NES when I was around six... I remember thinking I was pretty hot shit when I got through world 1-4 at my great grandma’s house only to realize the game didn’t end after rescuing the first Toad. Got an SNES for Christmas four years later and spent an ungodly amount of time on NBA Live ‘95. Played multiple 82 game, full 12 minute quarter seasons. Wrote down my stats each game because I was that nerdy and into stats. N64 with Goldeneye was probably the most fun I remember having with video games while with friends. Got a PlayStation around the same time and mostly played Final Fantasy on it. My PS2 was one of my first big purchases after getting a job in high school. My ex-wife got me a Wii and later a PS3 along with GTA one year. Pretty much took a long pause on gaming once my firstborn came into the world, but bought him a Switch about a year ago. It has been a lot of fun reliving some of those days with my oldest and it has become just one more thing for us to bond over. I’ve always had a healthy balance with gaming and being social and active and I hope to instill that in my kids as well. These days it’s been tough for me to get into gaming if it’s not with my boys. Though Breath of the Wild was a nice way to distract myself during the worst parts of my divorce.
My dad taught me how to play chess when I was young. I have taught chess classes to elementary school kids in an after-school program. Chess is the ultimate game of strategy and consequence. It teaches you to look ahead and not merely anticipate, but to understand your opponents reasoning and thus their future moves.
Am I the only one that had a Sega Saturn? I know it came out at a weird time between consoles and was more popular in Asia than the US, but it had some solid games. Barry Sanders was unstoppable in Madden 97. My older brother moved to Alaska and took it with him, eventually selling it. I'm still a bit pissed at him for that.
My girlfriend and I play that through our phones along with some other games. We’re fairly new to it and she tends to kick my ass.
Who had one of the hipster choices in the fourth gen consoles: Sega CD, Turbo Grafx 16 or the NeoGeo?
Lawn Darts with the metal tips!!!! Capture the Flag, Kick the Can, King of the Mountain Had three friends that we would spend untold hours playing whiffleball and a baseball game called Over the Line as well.
I had Sega CD and couldn't will myself to like it. The games I had/rented were bad, mostly. It came with Sewer Shark which was borderline unplayable because it was almost all full-motion video with janky targeting controls and navigation. Boring, repetitive maze of a game. Bram Stoker's Dracula looked great but the control lag was brutal. I remember Jurassic Park being point-and-click like a PC game and I didn't have the patience for it as a 12-year old. Road Rash, I think that was pretty fun... Dragon's Lair, looked great, punishing difficulty... also some kind of Western/Sci-Fi game I don't remember the name of. I think I had a bad selection of games on a console that had a bad selection overall.
Dragon's Lair is the only game I still remember from that era of trying to use CD quality video for games. Looked amazing, but it was basically just watching a movie and pressing buttons at exactly the right moments to keep the movie running. Even though it ultimately wasn't much fun, I still have affection for it.
