Gaming Retrospective (Part 1)

Let's take a look into my childhood... specifically, the birth of my hobby of video games. Video games have in large part shaped a lot of my online behavior, directing me to certain sites and learning certain things. Who knows what I might have done had I taken a different path, played different games on different systems, or not played at all?

My first video game system was an Atari 2600. This ancient wood-paneled box is basically an antique nowadays, and it's a good deal older than I am. I have some foggy memories of playing it as a toddler of about three years old. We had Pac-Man and Circus Atari, but the one I always played was Space Invaders. I claim that Space Invaders was my first ever video game, and even if it wasn't it was the one that made me love video games. It's funny, though - we definitely had an Atari 2600, but the original arcade version resonates with me better than the Atari 2600 version, which has drastically different-looking graphics. I'll chalk it up to weird childhood memory blurriness.

So anyway, one fine day my little toddler self is blasting some aliens when the unthinkable happens - the system shuts down. To this day I don't know what happened, but the Atari broke somehow. My best guess is that it got clogged with dust or something, and back then my family didn't know how to clean a video game system. The Atari never worked again, and being four years old I bawled my eyes out. But there was a solution - I was going to get a new video game system as a birthday present, because fortunately my birthday was only a few weeks away when the Atari gave up the ghost.

My parents didn't know about any hot new games that everyone was buzzing about those days, so they met with my (significantly older than me) cousins and asked "What's the best video game system available?" They answered Sega Genesis.

Now, the Genesis and me, we were tight. I loved the crap out of that thing from the moment I got it. It came into my possession on my fifth birthday with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as a pack-in title. Also, in a great moment of derp, my dad added a second game to the package: Davis Cup Tennis. Thus began my long and proud history of not giving a crap about sports games.

Not long after getting the Genesis, it was determined that we needed more games. My mother and I headed off to Ames, a now-sadly-defunct department store chain, and picked up three new games: Super Street Fighter 2, Ms. Pac-Man, and Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck. A while later, game six - Socket - was added. Fortunately (considering the high price of video games even back then), all four became classics in my home, and my mom was able to join in for the first two. I have fond memories of watching my mom and dad slug it out in Street Fighter, and she loved Ms. Pac-Man so much that she regularly played it by herself. In a way, she also helped in Chuck Rock II - there's a button-mashing minigame about five levels in, and I always had her try it because I was terrible at button-mashing.

The Sega Genesis remained top dog in my home for a long time. It helped that as late as 1998 new Genesis games were being made and old ones still had room on retail shelves. I added to my collection right up until 1999 or so, and just as the Genesis finally began to fade, there was one thing that drove me to get a new video game system. You may be able to figure it out, but I'll elaborate next time when I continue this gaming retrospective.

For all of my systems I'll give some recommendations of some favorite games of mine. I'll be mixing it up a little with both classic popular games and some lesser-known ones that I found deserved more attention.

GB's Genesis Favorites:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic 3 and Knuckles
Streets of Rage 2
Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers
Toejam and Earl
Contra: Hard Corps
VectorMan
Chuck Rock and Chuck Rock II
Socket