Oldschool gamers

[Dennis]

33 .... old! Oh how I long for the days of YOUTH! (Not really.) Safe to say I've got 33 beat by a decade, but I know I'm not the oldest one here, but close.

Now I must get my walker and go get some lunch, I have an appointment at the Scooter Store.

Age is state of mind, I still feel about 18 to 20 years old, I still do most of the same stuff now that I did then (don't sky dive any more), the only difference is that now I sometimes hurt the next day. 
My wife and I have gone through Pong, played Space Invaders, and Asteroids. The real fun started with Nintendo, our daughter got us hooked on that so now we spend a lot of time with the Gamecube, and as soon as I can find a Wii system we'll go to that.

[Torgo]

The first system that I actually ever had was the Atari 5200 back when it came out back in the early 80's.

While it was nice to have pretty much arcade perfect versions of Pac Man and the such, my god that system had some of the worst controllers ever.

The 2nd system I had was the Sega Master System.   Never had a NES if you can believe it!

I then got a Sega Genesis, then a SNES, then I moved onto the Saturn, PS1, Dreamcast and PS2.

[Torgo]

So...how old are you Andrew?
I say 33 or 34.

I know you're close to my age.  I turn 33 this year.
There's no shame in admitting it.  

I'm an old f**ker too.  Just like you!

I'm turning 32 on March 7th. Seems to be a lot of 30 something people that frequent this site.   

[Torgo]

Damn... I'm 22. I guess i don't really qualify to be "old school"

I guess that's one thing that I love about being in my early 30's, is that I've been able to see video games improve and get better throughout almost their whole lifespan to a certain extenet.

From the Atari 2600 to the PS3, it's amazing where games have gone in terms of technical prowess.

but I do feel more and more that developers are concentrating too much on how games look as opposed to how they actually play.

Oh, and I have an arcade version of Tempest in my spare bedroom.   

[CheezeFlixz]

Damn... I'm 22. I guess i don't really qualify to be "old school"

I guess that's one thing that I love about being in my early 30's, is that I've been able to see video games improve and get better throughout almost their whole lifespan to a certain extenet.

From the Atari 2600 to the PS3, it's amazing where games have gone in terms of technical prowess.

but I do feel more and more that developers are concentrating too much on how games look as opposed to how they actually play.

Oh, and I have an arcade version of Tempest in my spare bedroom.   

The other day when my 11 y/o was playing on her DS she stopped and looked up and said "Daddy, what video games did you play when you was my age?" I busted up and said 'Lincoln Logs Sweetie. She replied "Lincoln Logs? That's not a video game!" and I said "Right."
Seeming some what puzzled she stated "So Papaw (My Dad) never bought you any video games ... EVER?" (Say this like a young girl ... 'eH-ver' and leave you mouth open after it's said.)
So I said 'Nope, he never did, he deprived your dear ol Dad of those luxuries, why he wouldn't even get us a microwave, cordless or cell phone .... child he was so mean he wouldn't even get us cable." (FYI I'm talking about the 1960's here)
My daughter set there looking confused and a little miffed that her kind sweet grandfather could have ever been this awful, she demanded to call him right away, which I did and my Dad being a prankster too, played along without missing a beat that he was this mean father that wouldn't get his kids video games. Finally my wife told my daughter, honey they hadn't invented video game when your Dad was your age.
So with these soulful eyes, she looked at me and said "You must really be old Dad?"

I am, sweetie, I am.

LOL ... 

[clockworkcanary]

re: The Wasteland

I remember this game!  Post nuclear Vegas right?  My friends and I played the hell outta this game.  I remember finding a howitzer (sp?) shell and later a howitzer so we started firing it off only to later realize we blew away parts of a town across the map lol!  oops!

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

RIght, post nuclear Vegas.
-Ed

[Torgo]

AWESOME GRAPHICS!   

[JaseSF]

The classic Atari games were always my faves. Mrs. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Plague Attack, Barnstrorming, Defender (I loved those games, actually I bought the Atari collection for the PS2 that has some of the classic Atari games but y'know it just isn't the same playing them with a PS2 as it was with the Atari, also perhaps the only machine I managed to take apart and "fix", well it lasted a few years anyways.) Those games had one delightful common element that so many of today's games lack. They were simply fun, not a well dressed up boring exercise in sameness that so many games are now.

[BTM]

>Angel Devoid

Whoa, whoa, can that actually be played on the PC?  I actually BOUGHT that game used on ebay awhile back, and I could NOT get the damn thing to run under Windows.  Eventually gave up and sold the game along with several others to someone else.

Although, in retrospect, I wish I had know about DOS emulators, could have tried one of them...

There's a lot of good older games I can't get to play anymore because of the new technology.  For instnace, never got to play The 11th Hour (sequel to 7th Guest) and I don't think it can be run on Windows...

[Viktorcrayon]

BTM, you must try DosBox. A lot of the games won't work without it!

[odinn7]

Great story CheezeFlixz... 

[Ash]

Well whaddaya know?
I found the entry for Name this Game here...
READ MORE

[Mr_Vindictive]

My first console was an Atari 7800 ProSystem.  I got it for Christmas one year after begging for an NES.  I believe I was in Kindergarten at the time.  I remember being upset at getting the Atari then.  This would have been around '88 or so.  I didn't realize at the time that my parents couldn't afford the NES and bought the Atari for me due to it's much lower price.  Over the years, I amassed a huge amount of Atari cartridges mainly from thrift shops and such.  There was one locally where you could get 4 Atari games for about a dollar. 

A few years later, my parents bought me a GameBoy.  The original, huge brick gameboy and I still have it and it still works. 

Then came the SNES which I also have and it still works.  I ocassionally break it out to play some Chrono Trigger.

Around '95 I moved from consoles to PC gaming.  I think that Doom was the main catalyst for that switch.  I've been pretty loyal to that platform since.  I'll never forget the first time I played the original Half-Life.  Amazing isn't strong enough of a word to describe that game.

The SNES was the last console I owned until I got married and my wife bought me a PS2.  I only used it a bit for Grand Theft Auto and such before it's unfortunate demise (long story).

I eventually bought a Dreamcast from a pawn shop, and it's still my favorite of the last gen consoles.

I also own a GameCube currently which I've been using quite a bit lately while going back through Resident Evil 4.

As for handhelds, I bought a DS Lite when they launched earlier this year.  New Super Mario Bros is a ton of fun on it, as are various other games I've discovered such as Advanced Wars DS.

[Torgo]

I've currently been digging playing Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2.

Finally, AN ARCADE PERFECT PORT OF STRIDER!



The rest of the games on this collection are great as well.