Post Your Nostalgia Gaming Timeline
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hello, I recently got on a nostalgia kick where I want to replay my all-time favorite computer RPG's in order, because I thought that might be fun. All the games on my list are important to me because they represent life stages - career milestones, relationships, popular music, tv, and movies, memories of youth.
I think it would be fun to read other people's lists, too. I Googled original release dates of my personally important games and arranged them into a timeline. For simplicity's sake, I have not included expansion packs.
- Dark Wizard, Sega CD, 1994. This was the grandaddy of them all for me. It was the game that got me hooked on gaming, at age 29.
- Heroes of Might and Magic, August 31, 1995. I needed a place to go after Dark Wizard. HoMM I was the most similar game I could find.
- Heroes of Might and Magic 2, October 1, 1996.
- Might and Magic 6, April 30, 1998. This was just like playing tabletop D&D with my high school buddies. Boy, was I ever hooked on gaming now.
- Baldur's Gate, December 21, 1998. (This date really makes it more of a 1999 release.) The reason we're all here on this forum, and the reason Beamdog exists.
- Might and Magic 7, January 2, 1999. I can't remember if I played this first or BG. I likely would have been more interested in playing this one first, since I was so addicted to MM6 already.
- Heroes of Might and Magic 3, February 28, 1999. Considered the zenith of the 3DO series of Might and Magic games.
- Might and Magic 8, March 7, 2000. The beginning of the end for 3DO.
- Icewind Dale, June 29, 2000
- Baldur's Gate 2, September 21, 2000.
- Neverwinter Nights, June 18, 2002.
- Divine Divinity, August 2, 2002. My first aRPG, and the beginning of an addiction to a new sub-genre of RPG. I had missed Diablo already.
- Sacred, May 19, 2004. Now I was *really* addicted to Diablo clones, even though I still didn't know what that was.
- Titan Quest, June 26, 2006.
- Neverwinter Nights 2, October 31, 2006. The beginning of feeling disappointed with newer releases, and feeling like games were losing something.
- Sacred 2, November 11, 2008. Released with massive stability issues. The first game that got me to buy a new computer just to play that game. Once I finally got it to work, I think I've spent more time in this game than any other as far as total hours played, even BG. The Sacred 2 gameworld is massive and huge, bigger than any other game I've ever seen.
By 2008, I had established a habit of rotating these older games, and only occasionally giving newer games a try, usually to come back to these same old ones. Beamdog was still four years away. When Beamdog launched BG:EE, that reinforced my habit of continually revisiting older games again and again.
I'd love to read some other people's gaming timelines.
I think it would be fun to read other people's lists, too. I Googled original release dates of my personally important games and arranged them into a timeline. For simplicity's sake, I have not included expansion packs.
- Dark Wizard, Sega CD, 1994. This was the grandaddy of them all for me. It was the game that got me hooked on gaming, at age 29.
- Heroes of Might and Magic, August 31, 1995. I needed a place to go after Dark Wizard. HoMM I was the most similar game I could find.
- Heroes of Might and Magic 2, October 1, 1996.
- Might and Magic 6, April 30, 1998. This was just like playing tabletop D&D with my high school buddies. Boy, was I ever hooked on gaming now.
- Baldur's Gate, December 21, 1998. (This date really makes it more of a 1999 release.) The reason we're all here on this forum, and the reason Beamdog exists.
- Might and Magic 7, January 2, 1999. I can't remember if I played this first or BG. I likely would have been more interested in playing this one first, since I was so addicted to MM6 already.
- Heroes of Might and Magic 3, February 28, 1999. Considered the zenith of the 3DO series of Might and Magic games.
- Might and Magic 8, March 7, 2000. The beginning of the end for 3DO.
- Icewind Dale, June 29, 2000
- Baldur's Gate 2, September 21, 2000.
- Neverwinter Nights, June 18, 2002.
- Divine Divinity, August 2, 2002. My first aRPG, and the beginning of an addiction to a new sub-genre of RPG. I had missed Diablo already.
- Sacred, May 19, 2004. Now I was *really* addicted to Diablo clones, even though I still didn't know what that was.
- Titan Quest, June 26, 2006.
- Neverwinter Nights 2, October 31, 2006. The beginning of feeling disappointed with newer releases, and feeling like games were losing something.
- Sacred 2, November 11, 2008. Released with massive stability issues. The first game that got me to buy a new computer just to play that game. Once I finally got it to work, I think I've spent more time in this game than any other as far as total hours played, even BG. The Sacred 2 gameworld is massive and huge, bigger than any other game I've ever seen.
By 2008, I had established a habit of rotating these older games, and only occasionally giving newer games a try, usually to come back to these same old ones. Beamdog was still four years away. When Beamdog launched BG:EE, that reinforced my habit of continually revisiting older games again and again.
I'd love to read some other people's gaming timelines.
Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
8
Comments
My timeline was a mixture of what games were available on Macintosh computers (which is what my dad bought us) and my Super Nintendo (and a Game Boy). Things started out basically at the dawn of the CD-ROM era:
Cosmic Osmo and the World's Beyond the Mackerel: This isn't really a game but more of a point and click playground for children. It is actually on Steam, believe it or not. I'm fairly sure it was obscure even in it's time, but it is where the people who made "Myst" cut their teeth. It's impossible to really explain the appeal unless you were ten years old around the time it came out, and if you missed it then, I doubt it would be understandable now.
Lucas Arts Graphical Adventures: Specifically, the first two Monkey Island games, and the two Indiana Jones adventures made with the SCUMM engine. "Fate of Atlantis" was about 1000x better than "Kingdom of Crystal Skull" ended up being. "Last Crusade" was incredibly difficult and you could actually find yourself stuck in you saved at the wrong spot in the Austrian castle. The first two Monkey Island games need no explanation for whoever played them.
Marathon 1 & 2, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom: Crazy now to think that the folks at Bungie, now the behemoths behind Halo and Destiny, originally started by making a series of Macintosh-only FPS games that combined Doom with Alien (all 3 are now available for free on PC since the source code was released, though playing them now, the controls are way too wild). Wolfenstein 3D came out on Mac years after it was originally on DOS and looked infinitely better graphically. Doom is self-explanatory. It remains the single most important video game ever made, and one of the best. I doubt I'll ever forget the fight at the end of Act 2 against the seemingly invincible Cyber Demon.
Warcraft Battle Chest: Getting this was when I first realized my niche was fantasy over everything else. This included the original "Orcs vs. Humans" and "Tides of Darkness". The games didn't mean nearly as much to me as the manuals did though. I had to go visit my cousins for a week hours after I received the box set, so I was limited to simply reading the manuals for 7 days before I ever popped the CDs in. I actually did beat Warcraft 2's final mission without cheating back then, but I defy you to find anyone who legitimately beat either campaign in the "Beyond the Dark Portal" expansion. Mostly, I was always coming up with scenarios to make this fantasy world larger with the map editor, none of which I ever even started to make. I always secretly wanted Azeroth to be a big, open-world I could participate in, and my wish would come true 100% in the form of "World of Warcraft" years later, though I never played it at launch (which is just as well since it would have consumed my life at the time). I am eagerly awaiting the implementation of the official classic servers from Blizzard.
I could go on about the Super Nintendo, and how and why it's the greatest console of all-time, but I've done so in other posts. I'll leave this one to just computer games. Of course, I do also have the memory everyone does about confronting The Butcher for the first time in Diablo, but games on the Macintosh of the RPG variety were few and far between. I distinctly remember reading the advertisements in my dad's Macintosh magazines. Honestly, the only thing I can remember seeing back then was "Stonekeep", and I certainly never owned that title back then. The truly great fantasy adventures from this time period (namely, the Baldur's Gate series and Might and Magic VI) never made it to the Mac back in the day, meaning they were completely off my radar. Coming from a Mac (which Windows ripped off wholesale), even attempting to deal with DOS was like going back in time 10 years.
Starcraft: This was both my first computer game, and my first RTS. A genre that I am still terrible with to this day. Actually, I don't even like the genre, the setting and characters of Starcraft just really drew me in.
Baldur's Gate: My first RPG, I don't think I need to explain this one.
Pokemon: Oh the all consuming mons genre.
Final Fantasy VII: Yup, the super overhyped one was my intro to the series. (Still a good contender for the best one)
Undertale: This game resonated with me on an emotional level more than any other game has. A game like this only comes around once in a very long time.
I've played MANY MANY MANY games over the years. These are just the ones that were the most influential for me. A little bit of all my gaming choices can be almost directly linked to these six games.
edit: easier to read if you open the image in another tab. List:
Combat (1977)
Asteroids (1979)
Pacman (1982)
Tetris (1984)
Super Mario Bros. (1985)
Mike Tyson's Punch Out (1986)
Ice Hockey (1988)
Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf (1988)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Mortal Kombat (1992)
Doom (1993)
NBA Jam (1993)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994)
Descent (1994)
Sim City 2000 (1994)
Command & Conquer Series (starting 1995)
Civilization II (1996)
Baldur's Gate (1998)
NHL 2000 (1999)
Baldur's Gate 2 (2000)
Civilization 3 (2001)
Neverwinter Nights (2002)
Mass Effect (2007)
Assassin's Creed (2007)
Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
Mass Effect 2 (2010)
Civilization 5 (2010)
Red Dead Redemption (2010)
L.A. Noire (2011)
Skyrim (2011)
Dragon Age 2 (2011)
Baldur's Gate: EE (2012)
Baldur's Gate 2: EE (2013)
XCOM: Enemy Within (2013)
Injustice: God's Amongst Us (2013)
Metro: Last Light (2013)
Bioshock: Infinite (2013)
Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
Icewind Dale: EE (2014)
Pillars of Eternity (2015)
Fallout 4 (2015)
Civilization 6 (2016)
Siege of Dragonspear (2016)
Gremlin's Inc. (2016)
Injustice 2 (2016)
EA NHL 2018 (2017)
I actually didn't play many video games from the mid 90s till around 2000. I got into D&D and as I got older, White wolf games. Table top always offered way more options and weirdness. Hell I actually played in a huge White Wolf LARP weekly for a couple of years in the late 90s.
As I got more into computers in the late 90s early 2000s, I started playing video games again. It was the original Deus Ex that really opened up my eyes that video games were a fantastic story telling platform that could be on par with film, books and TV.
I still remember when Neverwinter Nights came out back in the day. This probably speaks volumes about how young I was then, but I remember going through a bottle of rum and strawberry soda and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes during my first binge session.
Early on I did more shooters, quake and unreal, but got burnt out on them and need a good story with it to play one these days. Fallout and the Deus Ex series are an example of shooters I still love. I've generally gravitated toward the CRPGs, though. I did play the hell out of Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy, though.
Super Mario Brothers 3
Megaman 4 and the Legend of Zelda (the first one)
Street fighter 2 and Killer Instinct.
(Teenage years)
Warcraft 2.
Starcraft.
Diablo 1
Icewind Dale 1 and 2.
Diablo 2
Super Smash Brothers Melee and Gauntlet
I loved all these games because they gave me an escape from a really shitty childhood.
Then I took a major hiatus as I got 2 full time jobs at 15 and then went to school. When I finally got back to a place where I had time again, I sort of played in backwards like 8 or 9 years later.
(Adulthood)
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Morrowind
Although I loved these games, I missed the old school. So I tried searching for it.
Warcraft 3.
Then I somehow stumbled across Baldur’s Gate. Never even knew it existed! I felt robbed. I was so excited about it, though, that I robbed myself for real and read a bunch of walkthroughs. I still seriously regret that.
Baldur’s Gate 2
Baldur’s Gate 1
Fallout 2
Now I’m trying to mod BG1&2 and IWD for fun.
After that, the N64 came. Always overshadowed by the massive library of the Playstation, I'll always go to bat for "Ocarina of Time" and especially "Majora's Mask". "GoldenEye" and "Perfect Dark" introduced me to shooters with friends long before "Halo". The best racing collection of racing games ever put on one console (too many to list really) and the THQ wrestling games were BY far the best ever made. One thing all these games had in common was that they all felt perfectly natural (and indeed relied on) the much-maligned uniqueness of the N64 controller.
Though I owned a Playstation 2 eventually, my play of video games died off for nearly a decade. Only around the release of the "Wrath of the Lich King" did I start getting back into computer gaming, and only 4-5 years after that did GOG and Steam come along and turn my old obsession into an even greater one. In the past 5 years, I have at least SAMPLED nearly every CRPG known to man (by sampled meaning I got it to run on my computer and spent at least 5 minutes with it). I rarely finish games anymore, because I dabble in so many. The easiest games for me to play are ones that involve constant progression and repetition, which is why WoW, Diablo 3, Grim Dawn, and Path of Exile are probably the games I easily have the most hours in, simply because I can't abide not having my mind stimulated at all times, and these games are perfect for listening to podcasts or watching videos or movies at the same time.
No specific date: Bug attack, Choplifter, Wolfenstein, Starglider, and many other early titles on an Apple II (very old machine with 5" floppy disks and a monochrome green monitor)
1988 (I think) - Goldrunner and one of the early Flight Simulator (aka "The Two Aeroplanes") games on an Atari ST 520
1990 onwards - more Atari games including Falcon, Paperboy, Dungeon Master, Captive, Elite, Midwinter, Double Dragon, Bubble Bobble, Afterburner, Outrun, Lemmings, and loads more that I can't remember!
1994-6 (I think) - traded my Atari for an Amiga (it was my Dad's, he handed it down after getting his first PC) and had Gunship 2000, Streetfighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Rise of the Robots, Theme Park, B17 Flying Fortress, Desert Strike, etc - until the Amiga died.
1996 onwards - my first PC... an old 386 that my Dad recovered from a skip as it was being thrown out. From then on, I've had several upgrades/replacements, and was pretty much a staunch PC gamer from then on. In a somewhat chronological order:
Doom
X-Wing
TIE Fighter
Everything ever created by Microprose (I used to be a real flight simulator buff)
Dune 2
Command and Conquer
Mechwarrior 2
Terminator: Future Shock
Rise of the Triad
Duke Nukem 3d
Quake
Thief 2
Half life
Unreal Tournament
Also, on my friend's Playstation: Coolboarders 3, ISS/Pro Evolution Soccer, and Twisted Metal
1999: Baldur's Gate - that's when I stopped playing FPS and flight sim games and started playing RPGs
2000: Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 2
2001/2: Neverwinter Nights, Jedi Knight 2, Morrowind, Icewind Dale 2
2005 onwards:
Rome: Total War
Medieval 2: Total War
Oblivion
Half Life 2
Neverwinter Nights 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Skyrim
Space Marine
Mount and Blade
Dawn of War
Thief 3
The last couple of years:
Elite: Dangerous
Kerbal Space Program
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Rise of Flight
Fallout 4
Portal 1&2
Pillars of Eternity
Mordheim
Total War: Warhammer
Flight Simulator X
Hellion
The Long Dark
Now:
Star Citizen
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Yeah... I've been gaming for a loooong time!
Platform: Acorn Electron Microcomputer; Time: the 80-tie; Age: early teens
Starship Command: a game in black and white (might have been played on a green-on-black monitor) about a spaceship fending off enemy spaceships.
Pengo: a version of PacMan with penguins instead.
Platform: Acorn BBC Microcomputer; Time: the 80-tie; Age: late teens
Elite: a game where you played a spaceship trader, flying into a rotating space harbour was challenging
Pengo: the classic mentioned above finally experienced on a colour monitor: the penguins have different colours (magenta, blue, green etc. - there were only 8 colours on this monitor)
[insert: a long time without a computer - Time: the 90-ties, Age: twenties]
board games, most favourite the Catan series by 999 games
Platform: a Pentium III desktop, Time: early 2000-s, Age: early thirties
Age of Empires: my first venture into PC-gaming and at times already addictive, playing until dawn
Platform: Acer Aspire T140 sporting an Athlon 64 processor (my last pre-made desktop), Time: 2005-2007, Age: 34+
Battlefield 1942: my first and still most favourite FPS, endless days and nights fighting bots on vanilla and mod maps
Platform: Athlon 64 X2 desktop (the desktop I configured myself), Time: 2007-2012, Age: 36-41
Rome Total War a strategy game where building and upgrading are turned-based and only the battles are real-time (with pause) is much more manageable for me than RTS games and I love the atmosphere and music of the game, another game that made me lose sleep a lot
here it is:
Baldur's Gate (vanilla) a lifelong love started on 21-1-2008 (I still got the savegame), yet 27-7-2008 I started a modded campaign with the Tutu mod and Sword Coast Stratagems and never looked back to vanilla, Tutu+Hard Times+Sword Coast Stratagems was my great love until Beamdog came to blow new life into the game
Battlefield Vietnam: this new desktop had a GeForce 8500 GT graphics card and good run beefier games. BFV was the game I celebrated it's graphical power with
Dragon Age: Origins: a second love starting on 4-8-2010, the last good Bioware RPG in my opinion, loved it almost as much as Baldur's Gate, played it many times over
Fallout 3: the only Fallout game I've played so far and despite being frowned upon by lovers of the original Fallout games, I loved roaming the Capitol Wasteland in this game.
Battlefield 2: the game that ended this era and made me wish for another upgrade, this desktop could barely handle it
Platform: Core i3 2120 (Sandy Bridge) with AMD HD 6670 graphics, Time: 2012-2016, Age: 41-45
Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition: I started playing with the Enhanced Edition on 13-2-2015, with Carl, an illusionist-thief inspired by the sidekick in the 2004 Van Helsing movie.
Playstation 3, Time: 2015-now, Age 44+:
Battlefield Bad Company: a game I enjoyed because of the gameplay as well as the story and it's characters and could only be played on console. I bought a PS2 in 2014 to find out what console gaming is like, but finished a lot more games on the PS3 I bought a year later
Call of Duty Black Ops: despite a horrendous start (the assignment to assassinate Fidel Castro) it had a gripping story full of things that made you wonder, with a surprising twist at the end and in my opinion the best single-player fps campaign that I know
Platform: Core i3 2120 (Sandy Bridge) with AMD RX460 graphics, Time: 2016-2018, Age: 45-47
Battlefield 3, 4 and 1: games that didn't have as much impact on me on as the earlier Bf games, but that were fun to play as by upgrading my graphics card I could enjoy some eye-candy
Platform: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with AMD RX460 graphics, Time: 2018, Age: 47
The first PC that I not only configured myself, but built myself as well instead of letting a webshop do it for me. It's less than a month old now, but I'll mention the most beefy game I'm playing right now that, like BF 3 and 4 on the previous machine, shows of what my current rig is capable of:
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare mostly for the joy that this time around, the game doesn't make my desktop crash, like it did on my previous core i3 desktop and found out I couldn't run this beast of a game.
Anyway...I wasn't in to RPGs too much in the early days even though I did have Temple of Apshai and Curse of Ra. Moebuis: The Orb of Celestial Harmony was a lot of fun . A good friend of mine had given me a sector editor program, as well, so this became the first game where I figured out how to edit a saved character/game.
1985: The Bard's Tale. I spent a *lot* of time playing that game. Some days, especially weekends, consisted of "get up, play Bard's Tale, eat, go to bed". You have not lived until you have made your own maps on graph paper by hand.
1987
Sid Meier's Pirates! This version of the game was often frustrating--you did not want to take any skill other than fencing.
1988
Pool of Radiance/all the Gold Box games
Wasteland
what can I say which hasn't been said about these? If you have never played them then you should get a copy of DoxBox and obtain copies of these games. They won't stand up to modern games, of course, but they were groundbreaking and incredibly successful at the time. PoR was easy to edit whereas Wasteland was very difficult; however, it took me only a month to discover that you could break the economy of Wasteland by using macros in the mine to dig for silver--one hour of real time would net you more than enough money to outfit everyone with really good gear from Darwin at very low level.
1989
Dragon Wars--a fun game which often broke the fourth wall. Some of my B's in university would have been A's had it not been for this game.
1991
Civilization--not really an RPG, per se, but a very engaging strategy game. I was starting to get much more into card games and board games at this time, though--actually engaging with other people.
Pools of Darkness--the culmination of the Gold Box series and the first game for which I had to reach out for technical support--the Cloak of Displacement from Secret of the Silver Blades caused a bug when you tried to enter Limbo.
1996
Civilization II. I really enjoyed that game when I could find time to play it--the mid-to-late 90s were not good years for me.
2000
Baldur's Gate (both I and II), Fallout (both I and II), and Icewind Dale. Life had gotten better, I had an updated computer, and I rediscovered my love for computer games. Trials of the Luremaster and Auril's Bane were the first mods/expansions made by someone else I ever downloaded/installed.
2002
Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale II. I really enjoyed IWD2 but the computer I had would not run NWN without serious problems--I had to shelve it.
2009
NWN2. I bought this game when my job changed after our company got sold. I wound up not liking it very much by @Notabarbiegirl became hooked--she has since gone through NWN and a ton of mods/add-ons, but she also started making her own connections to a gaming community because of it.
2010
Fallout 3. The first game I had bought in several years--really enjoyed it a lot, especially since I had been so involved in both Wasteland and Fallout years before.
2013
Fallout New Vegas. I enjoyed FO3 so much I had to get this one, as well, especially since it came with all 4 expansions.
Since then, I have been involved with the betas for Wasteland II, BGEE, IWDEE, PSTEE, and SoD but I haven't bought any new games. *shrug*
Primary school: playing with friends, like having an arcane in your bedroom!
Streets of rage - sega 1991
Road Rash - sega 1991
Discovering gaming is the highest evolution of story telling:
Aladdin - sega 1993 - first game I had to complete no matter what
The Settlers - pc - 1993 - first game addicted to
Lion king - sega 1994 - art is key
Command and conquer - pc - 1995 - atmosphere - felt I was actually secretly working for the Hand of Nod
N64 - Golden Eye 1997 - this took over school, first experience of gaming professionals
Age of Empires - pc - 1997 - first attempt at making games myself in the tool workshop
Start senior school - age of single player gaming
1998 - one of the best years in gaming
N64 - Ocarina of Time 1998 - magical, made me realise I'm a story gamer
Dark Omen - 1998 - made me realise I love strategy
Half-life - pc - 1998 - mystery always creates a great story
GTA1 - 1998 - knew this series was the start of something epic
Baldur’s Gate 1 - pc - 1998 - totally addicted, my go to stress day game
Total war - Shogun - 2000 - taking strategy to another level
BG2 - 2000 - pinnacle of story gaming to date, realised romance is a must for a true story
GTA3 - 2001 - confirmation this series is going to get better and better without dissapointment
Morrowind - 2002 - whaaat!? how! Just incredible - began wishing they'd team up with BG story-writers
NWN 2002 - first true disappointment - 3d broke my immersion, worried about end of isometric
Neverwinternights 2 - 2002 - very hopeful, but after 2 game breaking bugs half way through, reluntantly gave up.
2004 - at university, between study, partying, girls, severe lack of any new memorable games and revisited a lot of old games like BG, for nostalgia
2007 - Last year at university - age of utter freedom
Best gaming year, since 1998:
Mass effect - 2007 - start of probably my favorite all time series
Witcher 1 - 2007 - why story games work perfectly with great writers
Jade Empire - 2007 - pc - loved it, still waiting for No 2
2008 - start work - Age of "My time is precious"
Xbox 360 - Fallout 3 - 2008 - my first entry to the series - a world I couldn't get enough of
Dragon Age Origins -xbox - 2009 - this is the NWN I was waiting for - the first 3D Baldurs Gate
Skyrim - 2011 - confirmation of Bethesda brilliance and tracking anything they release
BGEE - 2012 - first hope that isometric games are coming back
Mass Effect 3 - 2012 - confirmed favourite series of all time (without BG nostalgia)
DAI - 2014 - fantastic series, wanting more
2015 - bought an xbox one for £180
Witcher 3 - xone - 2015 - loved by all
Pillars of eternity - 2015 - isometric is here to stay - epic
Fallout 4 - 2015 - Bigger, better, loved building - just need more choice, story and character interaction
Life is Strange - 2016 - first experience of how good indy games can be with a good story and began my hunt for more indy games I've missed.
Seige of Dragonspear - 2018 - late to the party, worried by reviews, still playing it now and love it
1988: Dungeon Master, Kick off, helicopter simulation
1994: Doom
1998: SWAT, Commandos Behind Ennemy Lines
1999: Commandos, behind the Call of Duty
1999: BALDUR S GATE !!!
2000: SHADOWS OF AMN + TOB + Icewind Dale
...
2019: BGEE, SOD, BG2EE
+ Go softwares ....
Typical game of the 80s (bad guys are some communist guerillas in the jungle and you play a Green Beret).
Good that my parents did not know that I was playing this game...
This! I remember the joy of destroying a MIG-29 with a Sidewinder missile. I was exstatic.
Also I have very fond memories of Amiga games, Wings (from Cinemware), Sensible World of Soccer, F29 Retaliator, Cannon Fodder, Desert Strike, Ishar and before that many games on Atari XE (World Karate Championship, Bruce Lee, BMX Simulator, Decathlon, River Raid).
Early Noughties: Ps:T, Bloodlines, Arcanum, sporadic NWN and Kotor (no BG oddly enough because teenage me thought herself too edgy for the FR)
Late Noughties: Ultima remakes (Lazarus, Archon, Exult). Switched to P&P and took a near total break from CRPG gaming.
...to get back into it with finally playing through Baldur's Gate Trilogy in 2011, fully modded ab initio. I've been playing Trilogy playthroughs all but back to back ever since, but I'm frightfully slow and therefore only just about to start run four. NWN user modules on the side whenever there is some time.
gaming WAS my life, from the age of 4ish to about 25ish when i started to slow down a bit and now that im pretty much retired at 32 im back into it a bit more
but vidgeo gaimes have definitely had a huge impact on my life and i loved them for so long, in fact i was one of those nerds who was addicted to video games like crack ( but hey, i at least was able to do a slam dunk in high school only being 6'2, and when i was 25 i could bench 315, so its not like i completely wasted away playing games )
so i think im going to have to do mine in parts because there is a lot of games that i have fond memories of, and a lot of systems to go over, so lets see...... 9pm, i will probably be done this around midnight, so grab your snacks and get something to drink because you might be here a while
table of nostalgia contents;
Nes
Gnes ( Sega )
N64
PS2
PS3
Pokémon Series
Baldur's Gate Series
IWD Series
NWN Series
SC Series
FPS games
What do i play now?
Nes
this is where it all started. I remember when i was 4 years old the first time i ever played a video game ( before this time i had no idea they even existed, which i suppose makes sense when you're 4, because at that age you aren't all that sentient of the world around you ) but i was blown away
i should have wore a helmet that day because my mind exploded; the very idea that you could control a character on screen with a control in some random fantasy world was absolutely fascinating, and not only that, but your character could jump, run and even transform into a bigger character and shoot fireballs ( im talking about super mario bros )
although my experience that day was only for a few minutes ( i don't think i even beat the first level ) i was obsessed, and i wanted a Nintendo SO BADLY, problem is; im 4 with no job, and my parents weren't exactly the richest people on the planet, and back then, a brand new nintendo entertainment system was a colossal 100 bucks, and back in '91 a 100 bucks now is worth at least 10 bajillion doors ( or at least that is what it seemed haha )
so anyways, the months would go on, and my simple little mind was being tortured by the fact that i had no nintendo but sometimes i would get super lucky and friends of my parents would let me borrow theirs for a bit on and off, and that was absolutely fantastic
and then, finally, the faithful day came, where it felt like the lord himself came down from heaven and had finally answered my prayers; on the christmas of 1995 i finally was gifted a nintendo for myself, it of coarse was a hand-me-down, but hey, good enough for the girls i go out with ( or least something on those lines since i didn't start using that line until i was 20 something, but you get the gist )
so anyhow, i was in my prime, this was so damn amazing, and holy crap did i eve wear that thing out, homework, what is this homework you speak of ? you mean play more nintendo right? lewls, luckily though grade 3 wasn't that tough and even back then my IQ was relatively high so i could easily finish all my work at school and rarely needed to worry about that for the most part
now gaimes, during my Nes run from 1995 - 2000..... 5? 2006? i collected a mass of 19 nintendo games, i dont remember them all but i will see if i can list what i had; - thanks wikipedia for joggin' the ol' memory a bit
mega man 2
mega man 3
super mario bros
super mario 2
super mario 3
dr mario
tetris
battletoads
magic of scheherazade ( yes i googled that name )
destination earth star
deadly towers
flying dragon...? ( some ninja game with dragon and or flying? )
the rocketeer
double dragon 2
captain america
gunnac
back to the future
bubble bobble
chessmaster
commando
okay dokie, lets go through them all and see what we get;
Mega Man 2
this game was aight, at first i didn't like it ( mega man 3 was my first game into the series ) so because of that, i liked mega man 3 more, with its smoother game play better sounds ect ect, but after awhile, mega man 2 started to rub off on me a bit, and i started to like it a bit more, although i do remember this game being hard as hell, holy crap, talk about unforgiving, especially the one wily boss where you HAVE to use crash bombs to deal damage to those weird light things, and if you wasted your bombs, pretty much game over, and the last level in that game, oh my lord was that out of control, but the day did finally come when i could finally beat that game, and it was just so satisfying to be able to beat that game, i even did it on hard mode once, oi good times
Mega Man 3
ah, MM 3, this game was my jam, it was one of the first games i owned when i got my Nes and my friend i had in grade 2 showed me a really cool trick with that game; for some weird reason if you held the up button on player 2's controller, you would get a "super jump" - which was higher than rush's jump lol - and you could drop into bottomless pits and not lose a life, and if you did "die" in a pit your health bar would be gone but you would still be alive and INVINCIBLE wha ha ha ha ha, although spikes still killed you, but nothing else could, unbelievable awesome game hack, i remember when i bought a 3ds this was one of the games i bought with it, since mega man 3 is my favourite Nes game, ah great times
Super Mario Bros
ah, the game that started it all, very simple at its core but fun to play, and quite challenging actually, i remember the first time when i made it to world 8, i had 1 life left, and world 8-1 is not exactly for those of the light of heart, anywho i remember running out of time climbing up the silly stairts to get to the flag just to run out of time when i needed like 3 or so more seconds, oi, and it would take me ages ( perhaps months ) before i made it to 8-2, and even then i was stuck on that level forever, and when i finally hit 8-3, oi was that level diabolical, and then finally a couple years later in like grade 5 or 6 i could finally make it to 8-4, but i had no idea how to beat it, until someone told me that its a "maze level" and you have to do it a certain way, so after that revelation i think i was able to finally beat super mario bros near the end of grade 6/ early grade 7 wowzers
Super Mario 2
now this game, i dont know, i was never really a fan of it, i always thought this game was whack, and it felt really out of place ( wasn't until many years later did i later learn from the irate gamer that this game was just a rip off from another one, which made sense after that revelation ) but anyways, its a game i had and a game i played, now i believe the furthest i ever got in this game was 6-3, and that was even using the warps to warp to level 4 than level 6, this game really spanked me hard, and i remember hitting level 6-3 not knowing how to beat the boss at the time and when i finally got a game over i never played it again, and then years and years later i watched my friend eric beat it with ease, lewls
Super Mario 3
now, although this game was good, i thought it was "aight" as well, although i did love ALL the bajillions of secrets hidden through out so many of the levels and worlds ( well at least from worlds 2 -5 ) there was so many cool secrets, then starting by world 6 it seemed to die down a bit and by world 7, it was just a slog it felt like, this game i also couldn't beat, the best i did personally starting a level 1, is hitting world 7-5 or 7-6 before i ran out of items and lives, and the best i ever did period was 8-2, and holy crap, world 8 is just filled to the brim with madness, all those whack mini level things before you EVEN hit world 8's actually levels, madness i say, but anyhow, i either lost on the sun level or perhaps beat it once just to never be able to finish off that mini castle because it to was a maze and since i had no items or lives, it was game over and i never played again. again though years later i watched my friends eric and jamie beat it with no sweat, lewls once again
dr mario
ah dr mario, this was my jam, i don't know why but i was god mode at this game, and this was the ONLY game my mom would play with me on, she hated video games ( don't know why, silly gen X parents lol ) but she actually enjoyed this one for whatever reason, but the problem started happening when i would completely roast her and she would never want to play against me because i would bring her to school, but none the less, it was a fun game, and this series will continue when we get to the N64 part of this section for dr mario part 2
tetris
ah, another game that i was fairly good at ( although by todays standards after watching pros play this i was nothing ) but hey, only being in elementary school and being able to complete 9-5 with out dying was quite impressive in my books, i think at my prime i could hit level.... 18/19/20. i would usually play on level 10 and i would usually end somewhere around those 3 levels, also when tetris was on face book years ago when facebook was fairly new i was usually in the top 91+ % which was pretty neat with score attack being my highest i believe at top 97%, so yeah, i was thick nerd ( although still am actually hahha )
battletoads
ah masochism, seriously, if you want to define that word perfectly they should just have a picture the Nes battletoads game right beside it in the dictionary. if anybody is anybody, this know what this game is about, but for those who don't know; this game had pretty good graphics for a Nes game, the music was badass, the game was HARD as hell, but it was FUN, holy crow, being stuck on level 3 for AGES before ever making it to level 5, just to beat that level first try ( haha ) and then being stuck on level 6 for AGES then finally making it to level 7 and being stuck there for AGES, just to be stuck on level 8, and i think that is as far as i ever made it for nes, although i do recall beating that boss guy so i want to say i made it to level 9 once, but i probably only had 1 life, and we all know how that would have went. i even remember playing this game 2 player with a friend of mine on a rom and we had save state and STILL coudn't beat the game ( i got stuck eventually on level 9 and couldn't get any further) but it was a blastio all the same
magic of scheherazade
this was a very interesting game, and when i got it in grade 3 it was a little way to advanced for me, it was an RPG with a lot of reading involved and since i didn't like to read i never really understood what i was doing and never really knew what to do or where to go, but after a while i was finally able to slowly stumble my way through the game and eventually i beat the first world ( there is only 5 ) and it actually felt really exciting to do so, but even in the later years of high school when i was determined to beat the game i could never get pass world 2 ( i just didn't know how to beat that desert maze ) oh well, thankfully there were pass codes and i warped to world 5 and i believe i eventually found the last castle defeated the last boss and won, but yeah, a very interesting game for its time indeed
destination earthstar
hahaha, this game as crap, hahaha, oh man, i NEVER knew what to do in this game, i would just float around space aimlessly until my resources ran out and then die, then i would lol and tell this game to take a hike, and then i read the manual, which actually told you what to do and other things you could do, which almost made the game fun, but it was still pretty bland, every once in awhile you would get into a "space dog fight" which was kind of neat, but the idea was to explore planets and such, or some bother, i think the best i ever did was make it to level 2..... or so, or perhaps the "2nd" space world, not sure, but this game was bleh, perhaps better suited for someone of the teenage variety as apposed to the elementary variety
deadly towers
this was another interesting game, but unfortunately just like magic of schez, i was a little to young to understand the RPG elements in this game, and never really got far in it at all, although years later when i wanted to give it another go, i could never EVER find a rom that would work for this game ( usually the game play freezes once you enter the tower ) the best i ever did for Nes is i found a dragon once and i killed it, got some goodies i assumed and that was it, and then just more puzzling mazes, what a shame, oc remix.org actually did a really cool remix of the theme of this game to, gnarly
flying dragon
ah, thanks to wikipedia yes, that is what the game was called, but i recall never being all that good at this game, in fact i dont think i even ever beat the first level ( ah the good ol' days of vidgeo gaming, where game were so hard you couldn't even beat the first level and then you gave up to never play again ) so anyhow, after quitting on that, my friend eric gave it a go, and he was able to beat some levels, holy jumpins, hard core good buddy, but then eventually even he got stuck at some random level and never made it pass that. slammed
the rocketeer
oh man this game, good times, as in it literally took a year or two, to even figure out what to do, and then i remember by accident one time i figured out those weird "apple" things that enemies dropped was actually ammo for weapons, and one time i accidentally pressed select and i started using weapons instead of the good ol' fist o' cuffs, and once i was actually able to use weapons, i was actually able to progress pass level 1, it was truly amazing, but then there was the 2nd caveat, the frying pan icons that enemies would drop, and i had no idea what this did and it would give me a 2nd "lifebar" and then more time went buy just to learn that it was your rocket pack power, holy friggin' jumpins, after those 2 discoveries i was on fire and i was actually progressing through the game, and actually having some sort of fun doing so, but then i made it to near the last level or so, and from i recall it was completely unfair, there were these weird obstacles that would do 1 point of damage and it was impossible to get pass without taking damage and i think you had 12 HP and there were 12 of these things to get through, so because of that, i couldn't never complete the level or the game, and never played it since, but i remember it blowing me away that there was actually more than 1 level to that game because it took eons to figure that out haha
double dragon 2
another game under the "interesting" column, although when playing with a friend this game was great, i remember ever summer in ontario the kids from the "big city" would come down to their grandparents for the month ( where we lived which was way out in the bush basically ) and the one grandson and I would play double dragon 2 all the time, he loved that game, and he couldnt wait to play it hahaha, and eventually we started getting pretty good at it, with time and practice we would slowly get further and further and further into the game, until we met our match at world 7 i believe it was, that was the furthest we could ever make it, and after i moved away from ontario i never really played the game again, although my friend eric borrowed it because he liked it a bit and he was actually able to finish it, i think there was only 8 worlds or so in it, dont remember
captain america
much like rocketeer this was a game that took ages to figure out and ages before i even made it to level 3, making it to level 2 was easy enough, but to make it to level 3, oi, it was tough, and just in general i remember this game being tough, although again one day, i was kind of kicking some ass and actually beating levels and bosses and it was actually kind of cool when i was doing it, but eventually i got the game over and never got that far again, although i remember finding out it actually had a player vs mode where player 1 played as either cap america or hawk eye and player 2 got to choose from 3 or 5 different baddies ( dont remember who they were ) and it was so unfair to hahahaha, captain america couldn't win and hawkeye couldn't lose in 2 player mode, ah nintendo where game play balance was unnecessary
gun-nac ( actually now that i think of it this was my friend's game and not mine, oops haha )
i remember this game being A LOT of fun, one of those "space invader/asteroid" type games where you are a little ship that gets upgrades and has to basically destroy everything on screen and you fight bosses and go to different levels. i remember one play through i was getting some more obtuse power ups that the screen was just filled with explosions everywhere and i was raking up some huge pointage ( now that i think of it, im pretty impressed that the nintendo could handle that much stuff going on without it dropping in frame rate ) but after that run, i never had a run better and then i tried playing on higher difficulties and started dying faster so then i stopped playing haha
back to the future
ah, when it came to horrible games, this one has to be near the top of the list for the Nes, although even if it doesn't get number 1, it easily hits top 10 if not 5, this game was terrible, it was hard as hell, the music was crap and it just sucked, although i remember one time i actually made it to the café level and i felt pretty accomplished doing that, but never made it pass that, and never played it again, apparently my friend eric said he beat it with game genie and even then it was still hard hahahah
bubble bobble
oh man does this bring back memories, instead of buddy buddy's grandson this time it was my cousin, we would play this game ALL the time, and eventually we were getting pretty good at it, and then level 57, ugh, why does my favorite number have to be the crappiest level in the game, holy crap is level 57 ass awful, but sometimes we would luck out and get an umbrella in levels 53-56 and we would be able to skip that garbage and eventually we made it to the "last boss" and buy last boss you have to make sure to get the crystal ball, defeat this guy with both players being alive just for him to tell you about "super bubble bobble mode" oi. so eventually we made it to super bubble bobble mode but i dont recall how far we got, it wasn't until years later when we moved back to British Columbia that me and my friend eric were able to beat super bubble bobble mode and once you do that you could open the sound track, which was pretty neat ( i think there was also a cheat that opened that sound track as well, but oh wells ) also another neat feature of bubble bobble for Nes is that there is a bunch of levels that you never play in actual game but you can warp there via password if you could guess a password correctly, so that was pretty neat
chessmaster
woo, when it comes to a game that is out of your league this was the one for sure, so, when i got this game when i was 8 and didn't know how to play chess, i had no clue what i was doing, i would play on novice difficulty and i was using my king to take out pieces, thats right, i was using my KING baby as my main attack piece, since i didn't understand any of the other pieces, it wasnt until years later that when i finally learned how to play the game did i actually start kicking butt, although one neat feature of that game was you were able to set up different boards so you could try different styles ( like have it so you have a king and queen vs someone who has a king and 2 rooks sort of thing ) so that was neat, but when i was younger i would just set up the board so i would always win on round 2 so then i would get the winners music, although when you lost that tune was friggin awesome, you know what tune lets say in a cartoon if they are about to die or know they are going to die it plays that little death tune ( chopin funeral march is what i found it was called, neat ) so anyways every time you lost in that game it would play the last few seconds of that tune and i thought that was diabolically funny, so dark and gritty for such an innocent game hahaha, nicely done chessmaster
commando
and finally we hit commando, another one of those wonder games where getting pass level 1 was hard as hell, but one night, me and my dad were just going ham, and finally beat level 2, then made it to level 3 and then beat level 3 and made it to level 4, and stuff was getting intense and crazy, and once you beat level 4 you start world 2 which is...... just a remake basically of world 1 lewls, ah the good ol' days of vidgeo gaimes where they would just make you basically replay the same maps with a little bit different color palette and perhaps an enemy or 2 to "change it up". so anyways, it felt like an eternity and evenutally i believe i hit level 3-4 and lost my last life and it was pretty close to 1am so we stopped there ( or maybe i still had a life left but it was late as hell ) it would be until years later that i realized there is only 4 "worlds" if you want to call them that, with a hugely lame ass ending haha, but hey, i eventually beat that game over a decade or so later and it felt awesome knowing i could do it
and with that, i think im going to have to stop there, my hands are starting to hurt a bit from all the typing and there is still much more to go over, so perhaps tomorrow i will continue on to the next part of nostalgia lane which is; The Genesis