A life in gaming
By kelbear 4 Comments
It's strange to hear an old game from your childhood mentioned. It calls up a rush of vague memories, and a handful of vivid anecdotes. It's shocking how much of my time spent can be recalled with just a sentence, or a game title. Does anyone keep a gaming journal? It's shocking to stop and think about how many games you've played, so many little worlds you've explored.
A handful of moments I remember:
- -Learning to bomb-jump up that goddamn tube in Metroid
- -The first stage of Quake 1 (thanks to this week's bombcast)
- -First stages of Doom1&2 (thanks to earlier bombcasts)
- -Awesome one-hit kill crashes in Carmageddon, especially with that ridiculously OP cop car.
- -Knocking over civilians in Carmageddon 2 by throwing the door open as I passed by them...then marveling at the newfangled "ragdoll" physics.
- -The scene in Unreal where all the lights go out in the corridor and you're introduced to your first (skarjj?)
- -Blowing a hole in the movie theater curtain in Duke3D
- -Getting that rat tail in FF1/FF3 and becoming a bad-ass "adult"
Even just the name of old games you haven't thought about in a long while. Specifically the ones that failed to produce strong succeeding franchises and just sort of fell of your radar until the next time someone mentions it. I took a plunge in Wikipedia to throw out a list of some of my fondly remembered games that didn't franchise well:
- Raptor
- Leisure Suit Larry
- Dungeon Keeper
- Theme Hospital
- X-Com (So many bad sequels, I don't know if this will ever change.
- Might and Magic
- Summoner
- Stronghold (The awesome D&D kingdom game, not the castle defense one)
- Shogo
- Simcopter
- Crystalis
- Tie Fighter
- Streets of Rage
- Virtual ON
- Battletoads
- Double Dragon
- Star Tropic
- Little Nemo
- Road Rash
- Star Control 2(Fuck yeah!)
- Dune II
- Syndicate
- Jagged Alliance
- Master of Magic
- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
- Phantasmagoria
- Carmageddon (Jeezus, I need MORE!)
- Outcast
- Soldier of Fortune
- American McGee's Alice
- ShadowWarrior, Blood, Redneck Rampage (These all kind of belong together)
- Ascension
- Jazz Jackrabbit
- Wasteland
- Betrayal at Krondor
- Scorched Earth
- Oni
- Lost Vikings
- Thief
- Terminal Velocity
- North and South
- Super Dodgeball
- EVO: Search for Eden
- Earthworm Jim
- Brave Fencer Musashi
- Stunt Race FX
(Before any of you start, I'm aware some of these have had sequels, or have them in the making, or have a cult following)
Any games you guys are suddenly recalling now?
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