Who here is an experienced gamer (pre-1990)? (1 Viewer)

[Calvin Watts III]

I was going to say pre-NES, but that would leave very few of us left.

What I want to know is simple. How long have you been playing games? In theory, the longer that you have, the more insight that you have into this wonderful hobby of ours.

To start:

I have been playing since the TV pong days. My 1st system was a Coleco Telstar,and then I got a Radio Shack Tandyvision (an Intellivision clone). And it has gone on from there.

Okay, now its your turn...

Calvin

 

[Jason Seaver]

I had a 2600 back in the early 80s, later upgraded to Atari's 800XL computer, which was pretty exclusively used for gaming. I don't know as that makes me an "experienced" gamer, though - even after my brother got a NES, I never really took to the more modern games. My next consoles after that were the Virtual Boy and Jaguar, once they hit clearance, and I mostly bought the updates and quirky stuff for the Jag - Tempest 2000, Pitfall, Attack of the Mutant Penguins. I've been around a while, but there are vast holes in my experience between the Colecovision and Dreamcast.

 

[Frederick]

I've been a gamer since I was about 10 (I'm 31 now). My first video game system was an Odyssey something-or-another. Basically it was 2 or 3 different versions of Pong on our black and white TV. Then the Atari 2600, a Texas Instruments TI99/4A, which was used more for games than actual computing. Afterwards, I pretty much ran the gambit: an Intellivision, NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), SMS (Sega Master System), Colecovision, Atari 5200, Super Nintendo, Genesis (and I was among the few that owned a 32X), PlayStation, Nintendo 64, had a Saturn for a minute but gave it to my cousin, and now I have a PS2, Gamecube, and a Dreamcast. I'll be getting the X-Box in February. I gave my old systems to my nephew, so he's the only 6 yr. old that we know of with a Playstation, Dreamcast (he got that for Christmas a while ago), Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Genesis, and is getting a PS2 for Christmas. And yes, he plays them all. We started him when he was old enough to hold a joystick, so he's been gaming since about 6 months. He didn't play much, just kinda held the joystick and watched the screen like his uncles did ...
Freddy C.

 

[BrianB]

I was going to say pre-NES, but that would leave very few of us left.
What I want to know is simple. How long have you been playing games? In theory, the longer that you have, the more insight that you have into this wonderful hobby of ours.

I've been playing games since a kid in primary school(5-11 years old in the UK) - the Atari VCS era. Ignoring crummy pong ripoffs, my first system was a Sinclair ZX81, which I got in 1983 for my tenth birthday. That was a revelation compared to the Atari2600 stuff. B&W graphics, but you could *make your own programs*! I learned rudimentary BASIC programming on its crummy keyboard. I played awesome games on it (including the original fps, 3D Monster Maze ).
A year later (or was it 2?) I got a C64.... Wow! *HUGE* upgrade. Programming got ditched & it was games, games, games, baby! I was a voracious gamer, playing anything I could get my hands on - my parents didn't have a lot of cash, so I borrowed a LOT of games from friends. With some of them, I played their collections more than they did to be honest I used to get a LOT of grief from my parents for playing too much videogames - something I always mention to them in reference to my career I progressed into a little programming on it, doing simple games in Basic but the C64 sucked for it. Some friends & I mucked about in GAC & SEUCK which was fun though. The C64 has some of my fondest games on it - the likes of Wizball, Head Over Heels, Football Manager, Summer Games II. Good days.
From the C64 I 'downgraded' to a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (my sis wrecked the C64). Lower quality graphics, crummy keyboard. But the games! Oh the *games*! The Speccy was home to a /lot/ of unique titles that didn't get ported to other platforms done by a lot of unique British programmers. As a C64 owner, I'd looked down on 'em... Stupid, stupid, stupid! The Speccy was home to some *great* games. I got programming in basic again on it, did my own "software star" clone on it, etc. A lotta lotta fun.
My next machine after that was an Atari 520STFM. I dithered between it & an Amiga, but a good mate got an ST & Elite Plus on it just blew me away. That was that. I stuck with Atari after that, playing games, learning to program the machine, making simple demos, picking up some assembler etc.
You'll notice a lack of consoles at this point - the NES was not a factor in the UK. Home computers like the Spectrum & C64 where were it was at. A few people has SMS or NES, but they were fairly rare. The SNES & Mega Drive were the first *really* big consoles. I picked up a Mega Drive, a mate has a SNES, and I played a bunch of games on them both.
I'd like to think that makes me an experienced gamer. There's a lot of stuff I've missed out on - PCEngine for example, I've only played via emulators - but I think I've got a pretty wide experience.

 

[JoelH]

Aside from various Pong versions, the 2600 was the first game system I owned. Subsequent to that, I played the 5200 (I still remember hearing the system say "Ball" and "Strike" in the baseball game I had), the 7800, Colecovision, and the Intellivision. (Anyone remember Porky's: The Game?) Thrown in there was my Coco 1 and 3, which I used to program my own games, as well as play Dallas (theme song included!). I dabbled a little bit with the TI-99 and Commodore 64 (I know, not real game systems, but there were used primarily for that purpose). Eventually making my way into the world of NES, Sega Master System and others.

I didn't venture very far off the beaten path when it came to playing with mainstream systems, but those early systems had some great games, many of which challenge today's games for involvement and creativity.

By the way, did anyone see the recent Screen Savers on TechTV where they interviewed one of the original programmers for the Intellivision? I didn't realize that the failure of many game systems was due in part to the lack of licensing and/or quality control in those days. Anyone who had a ROM burner and same basic programming knowledge could pump games out all day long. It was an interesting interview, and one worth watching if they repeat it.

----

Joel

 

[Andre F]

I started off with Pong and then went to an Atari 2600. Ever since then I've been playing non-stop.
-Andre F

 

[Jason Handy]

The Atari 2600, with Pac-Man. I think I was about 10 (I'm 27 now). My parents lined up for my birthday and paid $50 for it. Man those were the days.

The Commodore 64 changed my life though. Pool of Radiance, Impossible Mission, the Summer Games, Winter Games series.... I had the *ultimate* bedroom setup with the NES dedicated to the TV, right next to it was the C64 with its own dedicated monitor. I was in heaven!

Jason

 

[ChrisV]

Same here, started with a 2600 WAY back in the day, and have been complaining about sore thumbs ever since.

Actually I think that phenomenon started with that bloody NES controller. Too bad those buttons weren't analog... I was always trying to make Mario jump farther through the use of body contortion and the application of extreme pressure to the button.

 

[Jason Handy]

Chris,
Same here - callouses galore. My solution was to get the NES advantage with turbo setting and kick butt on the Track and Field games. I have *never* seen a man jump that high in my life

 

[Joel Mack]

I've been at it since '80 or '81, when I got my first PC, an Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P. 4K of RAM, Microsoft BASIC in ROM, 6502-based goodness...
I had a couple of those Atari standalone games (Breakout, Stunt Bike) before getting a 2600...

 

[Iain Lambert]

My first real experience of gaming was cowering behind the couch whenever my next door neighbour played Asteroids on the 2600; the sound of it terrified me! Now, Jaws is my all-time favorite movie, and Asteroids is one of my all-time favorite games - how times change...

From there, I played a friends Vic20 for ages, until Christmas 1984, when we got a Sinclair Spectrum. As Brian said, the games were brilliant on this, and I also did some programming as well.

Next it was the legendary '88 Amiga 500 Batman Pack, and my brother got a Megadrive (Genesis to the rest of the world). I moved to the Amiga 1200 when that came out, then a PC in my final year of college to write up my thesis on (the Amiga was really struggling due to the number of diagrams and mathematical equations in it).

I didn't get a console of my own until I bought an N64 to play 1080 and Mario on, because I worked all day and couldn't be bothered with PC games when I got home. I added a Playstation on the day Gran Tourismo 2 was released, for that and wip3out (the first two I had the PC versions of).

Finally (for now), I bought a Dreamcast in the spring, to satisfy my urge for MSR, Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure.

Next: Iain tries to avoid the fact that he can't afford to import a Gamecube...

 

[Shawn C]

Started with the Atari 2600. Played mostly Activision games like Pitfall and such. I remember when the 5200 came out and Atari was promoting it like crazy. I was in ly 4th grade and living in Buena Park, CA. at the time. I used to walk to the mall and check out the games the drug store was selling.

Anyways, I remember playing Breakout, or something similar, on one of those 50ft. televisions that Atari had setup in the mall parking lot. That was pretty cool.

I remember that the 2600 controllers were EXTREMELY TOUGH. I always tore the rubber cover of the stick off, so all you were left with was the white plastic part underneath..hah They took a lickin' and kept on tickin'

I have two C64's and a 128 at my in-laws house in NY.

 

[Anthony_J]

I've been a gamer since the Atari 2600, like most of you on this thread. We used to share the 2600 with friends who had intellivision and colecovision, so we more than had our fill of games in the preNES days. Believe it or not, I still can't figure that damn Superman game out for the Atari, looks like nonsense to me
But curvy bullets on Combat? - that spells fun in any language.
NES was a revolution. I remember staring in awe at Super Mario Brothers because we thought it looked amazing, spending hours and hours in Zelda putting bombs next to every single rock in the caverns to see if they'd open a new door, or playing Ikari Warriors for hours on end, with a little help from "ABBA" (not the swedish music group).
I believe that NES gave me the worst sore thumbs ever, with games like Track and Field (who else figured out that it was easier for right handers to run by flipping the control upside down?), Tecmo Bowl, and Excitebike.
And Tetris or Dr. Mario? Forgetaboutit.
And then my NES died after years of soaking any available surface with rubbing alcohol in an attempt to get the game working one more time.
Genesis was next, but I never owned one because my roommates all had one. Another solid year of my life gone due to NHL '93 and the guys that twitched while blood poured out of their heads.
I got out of console gaming for a while, except for a brief stint with the SNES strictly for Killer Instinct and EA Hockey (I had it for one year in college, towards the end of it's lifespan). I never really got into playstation or N64.
Now I own a Dreamcast and have plans to pick up an XBOX or PS2 after the holidays. Cheers to the future!!! Although I really wish that somebody would release the old excitebike on one of the new systems. None of this Excitebike 64 crap, some games just don't need updating.

 

[Mike__D]

I started with the Odyssey that my parents friends gave them. Then one x-mas day, my parents gave me the biggest surprise in my life... and Atari 2600 and 5 or 6 games. I played Astroids till I was blue in the face. I remember countless hours of "flipping" the score twice. A few years later, I got a C64 and I got in computer gaming. I have 2 shoe boxes full of 5.25" disks with copies & copies of every damn game (I was young, and looked at it the same way one would make copies of music tapes). For the record, I don't have pirated games on ANY of my current systems.
Then on another x-mas, my parents surprised me yet again with a Sega Master System. I was the ONLY one I knew who had it... everyone else had NES. Then for a week or so, my buddy and I traded consoles, so I did get a fair bit of NES playing... especially Ninja Gaiden.
From there I bought Sega Genesis the day before I started college (big mistake ). Everyone on my floor stopped by to play Madden or NHL hockey. Hell, I even created the "Calhoon Bowl", named after my dorm. I created brakets and everyone picked their teams. I used the best sleeper team EVER in the Madden series... the 90 - 91 Steelers. Rod Woodson "owned" the place!
Every since I've been in gaming bliss. Wow, didn't intend for my message to be that long!

 

[Paul Richardson]

My first console: Pong.

My second console: N64.

In between was lots of computer gaming, a lot on the Atari 8-bit, and later on Mac and PC.

 

[Carlo_M]

i used to play that game on an Apple II, the one where you had cannons and would try to shoot the other guy over the cliff by putting in the angle of the shot and velocity of the shot? I forgot what this game was called but we had a blast with it.

Of course I owned a 2600 with the requisite games, as well as a Commodore 64 with 2 disk drives-- ",8 ,9" baby!!! I lost an entire summer of 7th grade to Bard's Tale III on that damned thing.

 

[Kelley_B]

The "good ol" days! Yeah I started out with a Sears Telegames Pong unit that my dad had when I was 2. After that we got a "hand me down" 2600(this was 83) and about 20 games for it. But when the crash hit in 84 my dad went crazy and bought a ColecoVision and a IntelliVision. I remember going to the supermarket and buying 2600 games for like $2 and less! When the NES was test marketed in New York and Los Angeles my dad had a friend of his get one from New York. I was very fortunate that my father enjoy videogames as much as I did growing up.

 

[Ryan_B]

The game was called Scorched Earth...I think.

 

[Carlo_M]

It's not scorched earth, that's too recent. This was a game that had barely-better-than-Pong graphics. Just two players who were cannons and on other sides of a hill, or cliff. We would position the cannons and determine the angle, try to judge distance and the wind, and put in the power of the shot, and then watch the little dot (which represented the cannonball) as it sailed over the impediment (usually a cliff or hill) and land on or near the opposition. Then the other guy had a shot, and back and forth it went. Must have taken like a day to program, graphically, but the gameplay was frickin' addicting.

 

[Dave F]

I had an Apple ][ game like that named Artillery. There were so many knockoffs in that period, who knows if it was the same one...
I remember playing Space Invaders & I was so short that I had to reach up to the controls, and I couldn't even see the screen.
-Dave