cheaper option to buying them.
1 fond memory I have is going in Myer in the city (Melbourne) where they had the toy floor with a massive Monopoly board on the floor. I went with my family and my parents allowed me to find one game to buy of my very own, my very first game. I wondered the isles pondering which game I wanted to play. I found it, the game I wanted. It was Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors 2. I took it home and played the crap outta that game. Sadly I still haven't finished it.
From this momentous time in my gaming history I finally got my hands on a PC. It wasn't much and it was my cousins 2nd one. It was an Amiga 500. 500kb of RAM and disk only games. How awesome that time was, just picked your game and slotted it in. Nothing more, nothing less. We had a box full of games, One of my faves would have been James Pond, what a great, colourful, vibrant game. In between what we had, one of my older cousins managed to slip me something I shouldn't have had. A disk with that had a very 'naughty' game (OH LA LA).
Around the same time as I was playing the Amiga my best friend got his first PC. A lot of my fav PC experiences happened around him. He had the upgrade bug and was constantly upgrading his PC. Not only his PC, but his gaming collection. He had games for both the hard disk & floppy disk types. This time spanned from the early 90's till about 1997, the playstation had arrived.
I worked hard to get money to buy my first playstation. I had a casual job and saved every cent I had to get one. I can still remember how I felt when that box was handed over the counter to me. I got it home eager to unbox it and play my very first game Crash Bandicoot. I got it out and plugged it into the tv, tuned in the tv to the right station and off I went.
One of the next games I knew I had to have came after I read GAMEPRO magazine, it was a star wars game calle Masters of Teras Kasi. From there I rented my first multi-disc game MYST. Spanning 4 discs in total at the time, and confused the absolute crap outta me LOL. After that weird experience I head towards the RPG arena, I went & brought Final Fantasy VII. What a fantastic game it was, never seen graphics like it before. That game started my love for RPG's, even if I never ever really finish them I still love playing them.
I eventually got my PS1 modded and brought a bunch of copied games. Even played a copy of Thrill Kill, that is one really weird twisted game for back then.
There came a period where I went buying up NES games from the local pawn shop for cheap and expanded my collection there. I even completed a game I never finished, Super Mario 1. I know, I know it took me ages to finish it. But can you imagine my joy when after 12yrs I finally finished it. I still haven't finished Mario 3, And I thought that Mario 2 was a complete joke when you knew the right potion & vase to take.
The PS2 came, and was a bit of a blur to me. There are no overally exciting memories of having my PS2. I went on to purchase many Final Fantasy games for my collection. And went from the Fat PS2 to the slim one after disc reading dramas with the fat one.
I then went on to purchasing the PS3, oh I love my PS3 with an absolute passion. My collection stands at about 190 games thus far. My fav memory was getting that very first Platinum trophy, hearing that DING. I was so excited that I was jumping round the house. From there I had to get another. But from there I discovered EBAY and how cheap games could be so I started buying and not really enjoying my games. I then discovered buying games from the UK, cheaper again. And my buying spree continued. Over the 5 odd years that I had my 40gb (upgraded to 320gb) PHAT PS3, I loved it to death. And up until last week everything was perfectly fine. Or so I thought. My PS3 suffered the dreaded YLOD, I almost died myself then I realised what had happened. It was like losing my best friend. But I figured that it was time that I get a new slim one and start enjoying my games again. Even if my fiance calls me a trophy whore, I don't care. I will still buy my games and my game collectables and I will enjoy them.
So upto this date I have the following pieces in gaming history:
1 Colecovision with Atari attachment.
1 PS1, 1 PS2, 1 PS3, 1 Wii, 1 NES.
So there you have it folks, my gaming history. I have a lot of highs and few downs. And I still enjoy my gaming and always will. Thanks for reading.