Ahh...The Not-So-Old-Days

Ok where did I stop last time, let's see, oh yes I was talking about the Super Nintendo (aka Super Famicom). It was a great time to be a gamer but also one of the nastiest times seeing how it was the birth of modern "Fanboy-ism". Those of you who have been around video games long enough know these people. They simply refuse that a system that they have may not be the best one out there. Which leads me to the topic of the Nintendo 64.

Ah the Project Reality, the Ultra 64, the Nintendo 64 if you will was Nintendo's big answer to the Atari Jaguar, Panasonic's 3D0, Sony Playstation, and the Sega Saturn (more on these later). Luckily by this time in my life I was fortunate enough to have a job that I could start buying my new toys without parental consent.

I put the N64 on layaway and a copy of Mario 64. That was a great game that took me days upon days to finish. It was magical playing games now that there was an analog input for games instead of the usual joypad digital controls. Sadly, the only reason that I wanted to pick up a N64 was that I bought all of the hype that Final Fantasy VII was coming to the system, which it wasn't. So Mario 64 remains one of the 6 games that I own for my N64, I have yet to fully recover from the heartbreak of buying that system and am still very wary of picking up anything from Nintendo.

Two games of note for this system (amazingly both of them from Rare) are Goldeneye and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Goldeneye proved to PC gamers that a FPS could be well done on a console and that multiplayer FPS had a market. Finally, Conker's Bad Fur Day, I don't have the words for this game...absolutely brilliant would come to mind, if I were British. Great game, they re-did it for the Xbox a few years ago, you should go pick it up.

Moving on, my next purchase was the Sony Playstation...I bought more games for this system in its lifespan than any other game system to date...that's how good it is. I still play games from its library. This system in my opinion was the turning point of modern gaming. It had it all, great games, extensive library, good pricing, etc. I really really really loved this system, it got me playing game genres that I had been neglecting in years past, mainly with the Gran Turismo and Madden franchises (just to name a few). What can you say, it was the first game console to ever surpass the 100,000,000 sold record.

My favorite game for the PS1 would have to be Metal Gear Solid, it was the return of Solid Snake from way back in the old NES days of Metal Gear. This game singlehandedly made the Stealth-Action genre what it is today.

I managed to rescue a few systems from the bargain bins around the same time I was in love with my Playstation. I found a Sega Saturn, a Sega Genesis and a Nintendo Virtual Boy for about 20 bucks each...but I can see why they weren't the winners in their generations.

On to the first of the "128-bit" gaming systems; the Sega Dreamcast. It was a crazy name, the controller was just odd and it came out of left-field, but damn was this system good. I enjoyed this system quite a bit and way totally shocked to find out that it was discontinued so quickly, I had bought like 8-9 fighting games for thi...wait maybe thats a reason, there weren't many games that weren't fighting games. Sure you had games like Seaman (look it up, its not dirty) and Shen Mue (pronounced Shin-Moo), but for the most part it seemed like it was mainly Capcom's bitch.

Next out of the breech was Sony's response, the long awaited Playstation 2 (*yawn* boring name sony!). I was one of the lucky people, or unlucky cause I had to max out a credit card to buy one of these systems, who was able to get their system at the launch date. I even had the audacity to tell a few of my professors that I was going to miss class for a couple of games due to its launch.

The PS2 was and still is a phenomial success due to its 120 million units sold record (a record still climbing)and the fact it had a built in DVD player. This system came out amid the great DVD vs VHS battle of dominance and finally made DVD viewing cheap and fun a the same time, not to mention economical. It was backwards compatible with the PS1 so all those games you bought wouldn't just collect dust. I have the second highest number of games for this system (out of all my others) at about 37 titles. I'd note a specific game for this console but its so recent, its hard to say. That is to say that its not quite old enough for me to reminisce about it yet.

The final system I'll blab about tonight is Microsofts first foray into the console gaming market. With a virtually unstoppable bankroll, Microsoft's Xbox blasted onto the scene with games and graphics to put PS2's to shame. Though astheticly unpleasing, hot, and heavy the system was, it never gained much of an audience in venues outside of the US and Europe (read that "Japan didn't like it"). I personally never got much use out of this sytem except for a few games like Halo, Halo 2, and wait, that's about all I used my system for...First Person Shooters...damn!!!

Since the architecture of the Xbox resembled that of a decently powered PC at the time, games were quite easy to program compared to the proprietary tools and development kits being offered by the Playstation 2 (funny how the same thing is being said in the newest batch of consoles).

Well, that about catches us up to the current batch of game systems (PS3, Wii, and the Xbox 360) but I won't be rambling about these systems yet, seeing how I own one, hate one, and want another...so I'll leave you all to stew and soak up all the knowledge i've left in this post. See you again soon!