by transience
I was born in 1980, so I've pretty much grown up with the gaming industry. There were a few games before me that I was too young to appreciate, but from the NES on I've had a front row seat to watching games go from text-only to 200 hour behemoths.
These are the games that had a profound impact on me. Some aren't even for good reasons. This certainly isn't a 'favourite games of all time' list, though I'm sure a lot of it will cross over.
Showing 1-10 of 22 items
This is the first game that I can remember playing. As a 3 year old, my life was dedicated to finding some way to play Lode Runner. My family would tell me that I could play for a little while if I did some odd chore and I would run to do it. Nothing was more important than playing this game. I would have walked over hot coals for 30 minutes of playing this game.
Infocom games were all that there was for me from like 1984-1986. I didn't have a NES yet and no longer had an Apple 2e to play Lode Runner on. I started with Wishbringer, but never completely got into them until I played Zork 1. This game confused the hell out of me when I was five years old -- the puzzles were so obtuse and the solutions so rigid, but I would still play it constantly. I can remember going to my dad's work one day and just playing Zork all day. He hooked up a printer that printed everything I did and made it into a binder -- I can see it now -- LUKE'S GREAT ADVENTURES IN ZORK 4/19/86. I threw that book away when I was like 15 because, honestly, what purpose is this ever going to serve? I have been pissed off at my 15 year old self ever since.
I can remember seeing this game in the arcade in like 1985 and I was never the same afterward. You had stuff like Tron and Pac-Man with hideous pixel graphics, and then you had the full-motion video of Dragon's Lair. As a 5 year old, there was Dragon's Lair and there was everything else. I spent tons of money on its trial-and-error patterns until I memorized it and was able to get to the end flawlessly.
awww yeah. I loved the arcade version of this game. When my mother agreed to buy my brother and I a NES, she had to make a decision. My brother wanted Mario 2. I wanted Karate Champ. My brother won. Ultimately his game ended up being better because the NES version of Karate Champ is laughably bad, but I've still never forgiven him for this.
This, The Simpsons, X-Men, Gauntlet -- all these four player beat em ups were what I lived for back in the late 80s. I used to go to my local arcade where we could get unlimited tokens from 9am til noon on Saturdays for $5. I'd get up extra early, call my friend and we'd make the 2 mile walk each morning. It was more like a pilgrimage.
I was obsessed with this game. The Wizard was the greatest movie of all time because of the epic Mario 3 reveal. I studied Nintendo Power's strategy guide endlessly. I could identify every N-card house within a couple of moves and complete it without looking at a guide. I would get every treasure ship and P-wing in the game. Ironically, I don't really like this game all that much right now - I think I just played the life out of it in 1990 and 1991 and I haven't gotten over it yet.
When I first saw this game in Nintendo Power, I was like "who the hell would like this game?" I was actually upset that they were dedicating an entire issue to Final Fantasy. I can remember buying Mega Man 1 and renting Final Fantasy on the same day. I rented it because I wanted to have an informed opinion on why this game was stupid. I have never been the same since. I have probably poured a thousand hours into the original Final Fantasy. I don't think I even opened Mega Man 1 for weeks.
I had a Turbografx 16 and a Genesis before I had a SNES, but those never really had one single game that hooked me. Final Fantasy II was that game for me - the opening just floored me. I was like "holy crap, look at these awesome graphics!" as Cecil busted some floating eyes with lightning spells or something. I would rent this game from the store, set my alarm for 4:15am and play it before school. I tried like hell to finish it but I could never get far enough before I had to return it a couple days later. I would then rent it again, start over and get a little bit further before having to return it again. I finally made it to the moon on my last try and then a kid I know in school goes "HEY LUKE DID YOU PLAY FINAL FANTASY 2 YET? IT'S REALLY AWESOME WHEN" and then spoils the game for me. Screw Aeris, this is my moment. I have never forgiven this kid 15 years later.
I have so many stories about this game that I don't know where to start. I played it when it came out in the arcade, but I had no idea what I was doing so I felt like it was a waste of money. I rented the original SF2 when it came out for SNES and just fell in love. I went and rented a Game Genie along with it to try and unlock the four boss characters but it didn't work. I tried about a thousand codes that week. I never used a Game Genie again. I practiced with all the characters. I used to write the special moves out in my notebooks during study hall every day. It was all I thought about. We had two machines at my arcade, the old SF2 version and then Hyper Fighting on a huge-ass projection screen. All the really good players played there while the bad ones played on the crappy OG SF2 machine. After weeks of practice, I decided to brave the big screen. I had like a six game winning streak, but I could never figure out how to do a dragon punch. All the kids watching noticed this and were like "dude, do a dragon punch!" "I don't know how!" "just do a forward fireball!" It was a close match at the end of the third round and this Blanka jumps at me and I do it. Blanka makes his death sound, the whole arcade explodes and I win. No video game moment will ever top this. When Hyper Fighting came out for the SNES, it was literally all I did throughout the 90s. For years, my best friend and I would just have SF2 competitions. If FF1 isn't my most played game, SF2T is.
SF2 was my life until MK2 came out. I liked MK1 a lot and bought a Game Gear for MORTAL MONDAY, but it was MK2 that actually toppled SF2 as my favourite fighting game. I lived at my arcade in 1993 so I could play this game. I knew I was there too long when people started to recognize me. This one kid says to his friend, "dude, don't lose your money! This kid kicks everyone's ass." That was when I knew I needed to find something else to do.