Nostalgic Gaming Experiences

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Anyone else remember 'Hey You! Pikachu!'? No? Good. Because I'm gonna go old man mode and tell ya about it.

I remember... way back in my day (Spoilers: Not that long go... I think. Or was it? Damn.), we had consoles were we had manuals (that we actually had to read) and cartridges (which we had to spit in and blow really really hard and pray to God that when we stabbed them into the console that something good'd happen), and one of those games was 'Hey you! Pikachu!'. In the box (Yes! We had boxes for our video games!) we got a microphone to slide onto our big ass controller, and you would speak into the microphone to talk to the titular Pokemon. You'd play ball, command your yellow rat slave to zap things for ya, feed him food, go on walks... all the friendship a no-lifer kid like me who sat in self imposed exile in his house could possibly dream of. After my school work was done, I'd flip on that console and go into another world with my beloved pet...

Then the PS2 happened, and I locked up my N64 in the attic forever, with my pet imprisoned in it. And never looked back.

Your nostalgic experiences through gaming?

[shokter]

I know age and time is relative, but I'm gonna go into 'true' old man mode and say that nobody who is young enough to have played and enjoyed Pokemon back then can really go into old man mode. (of course you can, i know...but damn it, off my lawn!)


As for my nostalgic gaming experience...would have to be in college when I brought my old Atari to play with my friends. I was all excited...nobody else was. That's nostalgia for you.

edit: by 'true' old man mode I of course mean cranky asshole.

[Ciddy]

One of my favorites was a local video rental store, where kids would write stuff in the "comments" section in instruction manuals. Final Fantasy 2 had a nice little conversation between this one kid who deleted another kid's save file, and they were going back and forth. Of course, there was also the "call _________ for a good time" stuff. There were some pretty interesting bits in some of those.

I guess most of my "old man" memories involve playing multiplayer games before online gaming was a thing. Meaning I had to actually visit my friends in person and take a controller with me if we wanted to do multiplayer stuff.

I do remember playing Unreal Tournament on a Dreamcast, connected to a phone jack + dial-up connection. That lagged like a son of a bitch.

Also: I was a very happy 6-year-old kid when I opened my Super NES on Christmas morning in 1991. My mom still has an old home movie somewhere of that. I still have that same Super NES console too, and it still works like a champ. Those things were beasts.

I guess one of my most memorable gaming experiences was the first time I played Final Fantasy 7. Don't think I'll ever forget that.

[CrankyOne]

Oh man! Yes, one of my most memorable nostalgic gaming experiences was when my Dad brought home Pong. This was before Atari 2600 (which we got later). We must have stayed up all night playing Pong. I thought it was the coolest thing to be able to control something on the TV. Just fascinating.

Then the next best nostalgic gaming experience for me was when Dragon's Lair came out in the arcade. Being a big AD&D player, this was right up my alley. I can remember standing in this long a** line with my quarters in hand at Showbiz Pizza waiting to play Dragon's Lair.

Oh boy, do I miss those days.

[wowaccounttom]

Arcades... lots and lots of arcades

[CrankyOne]

Arcades... lots and lots of arcades

Yep, I almost wish we could go back to those days, but alas, they are long gone.

[Digglett]

Eating chocolate doughnuts in the AM and playing A Link to the Past. The taste of those Entemann's doughnuts still to this day brings me back. Makes me want to cut grass in Kakariko.

[Katchii]

Doritos, Mt Dew, Chips Ahoy and Resident Evil 2- 5... Me and my best friend throughout middle and high school would buy all kinds of junk food snacks, buy the latest Resident Evil game and play it from start to finish on a weekend then return it the next Monday. I couldn't stand the controls, so I would just watch him play and help him solve the puzzles and yell at him when he'd get attacked and then he yell at me for yelling at him..... then laugh because he died...

Good Times =)

[Reverence]

i leave all my favorites on a modded PSP. Cant get enough FF7 and Pokemon Red

[Deleted]

I remember my first fallout experience. At that time i played only fantasy RPGS/JRPGS and one of the friends of my father brought fallout 2 disk to me.
I started it and quit soon - looked not promising at all, naked man with a spear, boring.
Next morning i got up and my brother was playing fallout 2. He was in Den already, got a pipe rifle and was fighting with some hobos. I was so shocked by how the game changed, and also started it.
After a long time ( it took some days ) i reached Vault City and was thinking that i am close to finishing the game, It took me so long time to get there
And when i realised that it was only the beginning of the great journey - it was marvellous. First fallout 2 gaming experience is one the best feelings in the gaming world.
One of the rare games, that i still replay occasionally, but right now i have to force myself to avoid cookie-cutter builds, using shortcuts and easy ways of achieving weapons/buffs.

Another experience - when my computer borked, a guy who helped me with it, came with a friend ( that time i thought that they are adults, but i think they were 5-6 years older ). They asked me if i am interested in online gaming. I did not know what is it about and they explained that there was a local gaming hub by local provider. It was FREE to access, of course access was provided only to the local resources, they helped me to setup a modem and connection ( LOL, remember 1-2 hours on constant redial and mother, asking to free a phone line ),
But there were games like Ultima Online, Counter Strike, Diablo and many others. My first match in CS - it was something. Can't even describe it.
Of course i was owned, like hell, but it was ONLINE, i even heard people speaking!

[shokter]

Yep, I almost wish we could go back to those days, but alas, they are long gone.

Actually (if you live in a major city) a lot of bar/arcades have been cropping up the last decade or so. I frequent one that is all pinball games + Qbert for some reason (which, incidentally, I can play DAMN well with my feet on Atari). They are pretty great, and every one I've been in has plays at 25-50 cents...but they are almost invariably swimming with hipsters.

[CrankyOne]

Actually (if you live in a major city) a lot of bar/arcades have been cropping up the last decade or so. I frequent one that is all pinball games + Qbert for some reason (which, incidentally, I can play DAMN well with my feet on Atari). They are pretty great, and every one I've been in has plays at 25-50 cents...but they are almost invariably swimming with hipsters.

Yeah, I have been to a couple every so often, but its just not like the old days. Still fun, but not as fun as it used to be.

[May90]

I remember that day back in 1994 when we bought Doom 1 released just a few months ago... I was a kid, almost a baby, and even I was impressed. This game looked like something from another planet. My dad said then: "If they make such games today, then in 10 years, I bet, we will have robots walking among us".

What I miss the most is the friendly gaming online community we had back in 90s... Now it is only "omg noob team" and "l2p retard".

[Acidbaron]

You want to go old man mode alright (mind you i'm only 27 but i went through all stages of 'desktop' gaming thanks to an older brother)


There's one game to this day i still remember vividly and that is speedball, for those who played it you'll remember the random "icecream get you icecream shouts"

[Legendary Foxtails]

ext morning i got up and my brother was playing fallout 2. He was in Den already, got a pipe rifle and was fighting with some hobos. I was so shocked by how the game changed, and also started it.
After a long time ( it took some days ) i reached Vault City and was thinking that i am close to finishing the game, It took me so long time to get there

So true.

Not to mention it took me ages to find how to unlock the first door in Arroyo Temple.

But damn it, the first time I equipped a green Combat Armor and felt like a Power Ranger, I came.





My most likely nostalgic moments in gaming was passing the 3rd Level of Marathon: Durandal and figuring out I wasn't playing some sort of demo because I was stuck and the first time I got a hold of a full version of Albion & Settlers.


Probably watching people play Roller Coaster Tycoon was severely nostalgic for me also.. Damn, gutt times.

[Davemetalhead]

Shooting a light gun at a small white square bouncing around our family TV set, back in the late 70s.

Playing a Galaxian rip-off on my Commodore ViC20, Christmas Day 1982.

Sitting down in an arcade machine playing Star Wars with vector graphics in the early 80s.

Getting a Commodore C64 for Christmas 1984, along with Hunchback II and the excellent Ghostbusters - I still have a recording I made during that holiday period of the theme music - you could press the spacebar whilst it was playing and you'd get a digitised recording of the "Ghostbuster!" shout.
Playing Impossible Mission, with the digitised voice - "Stay a while ... Stay forever!".

My first flight sim - F/A18 Interceptor on the Amiga in 1989 - the start of my 15 year obsession with flight sims - right up until I discovered MMOs with WOW in February 2005.

[ToastedBread]

I have good memories of the good old days when Championship Manager 1992/93 was a simple football (soccer) simulator played on DOS. I would stay up late into the night to get through a full season. At times, I would pretend to sleep so that my parents wouldn't suspect a thing, and then crawl out of bed and sit in front of the screen all night.

Other games from the era that left me with many cherished memories include the original Gauntlet, Golden Axe (on PC!) and Kid Chameleon (on the Sega MegaDrive). Ahh, the good ol' days!

[Fencers]

Hey, You Pikachu!, was a game from 1998...

I remember the 1977 playing Telstar Colecovision for the first time. My dad bought it at Sears for a small fortune. It was massive, needed a ton of connectors and was made of WOOD.

There were two dials separated by a large plastic area that had grills. The housing was wood framed, the dials were plastic and sat on wood grain contact paper with 2 black buttons aligned vertically. TELSTAR was written across the top.

This wondrous invention required attunement, through no logic whatsoever, to either channel 3 or 4. Which produced a black and white image that was shaky, blurred and left ghostly effects on screen if anything moved.

Three games were possible, which was a revolution; tennis, backgammon and baseball.

This blew our minds. To point where we invited neighbors and family members from out of state to witness the marvelous piece technology science had delivered on to us.

Their minds were suitable fucking blown.

[werwerwerewrewreewe]

For me it's always Pokémon Blue, I've had that since I was about 5 or 6, since then I've played it pretty much every year I can remember, brings back amazing memories, honestly surprised at how much replay value the original Pokémon games have, even though I know what's around every corner it's still enjoyable for me.

[ro9ue]

Remember when games sold to us in cartridges were way less buggy, and if they ever stopped working we just had to blow into them. It was like magic.

Best memories in gaming for me are either the LAN EQ1 party I had with friends or on-the-couch gaming sessions playing Goldeneye N64 over a friends place every weekend.

Good time.