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[Lord Dullard]

Once in a while I get to thinking about the days when 'cutting-edge graphics' meant 8 or 16-bit, and I get a fuzzy feeling accompanied by memories of being an eight year old playing Chrono Trigger or Starfox.

This thread is for posting your fondest memory (or memories) about the golden days of video game yore. Of course what games are 'old' will be relative to the age of the poster, but that's okay.

My favorite: Coming in from a big family bonfire with several friends/relatives and playing Super Mario RPG for the first time. We all sat around and ate smores and hot dogs and junk food and read the lines from the game as if we were the characters - we were all comfortable enough around each other (and young enough) that the fact that it was incredibly dorky either didn't register or didn't bother us at all.

[moocowmoo]

Every Friday my Dad would drive me to a movie rental store called Cinemagic. It was there that I rented many great SNES rpgs like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Lufia and Breath of Fire series. I'd play for the whole weekend til it was time to dispel the magic and return to school drudgery for the week.

Later on my friend introduced me to Ultima Online and Starcraft, which we played countless hours on (on dial-up) while communicating via phone lol. Those days were great.

[Goron]

Later on my friend introduced me to Ultima Online and Starcraft, which we played countless hours on (on dial-up) while communicating via phone lol. Those days were great.

Ahh yes... I remember those days, except, I was the guy getting people to play UO:-)
Oh how I do not miss dial-up...

[Duke 2.0]

 So yeah, the embodiment of fear for me as a kid. Then a few days later I saw the flying ones.
 And even worse, bees.
 
 
 My first RPG. And damn, nothing can charm me as much as it has.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I used to be terrified watching an early blizz fanatic friend of the family play warcraft 1 as a kid. He also showed me the three lost vikings which I believe is still blizzard's greatest game.

[Lord Dullard]

He also showed me the three lost vikings

Haha, that was an awesome game. I'd completely forgotten about it until now.

Some of the other really good oldies were the early computer games - Hugo's House of Horrors, Alone in the Dark, the early King's Quest games... fun stuff. 

[jnecros]

Romance of Three Kingdoms III. I recall drinking tea and smoking, both common kinds of smoking and playing this thing all weekend with my best friends in jr. high..man those were the days

[S.K. Ren]

Crystalis for the NES was and is still my favorite RPG. It does have bugs and the translation has a few discrepancies, however I think the story holds very well especially compared to the crap people have put out in recent years.

[beorn080]

Kirby Superstar for the SNES. Easily the best Kirby game, barring perhaps some of the earlier ones. Most unique powers of any Kirby, and I'm not counting those combo power things later ones did since half of them were useless/same use as others just different elements. MetaKnight. Wheelierider.

In a similar vein, Kirby Minigolf. Who knew adding spikes to your ball would make minigolf so much more fun.

[RantingRodent]

I was an Amiga gamer for most of my childhood, so nostalgia runs pretty deep. That was a really solid platform that was destroyed by the brainless business-end of Commodore. Bastards.

Me and my dad had a lot of bonding time vaporising each other in Star Control and crushing each other's forces in The Perfect General and Empire. I actually remember a time when Peter Molyneux wasn't a joke. Populous and Powermonger are some really solid gaming, even today.

The funniest thing to think back on though was how floored I was by Final Fantasy 7's graphics. Heh.

[Cthulhu]

My first games (Not counting Pico, which is right at the threshold of memory) were Castlevania Bloodlines, Greendog the Beached Surfer Dude, the first two Mortal Kombat games, Robocob vs. Terminator(The violence in this one was very shocking to me as a small child), Gunstar Heroes, and Sonic 3d Blast.  I accidentally discovered a cheat code in Sonic once that allowed me to access all of the levels.  I believe it involve some kind of glowing panels in world 2.  The farthest I ever made it without cheating was the world 3 boss, where my power went out.

[Itnetlolor]

Commodore 64/128, NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Genesis, Dos, and Windows 3.1, and early windows 95.

That's all I really need to say in regards to systems I call nostalgic.

I can try to name all the games, but many of them are lost in my memory, and others are rather obscure to the point I don't think anybody would get some references.

So to put things, games were my life since I was 2 years old. I mean, I was able to learn some games before my brothers finished reading the manual to them (plenty of them C64 or SMS games). And I wasn't half-bad either, considering my age. I mean, first time playing Mario (around 4 years old), I was able to beat the first 2 levels of world 1, and accidentally find the warp zone and jump to world 4. And the first RPG I was introduced to was Final Fantasy 3(6) which kicked off all RPG interest to date; but the first one I actually beat was Chrono Trigger. And adventure games, Space Quest and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Those got me interested in adventure big time.

I miss the good ol' adventure puzzle game times. Obscure item, another item, and one more. A -> B = AB, AB -> C = D; D goes into door, door explodes to reveal another obscure item seemingly useless at the moment, only to learn it's a Deus Ex Machina by the end of the game (like let's say, a box of chocolates makes you beat the big bad at the end). Eric the Unready was well known for such obscure puzzles like that.

But basically for a good portion of my gaming life, I was a Sonic kid. I had almost every Sonic game for the system, and they were fun. Especially the 2 player mode for Sonic 2.

I guess I was pretty good at puzzles too (especially cracking some copy-protection codes without the manual) sometimes by luck, other times by seeing a pattern. Stunts was probably my first real success. It was mostly car terms, and solving them like a crossword puzzle. Starcon 2, memorize some location names, recognize numbers, and wish for the best of luck (our starmap was short-lived, including the xeroxed copy).

And flight simulators, I would have to say, you can't beat the X-Wing Series. TIE Fighter being the first one I actually beat, training missions and all. That was one hard game (even on an easy difficulty). Ended as a 3rd-level Ace, and a 4th level Inner Ring Sith Jr. Lieutenant.

Oh yeah, and as for a policy regarding cheating in games (sort of an agreement amongst the guys in the family), we are not allowed to cheat in any game unless we have beaten it before legitimately. If we know how to hack into the (save) games, be sure to stay out of each others' save games.

Speaking of cheating; whatever happened to classic codes like (up, down, left, right) or the Konami Code? I mean, I know cheating is still frowned upon, but to take them out almost completely from games, even single-player exclusively? I mean, you have to hack into a game, burn a copy, just to unlock the ability to cheat. Or add in a line of code to make your own cheats, just to be able to cheat. What gives?

Interesting Factoid:
Thanks to enough Adventure Gaming; much of the time, I think like an adventure game combining ridiculous plans with obscure items, and sometimes they actually work. That's the amazing thing. Advantage to being a packrat I guess. I'm like MacGuyver if he were an adventure game character.

[andrea]

The game of my childhood I remember most, and still have on my computer is Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis, my first computer game which I started playing soon after I started to read. And then I took again years later, and the a third time. all 3 times I liked it, and I am sure a 4th is awaiting behind the corner.

In general, I would say all lucasart games of that kind are good, but I learnt about them only recently.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The old Gold Box D&D games, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc. And playing Oregon Trail in the computer lab at school. And the early Mac games Crystal Quest (spaceship shooter thing) and Dungeon of Doom (simple graphical Roguelike).


It's weird to think that pretty soon we'll have people who were nostalgic for playing WoW in their early childhood ...

[Blaze]

It's weird to think that pretty soon we'll have people who were nostalgic for playing WoW in their early childhood ...

"In my day we didn't have no Ultimate Overload class, level 1000 characters, or Automatic-AI grinding programs. Nope, back then we had to pay to have strangers play the game for us, but that was before they made spamming punishable by execution by firing squad. Did I mention that time when I was in Dire Maul and the Easter Bunny came up and slapped me in the face? Then he explained to me that I wasn't actually playing WoW but was in a hospital room for overdosing on LSD and playing for 8 days straight."

Everytime I see Weegee I recall that time I rented Mario is Missing for the SNES, only to find that I had no idea what to do and that all save spots were taken by completed games. And my frustration at trying to play Contra. Then wondering how the heck AI Blanka can do his spinning charge move without backing up.