Nostalgia
Thursday, July 24th, 2003 - 5:43pm
I've been enjoying KotOR so much lately it made me realize how damn nice it is when a game actually live's up to your expectations. And that just got me to thinking about all the great memories I've picked up over the years that have to do with gaming but don't actually involve playing a game.
KotOR for example. I was sitting on the porch drinking a beer earlier thinking about the game when it hit me, that after all these years of playing rpg's I was finally playing a SW rpg and an amazingly good one at that. It was just a great moment to realize two things I grew loving had come come together in such a good way.
Some other great memories for me,
Spending 5 hours on a Sunday afternoon downloading the 12 meg Quake demo whlie sweating and praying my crappy connection wouldn't cut out on me. And then finally getting it and spending the evening trying to decide if I liked 3d or not.
Driving am hour to get my first 3DFX Voodoo card after looking at the amazing screenshots in magazines and reading the great reviews over the last few months and realizing I finally going to get my games to look that good.
Spending a frustrationg evening trying to play Duke Nukem 3d with my buddy over a modem. Just amazed at how fun it was when it worked and ready to kill someone because mostly it wouldn't work.
Spending an entire weekend playing The Secret Of Mana with a buddy. We were both unemployed at the time and the only time we left the house ws to go grab a half rack of beer and walking outside and realizing his truck had been towed. He was enjoying the game so muhc he ended up saying "f*ck it" and we went back in and continued playing.
It's amazing how many great game "related" memories I've aquired over the years and how much enjoyment gaming has given me even when I'm not playing.
What a great hobby. 
Anyone else?
"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
Rise of the Triad, first saw it on a friends'' computer and then I tried out myself, at the age of ten, my first foray into shooterdom.
Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*nt... me! - Brick Top
First Time I git a new voodoo card and played Quake!
Playing Sysytem Shock 2 in the dark with the headphones on and nearly crapping my pants when my GF sneaked up behind me and put her hands round my neck!
Playing Total Annihilation with 2 guys on the offfice LAN on one of the giant maps and actually beatoing them both after about 8 hrs!
Oh yeah and playing Raven Shield Using Teamspeak for the first time and actually being able to hear you guys instead of just the mental picture I''d built up of you guys! JUst WAAAAYY too funny!
These are the sort of things that stick in my mind as highlights of my gaming career!
MUST...STOP ...PLAYING ....SWG! MUST GET REAL LIFE BACK AGAIN!
I did the same thing with System Shock 2...except without your girlfriend, of course. I never felt the need to play a game in the dark with headphones on before. Well, I guess I did that with Resident Evil.
Some of the best times were playing Contra or Ikari Warriors on the NES.
I remember driving to Evansville (tha big city! whooooieee!) and going to what I thought was a massive Best Buy to get my first Voodoo card specifically for Jedi Knight. So so sweet. That entire game just blew me away.
Sneaking onto any computer I could find in High school to play Duke3d and Doom. I hung out with the wierdest people simply because they liked Doom.
Zork on my Uncle''s old Apple IIe, and being mesmerized by tales of how he broke into his University''s mainframe lab to load Zork on a mainframe, and then they stayed up all night using the chalkboards to draw maps on the walls. He was the coolest motherf*cker ever at that point, total badass hero.
In Planescape Torment, I got Annah to kiss me.
KOTOR, leaving Taris. I couldn''t believe the game rocked that much.
"Poor Eli Nooo... *child starts crying*"
"Come on now, there's no need to make that kind of noise. It sounds awful and you'll upset other people." - Ionae from Spirit Engine 2
My Quake nostalgia comes from downloading 3 at a time of the 8 parts on a 56k modem till 2:27 am. Then playing for a few hours on our network with my roomates and dreaming of running through the levels in my sleep.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
The good gaming moments...
Well, System Shock 2 will be one of them. When the first ghost appeared screaming... everyone in my room just jumped... man that game really freaked me out.
Final Fantasy 7, the first time I saw the world map... the blue sky, the ocean, the mountains... I could not been happier.
The best ending goes to Planscape... and the final battle in Freespace 2... Full blown space fire fight!
I can''t really think of one specific moment... because Deus Ex was just great in every way possible...
I could go on for a long time...
...but I have to get back to work! Damn deadlines!
Xbox Live: Nei HD | Playstation ID: Nei_GWJ
I remember playing Destroyer on C64 with a friend... we hunted Subs and had the lightbulb changed to a red one and the soundtrek of ""Das Boot"" was running.
I also played Bards Tale with that friend, my first Roleplaying Game. We had no manual and didnt know there are such things as levels and spells and we also didnt know you had to equip our weapons and armor. Nonetheless we played for hours killing spiders and hobgoblins, dying over and over again.
We were amazed when we finally found a ""Mithril Sword"" on a group of Zombies.
We called a friend an were totally crazed that he had bought it and he had the manual... one hour (and a discussion with my friends dad why we had to drive to a friend in the middle of the night) later we sat on the kitchen table reading the manual like it where the holy bible.... and soon after that were finally made it in the Cellar of the Scarlet bard... one of us playing one carthographing.
*sigh* I wish one of todays game could impress me like BT did.
I remember seeing Doom shareware for the first time (on a 486 DX/2 with a Sound Blaster 16
). I simply could not believe my eyes! I immediately made a copy and went home to try and run it on my 286 (protected mode? who needs that!). Needless to say, it didn''t run. I was so disappointed...
I have to echo the feelings about System Shock 2. Especially the lower engineering levels and the cargo holds (those protocol droids breaking out of their containers were sheer genius!).
One game tops that though: Thief. I remember playing this around midnight some nights and simply having to stop because the game was freaking me out too much
A more recent thrill: Freelancer. Some of the story missions are really well done, with nice big battles. I remember escaping from Manhattan and thinking to myself: THIS is how space battles should be! Lots of ships, lots of explosions, lots of screaming and lots of action...
Some time ago I thought about all of the good games I had played in the last 5 years and a big smile crossed my face. I don''t regret one second of it
Swing harder! Swing harder!
-- Lilarcor, Baldur's Gate 2
In Freespace 2, jumping out of hyperspace into that Leviathan. I''ve never had a scare like that in a space/flight sim. Ever. It makes me grit my teeth just thinking about it.
"Poor Eli Nooo... *child starts crying*"
"Come on now, there's no need to make that kind of noise. It sounds awful and you'll upset other people." - Ionae from Spirit Engine 2
YES, OH, YES!!!
up up down down left right left right b a select start
Did anyone ever beat Contra without the code?
I generated a virtual world in the toilet bowl this morning.
-- Podunk on the PS3's mystical, magical abilities
Pff.
Contra, no lives lost. I was good, baby. The best.
I am really looking forward to KOTOR now. See what you did?!
My gaming memories involve Ultima VI and VII, and discovering Britannia.
I was exploring the U6 seas, and got lost. After some time, I arrived at an island, in U6, where there was a castle, and inside there was a kid who apparently had been raised by a couple of Cyclops. There was a deeper story there, but I can''t recall it completely.
I never heard of anyone who had found that place. In fact, I couldn''t find it ever again. It was weird, and fun. What great games!
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
I don''t know if anybody here has been to New Orleans, or has visited recently, but there''s a bar amongst all those other bars in that town that as gamers, you should pay homage to.
It''s Uptown near the Riverbend, and the bar is called Butler''s. On the outside, it''s a little red shack on a street corner, with nothing indicating it''s a bar. On the inside, the place looks like somebody''s basement with Christmas lights and a bar. It''s become a dangerous place on weekends - lots of drugs and guns in the place, and the cops have raided it a few times in the past year, but if you go there in the early evening or during the week the place is much emptier.
Anyway, the whole reason I''m describing this place is because they have a pair of Atari 2600s hooked up to a pair of black and white televisions, complete with joysticks. They''ve also got a box full of cartridges of games, like Pitfall!, Yar''s Revenge, Space Invaders, Pac Man, Missile Command, that one where you have to kill a caterpillar before it it gets to the bottom, and my all time favorite, Combat, in addition to many others.
Let me tell you, the first time I stumbled into that bar a few years ago, drunk as a bandicoot, and I saw that Atari 2600 in its faux wood and black plastic exterior, I almost crapped my pants - and not from all the Jim Beam I''d been drinking. Talk about Nostalgia!
It''s funny too, because just like I remember my own Atari, some of the joysticks don''t work right. The bar only had one Atari for a few years, and then sometime in the past year, a second one materialized. It''s now possible to mix and match the joysticks until you get two that work.
It also reminded me, for any of you who have ever had the pleasure of playing Combat, that was the FIRST video game I have ever played where I got to whoop on somebody''s ass. Which got me wondering, aside from sports games, was this possibly the first PVP game? And whenever I would show up there with my friends, I would still be able to whoop on people''s asses in Combat. It was kinda nice to be able to remember that past knowledge and really apply it to today''s life.
At any rate, if you''re ever in New Orleans, try to visit Butler''s during your trip sometime. They''ve got cheap beer, lots of booze, hip-hop turn-tablists and lots of undergrad ""talent"" on weekends. And off on the side, that wonderful pair of Atari 2600s.
Hmm. So many...
-Playing Autoduel at a friend''s house where I drove and he was the gunner.
-4 player MULE games after school
-Archon with my brother
-Playing Prince of Persia on the first PC I bought with my own money (286-16. Hell yeah!)
-4 player Nobunaga''s Ambition games with my roommates in college
-Running a null-modem cable to my roommates room to play Command HQ
-I loved Wizardry and Bard''s Tale, but I saw the future in the original Pool of Radiance
-Out of this World
-F-19 Stealth Fighter, Pirates, Covert Action...dying to see what Microprose would bring me next
-Playing Team Fortress with my co-workers on our company''s T-1 - the seven of us making our first clan and being unstoppable (seven people playing in the same room, back in the day when most people were playing on modems...absolutely brutal)
-Creating an unstoppable 2v2 strategy in Starcraft with my brother, and rolling to something stupid like a 99-3 record.
-A forty hour Dungeon Siege marathon, also with said brother
-First time I played Everquest
-Sitting in awe of Half-life
-Ditto for Zelda
-Playing a Dynasty with my best friend in NCAA 2002 where we would each play the other''s weekly opponents. Beating his FSU Seminoles with Duke. Having a perfect season with my beloved Sooners and then having him beat me by 6 with UCLA in the national championship game.
I could go on...
"It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem." - Malcolm Forbes
Before you could actually network PCs, next best thing...
Friend brought over his C64. I hooked mine up to our color TV. We played Pools of Radiance for 12 hours at a time...next to each other, roughly paralleling who was at what plot point/fight most of the time.
Playing Gauntlet on C64, first coop game I remember playing on an actual computer. We''d play til our hands could no longer move and the only words our mouths could form was, ""f''ing lobbers...""
Surprised my hands/wrists still work, also remember playing Super Mario brothers (first coop mode game I played) until we could no longer move our hands.
Combat was alright on atari 2600, but I still dreamed of getting 1,000,000 on river raid. Played it so often that I could literally play for first several minutes with my eyes closed...and did multiple times.
After being a D & D hek but unable to find a good group to play ... getting my first copy of Ultima and playing a GRAPHICAL RPG! ooohhh the goosebumps with that first feeling.
Or playing SST (Super Star Trek) on the Apple II and being able to control the enterprise and blow up Klingons and beam down to planets and find dilithium crystals ...
Getting into the cockpit of my first XZ-wing fighter and and actually feeling like I''m there .. instead of on rails like the arcade version.
Laughing like crazy for the first time in playing a game when I started playing hte Hero''s Quest games.
Trying to finish Metroid and get into all those really high stupid secret interests by doing that roll bomb .. or whatever that''s called
Being first place on a Counter-strike server and holding it for the whole map
Oh yeah now that I remember, Playing Syndicate for the first time and these my imagination popping up an angel and a devil on either shoulder
Angel - Now kegboy use due care and attention try not to kill any helpless civilians!
Devil - Screw that hippy! - Go Nuts! Use the Flamethrowers! Kill em all! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Needless to say that the Devil normally won that argument by whipping out his uzi and killing the Angel!
MUST...STOP ...PLAYING ....SWG! MUST GET REAL LIFE BACK AGAIN!
For me it was:
1.Staring in amazement as a 12-year-old blasted asteroid after asteroid without dying.
2.Looking down and realizing the Atari 2600 rubber controller casing over the stick had come off but not stopping because I was about to finish Pitfall and take a polaroid to send in.
3.Trying to balance my "suicide" drink while I was waiting for the next round of birds to spawn in Joust.
4.Playing Centipede as a new game called Dragon's Lair was rolled into my arcade behind me, then waiting in line for about an hour to play only to realize the kid behind me in line had sh*t his pants but I didn't care because life was good.
5.Getting up early every weekend of summer to go across the street and play King's Quest 1 and try and figure out just the right statement for the action needed.
6.Attempting to beat Super Mario Brothers and Zelda for the 10th time in a summer long gaming session.
7.Playing Mario 64 while being a freshman in college and trying to balance play time with party time.
8.Firing up Incoming on my brand new TNT2 card and thinking 3D could never get better than this.
9.Facing a soldier in Half Life for the first time and thinking AI has never been this smart!
10.Having a late night LAN party with Quake 2 and Unreal Tournament, good stuff.
11.Finally, not really nostalgia but watching all 4 Half Life 2 blink videos before I go to bed every night and realizing I am 28 years old and still can't wait to run to the store to grab a new game when it comes out
Xbox Live: Kooter06
Wouldn''t pong be the first PvP?
Ah I''m glad someone else said that It''s been a LONG time since a game got me this excited!
MUST...STOP ...PLAYING ....SWG! MUST GET REAL LIFE BACK AGAIN!
Me too, and I''m 33.
"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
I''ll see your 33 and raise you 2. And I can''t wait either!
Money can't buy you happiness...but it can buy you a boat big enough to sell right up next to it!-David Lee Roth
Getting spanked for going to the arcades during school time to play Super Mario Bros.
Getting spanked for going to the arcades during school time to play Street Fighter.
Getting spanked for going to the arcades during school time to play Golden Axe.
Playing Ultima VII for 14 hours straight. I was in love with that world. It actually shaped me, morally speaking. I was the goodiest avatar around.
In fact, all the games I''ve played have shaped me.
I began doing martial arts because of Street fighter. My sense of ethics first came from the Ultima series, and it was Nethack that first inspired me to find out more about books and mythology, and ultimately, to learn about new things.
Oh.... Playing Quake online for the first time. I was orgasming.
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
We need more posts on this, let''s hear them !
Xbox Live: Kooter06
Playing Ultima 3 on my Atari 400.. the game that I had to go out and get a 48K memory upgrade to play. I think I played 10 hours straight and was completely blown away.
And just when I thought I had seen it all I was sucked into a whirlpool and landed in Ambrosia.. I might have cried..
It was that game that made me want to be involved with videogames
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Skipping (faking sick) school to play Wolf 3D all morning and night.
When Doom first came out. I remember being so amazed at how immersive it was, specifically because of the head bob.
Upgrading from a 486sx 25mhz to a Pentium 133mhz based computer and stopping at Fred Meyer to get the Quake shareware to run it through it''s paces.
The intro to the original Civ game. That whole nebula looking space scene.
Playing the original Resident Evil in the dark, in my apartment with no furiture at the time other than a bean bag and an entertainment center, with my buddy. The dog jumping through the window about put us through the roof.
Plan to be spontaneous... tomorrow
Xbox Live: DoubleFour
Wii: 1438 1409 5584 0427 | PSN: DoubleFour | Twitter: DanOsborne
http://notrational.blogspot.com
In no particular order, just as I think of them:
1. Seeing a patern layout in a gaming magazine for Pac-Man. I went to the local Dairy-Y (yes the only place in town of 800 that had arcade games) and proceed to put all my money in it getting the patterns down.
2. Playing Dig Dug at the Roller Skating rink in junior high and getting only my name on the high score list. Same thing with Defender and Centipede.
3. Finishing the first race of Activisions Grand Prix on my Atari 2600 fast enough to take a picture of it to send in and get the cool patch.
4. Hosting a Tecmo Bowl (original Nintendo) 24/7 tournament my freshman year in college in my dorm room. People knocking on the door at 2:30 in the morning saying ""our game is scheduled now"" and actually watching the games with excitement then posting the results on our door.
5. DOOM can be played over a LAN! The world has changed my friend.
6. Playing Netrek (Unix/Ultrix) in the INL (International Netrek League) as a member of Team Buddies at Iowa State. We faced off against teams from Berkely and Carnagie Melon each week. There were a couple times I spent over 16 hours in the computing center. During this time also getting into LPMud, the guts behind online RPG today.
7. Realizing playing Virtual Pool actually improved my Real Life pool playing.
8. Playing Earl Weaver baseball with it''s awesome EGA graphics and using the paper spinning decode stat wheel to verify your copy was legitimate.
9. Lying to my now ex-wife that the Scars of Velious expansion really wasn''t EQ. I had supposedly quit.
10. Daggerfall, I can actually move my mouse and swing my sword to kill this rat!
I''m sure there''s more. I''ll stop at 10.