Games you grew up with

@Folt: Heh. Unlike a lot of parents, my parents actually realized video game ratings were a thing and actually, y'know, followed them. Not to rigorously, since they knew me well and I didn't ask for most of the really violent and/or offensive stuff anyway, but if I wanted a certain game with a higher rating, they'd ask me, "Well, you know this game contains *looks at rating* X, Y, and Z?" and usually the worst that would happen is that they would tell me not to play it with my sister in the room.

My parents did the same until my brother and I were old enough that they'd give us leeway (which was when we were in our early teens). However, seeing as my grandfather owned the N64, there was no real restriction in his eyes (and since I was one of the few who hung out in the basement of his house—that's where the console was—for extended periods of time, no one else really knew about it). The worst part of it all? He bought Conker's Bad Fur Fay for my cousin, who is three years younger than me. Luckily(?) my cousin stuck to playing multiplayer, so the worst he saw was a squirrel being decapitated by an evil teddy bear (which, for a kid, is still bad). He didn't discover any the game's more "adult" themes, like the bee "pollinating" the flower, the flower itself, a giant, scantily-clad cavewoman, a homage to Alien, and, of course, the Great Mighty Poo.

I was exposed to the Great Mighty Poo at age 14. Loved it to bits. This game was one of the reasons I've realized I gotta learn how to do Fake Brit =)

Parents are different all over, mine, for examples, used to game a lot themselves (my dad still does, thought not a lot, he's the main user of our family Wii), and it was them who got me onto Gobliiins and Prince Of Persia and yes, even Wolf 3d. Mainly owing to the fact that owning a game-capable PC in the former Soviet Union was a rare thing until circa '96, and we managed to get ours (even if it had a b&w monitor) in '94.

The thing I will never forget? The move from PC Speaker sound to Sound Blaster stereo. HOLY FRAK, but Doom was mind-bendingly ear-shatteringly orgasmic (even if I didn't know the word yet) once you got it to do real sounds and music instead of bleeps and boops.

My parents had an Atari so I first games I played were like Pong and Adventure. I always thought the dragon was a seahorse.

The first games I played a lot were... Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man 3 I guess. I never actually beat them though. Beating games was a not a thing I really imagined doing. You just keep playing them until you die or have to go to bed.

I remember when the SNES was new and shiny and had way too many buttons to keep track of. Super Mario World had the best graphics ever. And still does, incidentally. During this period I used to just rent games every week (my father would take my brother and I to Blockbuster every Friday or something), so I ended up playing a variety of games but none of them for very long.

Lucky! =)

, Great Mighty Poo was awesome! He's probably the boss who I fought against the most in that game (through Chapter Replay).

All I did was play through The Vault. And multiplayer. Because multiplayer is fun.

Interestingly, it's after growing up that I re-discovered some games on Amstrad CPC: I became actually good at Prohibition and BombJack, discovered Crazy Cars II (known as F40 Pursuit Simulator for you, one of the first games with an actual road map◊), Ikari Warriors...

edited 27th Dec '11 12:26:58 AM by Medinoc

• Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit
• Some Sonic The Hedgehog games for the Game Gear
• POD: Planet Of Death
• Descent II
• Raptor Call Of The Shadows
• Stargunner

edited 27th Dec '11 4:34:27 PM by RocketDude

I grew up playing Carmen Santiago and Clue Finders games. I didn't get a chance to play anything else (bar a quick turn on FFVIII once at my cousin's house until just two years ago, when I was 19 and capable of buying myself a Playstation 2)

Echelon on the Commodore 64.

Think Quick! and Oregon Trail on Apple machines.

Programming BASIC into the Apple machines to pass the time.

Sonic. I recognised quite a lot in Generations (and with the obvious exception of Green Hill, most of it was from the music!)

Let's see, up to high school or so...

• Tapper
• Paperboy
• Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego
• The Battle Of Olympus
• Faxanadu
• Secret Of Mana
• Street Fighter 2
• Raptor Call Of The Shadows
• Epic Pinball
• One Must Fall
• Doom

edited 27th Dec '11 4:44:10 PM by Fluid

TIE Fighter, accept no substitutes.

My own nostalgia list:

• Civilization I and II
• Pokemon: Generations 1-3. Stopped following after Fire Red / Leaf Green, really.
• An old, old MECC game by the name of Yukon Trail. The first real computer game my family ever owned on a Windows computer, as it and a few others shipped with the comp when we first got it.
• Caesar II
• Robert E. Lee: Civil War General, and later Civil War Generals 2
• Vigilance: An old, old FPS that was basically a Deus Ex knockoff, except it came out two years before Deus Ex itself.
• Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun: The AI is horrible, which makes the multiplayer mode so fun
• Colonization
• Master Of Orion 3, before I realized it was horrible. I even made a little mod for it.
• Persona 3: One of the last games I had the pleasure of being able to devote the vast majority of my time to before college ate it all.

Rayman, Spyro and some Mario games. The Mario game I played the most was Sunshine.

Oracle of Seasons.

And I sucked at it. Couldn't get past the Kracko-like boss.

edited 29th Dec '11 1:46:00 AM by Nizbel

Well I remember I had the Star Wars games on the SNES I think, I played them a lot. Later when I finally got a PS One (I was around 7 or 8 years old.) these games are the ones that I liked more:

• Tarzan (The game of the movie).
• Resident Evil 3
• Crash Bandicoot
• Harry Potter (same as Tarzan).
• Dino Crisis
• Mortal Kombat 4.

• Pokemon Red And Blue
• Links Awakening
• Age Of Empires II

Those are my nostalgic triumvirate. No home console games on the list, as I didn't pick one up for a while.

Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Warcraft, Warcraft II, The Adventures of Alundra, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Warriors of the Eternal Sun and Baldur's Gate II all leap to mind.

edited 29th Dec '11 8:33:15 PM by Talby

Let's see. Up until I was 14, maybe:

• Prince Of Persia
• Commander Keen
• Age Of Empires II
• Super Mario
• Tarzan
• Tetris
• Formula One Grand Prix
• Falcon (no idea which one it was)
• Comanche 4
• The Sims
• Jurassic Park Operation Genesis
• Age Of Mythology

Some of these I might have played later, though. I don't remember that well.

edited 1st Jan '12 9:03:38 AM by whataboutme

Another thing I almost forgot to mention:

Homeworld (and yes, I was there when my household got this game close to release)

There really isn't any mainstream RTS like this nowadays, and Homeworld simply looked GREAT at its time (and most likely still holds up now, although I haven't played it recently).

edited 29th Feb '12 3:29:02 PM by EarlOfSandvich

Well, I only really started playing games when I was ~14, but:

• The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time and Majoras Mask
• Pokemon Emerald
• Super Mario Bros 3

Despite me going on and on about Pokemon, I don't think it was my first real forray into gaming. That was Star Wars Episode I Racer for the N64. I went back and played it and all I got was 'meh'. Oh well. Pokemon was number 2 though.

Well, let's see...

• Super Mario Bros.
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Yoshis Island
• The Legend Of Zelda Links Awakening
• Castlevania
• Castlevania III Draculas Curse

From all those, probably Yoshis Island and Links Awakening were the two games which I probably have played the most. Oh, the good times, when I saw the Final Boss of YI the first time and hid under a nearby table in response...

edited 1st Mar '12 10:40:39 AM by Jaryl

The Sims 2 Gamecube

Windwaker

Time Splitters Future Prefect

Pokemon (all of them)

Cubevoire

Donkey Kong Country

Super Mario Bros 3

edited 1st Mar '12 2:23:25 PM by GearLeader