Hello all you blog fans out there. Sorry I haven’t posted in the last day or so, have had things on. Hope everyone out there is ok and enjoying the blog. As I’ve said previously, I’ve tried to do this daily but material can go dry after a while. You begin to not know what to write about. I would like to talk to you today about Gaming. People will be aware I have a bit of a passion for the subject. I want to take you through my journey as a gamer. This might not sound very appealing, but to the fan, I’m sure you can relate to it.
I started gaming back in the early 90s, a peak for the activity. There were no Wiis, Xbox360 or PS3s around at this time. No waving your arms about in front of a sensor, it seems primitive; but it was enjoyable. Two of the first consoles I ever played on were the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System. I probably played the Mega Drive around that time too but I’m sure. I have vivid memories of playing Fantasia or some kind of Mickey Mouse game. Just for the record, anything with Mickey Mouse featured, is absolute gold until the Gamecube game in my opinion. Anyway, I started playing things like Sonic and Mario, the real kings of platform games. They might seem very basic now, but back then and still now, they are some of the best games ever released.
I used to play other games too, such as the puzzle game Kickle Cubicle. This was a puzzle game with very impressive graphics for the NES. What I love about these old games is although they look extremely simple, they are very difficult to master. I can say I’ve only ever completed less than 5 games in my collection, and they were probably on easy. I always take the opinion that it doesn’t matter what difficulty you have it on, as long as you enjoy the game. I must’ve completed Hercules several times on easy and still find it entertaining. Who wouldn’t love Danny Divito’s voice telling you to concentrate?
I’m digressing a bit here; I’m still talking about the early days. I used to play Paperboy a lot too, and I found it much easier on the NES to master. I played the arcade version through a compilation years later and it just didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t the Paperboy I grew up with. Arcade conversions were quite popular at this time; there were some good ones and some bad ones. I loved the NES conversion of Double Dragon; I still play it today via the WII’s Virtual Console. It was a fighting game at its best. It was immersive enough for you to get involved, but not realistic enough for you to take it seriously, unlike some of today’s games.
Gaming seems to have this reputation that it is a solitary activity, which I don’t personally agree with. Even before all this casual gamer stuff, I’d always try and play things like Mario with other people, even if it was just on one player. You make it a group activity and it suddenly doesn’t become a solitary geeky pastime anymore. Even when I first played a SNES, it was still a group activity.
Anyway, I’ve talked about Nintendo, perhaps I should talk about Sega’s 8-bit console while I am here. There were only ever three games I played on the SMS. These were Sonic the Hedgehog, Taz Mania and the arcade conversion of Rainbow Islands. I loved the 8-bit Sonic; it is still one of my favourite games. It was easy to get into; it was a lot simpler than its Mega Drive counterpart. Taz Mania was a challenging game but I found enjoyment out of it all the same. I loved the TV show and loved to play as Taz. I guess these TV shows adapted for games have this affect; you want to play as your favourite characters in a scenario similar to the TV series. I played Ducktales a while back, it was a good old fashioned platformer, but it was difficult!
Rainbow Islands was just one of those arcade conversions that was actually better than its original source. I played the Amiga version years later and it was terrible, almost unplayable to me who is used to the SMS version. I then realise the Amiga version was identical to the original; this made me love the version I love even more!
I guess what I take from the 8-bit era is this; a majority of the games were very good, there are a few turkeys out there, for their design and replay ability! One of my most played games of all time is Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES. It is simply, in my opinion, one of the best games I have played, and is one of the gems from this era.
Anyway, I think I’m going to write this blog in parts, as I’m writing a lot here. So, in true TV show style, join me on the next blog when I will be talking about the 16-bit consoles. This is where my passion for gaming really took off. Thanks for reading and if you have any comments on anything I have mentioned, then please comment below!
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