"Holy Crap" restrospectives on gaming in your youth

[Shoeberto]

Are there things you ever look back on from when you were a wee gamer that kinda shocked, surprised or was interesting to you?

Some of the ones I have is realizing how so many of the awesome games my friend had for his computer that we spent hours on were really just shareware distributed on CDs, as was common back in the Windows '95 era. But seriously... the Doom, Descent, Jazz Jackrabbit and Tyrian demos were so great.

Speaking of those, it was a bit of a shock when I realized that Jazz Jackrabbit and Tyrian were made by Epic. They were such a different company back then! Makes me wish they'd revisit some of them in spite of being busy with all the UE3 stuff.

And I was pretty much a badass for how far I could get in Megaman X without breaking a sweat. Really, the only part that gave me much trouble back then was Sigma's final final form, and if it weren't for how drawn out the process was of getting to him I probably would've finished him off. But it was kinda annoying so I didn't. But man, now I can barely even make it through those last few Sigma stages without taking a beating.

Gaze into your youth and be amazed!

[XxSephirothxX]

Tyrian was badass. I didn't even notice it was made by Epic. I still have that on my harddrive, actually, because I looked it up six months ago or so due to the fond memories. I don't it runs so well on XP though, and the resolution is wicked stretched.

Did you ever enter the "Destruct" code at the menu and play the battle mode?

[Shoeberto]

No, we didn't really have any access to cheat codes (this was pre-anyone-I-knew-having-internet), but we definitely did two-player all the time; one at the mouse, the other at the keyboard. We had a hard time deciding who'd get the carrot ship.

On a related note: opentyrian - Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/)
Full game, open-sourced, updated to use SDL so it runs well on modern machines. There's a Nintendo DS port as well that I'll likely be playing a lot for the next few weeks.

[XxSephirothxX]

Very sweet.

Srsly, type destruct at the main menu and try out the two player. It's a pretty damn fun little strategy game.

[KentaRawr!]

I always look back and realize how late I was to gaming. :p I was born in 1992, and my first system was an NES. Then, we got an SNES, and somewhere along the lines a Sega Genesis. I never realized how long they had been out.

[Loony BoB]

Dig Dug to this day has the greatest sound set of all games, despite how primitive it is.

DOS based games never had the same problems Windows based games have.

I liked how when a new game came out, you didn't have to assume it was just another FPS. And people would come over just to watch you play on your PC.

[Flying Mullet]

I still remember the first time I played Final Fantasy it took me over three weeks to beat. It seemed so huge at the time because the only other game I had to compare it to was Dragon Warrior and that took one to two weeks to beat.

[Necronopticous]

I beat Riven all by myself when I was thirteen, something I'm very proud of now.

[White Raven]

I was pretty proud of my self when I beat the original Comander Keen. :D

Also, this weird PC game called Treasure Hunter, where this guy with a butterfly net would climb a mountain, catching these elf creature in order to get treasures.

Good times...

:)

[Momiji]

No, we didn't really have any access to cheat codes (this was pre-anyone-I-knew-having-internet), but we definitely did two-player all the time; one at the mouse, the other at the keyboard. We had a hard time deciding who'd get the carrot ship.

On a related note: opentyrian - Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/)
Full game, open-sourced, updated to use SDL so it runs well on modern machines. There's a Nintendo DS port as well that I'll likely be playing a lot for the next few weeks.

I don't understand. How does this work? o_O

[Dreddz]

I guess most of my youth consisted of me playing Tekken with my brother. I'd also play FFVII obsessively. Good times, good times.

[Kes]

Young me spent a great deal of time watching my younger brother play on our SNES/N64. While we had several games (of the Mario and Donkey Kong variety) that allowed for level advancement done in teams, it wasn't long before I felt bad wasting all the lives dying right away and would instead spend my time in the first few worlds beating them over and over again in order to get more lives for my brother to use.

I remember spending a large amount of time watching him beat Donkey Kong 64 while blasting Eiffle 65, forever resulting in my association of the song "My Console" to be with an N64 despite the fact that the chorus is pretty much just "P-L-A-Y-S-T-A-T-I-O-N".

Edit: Oh, I didn't totally fail at video games. I could kick some serious butt at Yoshi Tetris Attack.

[Markus. D]

It was a constant N64 binge for me n___n~

I remember having the l33test Iggy skills (Speedrun speed!), I try play it nowadays, I come at most... second.

:[... of which in that game means you're the first loser.

[Creeping Shadow]

I was really into the "Street Fighter" series when I was younger and I got really good at it, (Especialy the "alpha" series) About a week ago I picked up Street fighter alpha 3 and got served by the AI on multiple occasions, in short I was out of practice.

[JKTrix]

I only had this pointed out to me a few months ago, but when I saw it, I had a 'Whoa.' moment.

http://i32.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:/r94o5y.jpg

The bushes are just green clouds.

[Flying Mullet]

That's awesome. :)

[Rase]

Also, this weird PC game called Treasure Hunter, where this guy with a butterfly net would climb a mountain, catching these elf creature in order to get treasures.
Hell yeah! Used to play that at my school all the time in like, 3rd grade. :D

[edczxcvbnm]

I can't remember some of the oldest games I had because they were for the commodore 64 and my parents threw that away when it stopped working. I do remember having Montezumas Revenge for it and it being totally awesome.

Other more obscure games I remember are
Quarentine
Menzobmerazam or some :skull::skull::skull::skull: like that
Midnight Rescue
The Yukon Trail
Challenge of the Ancient Empires!
Bump n Jump

Then there are other games that I love to still go back and play =D
Warcraft
The Legend of Zelda
Bigfoot
Jaws
Jackal
Donkey Kong

Good times =D

[Madame Adequate]

Each time I encountered a new alien race in X-Com was just like "What?! WHAT?!"

Floaters: What? They can fly? How is that fair?

Cyberdiscs: I can't kill this thing! I've hit it with like four grenades! And it just won't di-DEAR GOD HUGE EXPLOSION!!

Snakemen/Chrysalids: Okay, these aren't SO bad I guess. Actually yeah, I can take these guys alright. But what's this insect looking dude? Wait, HOW far did he just run?! He just killed my g... no, he just turned my guy into a zombie!! THE ZOMBIE JUST HATCHED A NEW CHRYSALID! JESUS CHRIST GET IN THE SKYRANGER!

Mutons: Someone get the blaster launcher! Actually, get two!

Ethereals: Smurf this, I'm going to start again.

Sectoids: .... they never mind controlled me last time T_T

[Heath]

I used to love Pushover. Not only was it sponsored by Quavers (one of the mightiest of crisps), but it was a pretty funny little puzzle game. No idea if they did a follow up or not.

Games that me and my friends got the most excited over tended to be fairly run of the mill ones. Dungeon Keeper was something that me and my friend Mark got really into. I remember once it being time for me to go home but we convinced my Dad to let me stay ten minutes or so extra to see what would happen if we levelled up a Horned Reaper to level 10. Not sure if you'd count Dungeon Keeper obscure (it's not as well known as Bullfrogs other games such as Theme Park and Theme Hospital), but it was a great game in its day. Used to like Jazz the Jackrabbit as well.