Gamestruck4- A Concept Too Big For NiTwit-ters

[NeoZeedeater]

I enjoyed Lunar back then, too. It sucked that my Sega CD died in the middle of playing Lunar 2. I had to take the system apart to get the disc out and I never went back and beat the game.

[gamevet]

Demon Attack was a really good clone of the arcade game Phoenix. I got the 2600 version for my birthday back in the day.

[NeoZeedeater]

Phoenix deserves credit for being one of the few games with a boss fight at the time but I think they made the boss more impressive in Intellivision Demon Attack. And in retrospect, I'm glad it has an autofire feature so I don't need to button mash.

[A Robot Bit Me]

My honest list would be all of the competitive fighting games around which I organized years of my late teens and early twenties. The circles of friends I practiced until the sun came up with and traveled all over the place with are still my best buddies. It's both warming and depressing to think, "Yeah, those times a pile of us stinky dudes crammed in basements and slept on a stranger's floor in Hagerstown, MD--I was as happy those days as I ever was." I still wish my dad never bought me nintendo, but it's cool that GGXX through GGXX Slash, Third Strike, Alpha 3, and especially, especially CvS2 were the things what came to be my favorite people--people whose weddings we've been in and even officiated, people who I've watched become dads, people who I've helped and have been helped through the harshest of tokes--congregated around for so long. It's weird that the FGC remembers 2004-2009 as a dark age. Sure, Capcom wasn't giving us anything, but that's what gave us time to push those late '90s and early '00 games to their limits. No DLC, no balance patches, just player ingenuity shaping and reshaping the same games. Today, roll cancel would be patched out in a week. Instead, we let it turn what was becoming a stale, plodding, pokey CvS2 into an entirely new game for years. Three-on-three random select team CvS2 is still a staple when we all manage to get together a few nights out of the year.

So I guess I'll just credit that entire experience to Street Fighter II. My friends were raving about it on the playground. I had read about it in gaming magazines, but thought six buttons sounded too complicated. When the local pizza joint got it, I wasn't especially impressed. Why can't I always walk backward? Why is up jump and not a button? Game Pro says hadoken is down, then down/forward, then forward, then punch, but I am doing all of these things in sequence and nothing is happening. This game sucks.

A few pizza days later, I tried again, this time against and older kid who was playing Ryu. He beat me by just throwing hadokens. I was a shy kid, but worked up the guts to ask him how he was doing that. "Down, down-forward, then forward and punch," he said. I told him I was doing that and showed him. "No, you have to roll the stick from down to forward like this."

The first time I got it right was a cataclysmic event. I've thought about fighting games every day since then. That night, I went through the magazine memorizing not just every single character special moves, but their birthdays and blood types. If that kid had just told me to fuck off, I'd be your president right now.

Super Mario Bros.My parents had Atari 2600. Fishing Derby was the first videogame I ever played. I woke up before them and saw the Atari hooked up to the TV. I remember being surprised by it. They had a bunch of games, so they must have had it for a while and just figured they'd put it away in the morning. I figured out how to turn it on, but didn't understand what to do. When my mom woke up, she showed me how to play. It was fine. Circus Atari was cool--I still like that game. But it didn't seize my imagination or anything. Super Mario Bros did. I can still remember being in my friend's kitchen playing it on a tiny TV. I HAD to have it. My parents bought me 2600 games they thought I might like instead. Ghostbusters 2600 is not Super Mario Bros. I think it took them around a year to cave. My dad bought the two-controller, orange gun bundle and torpedoed my life forever.

Dragon Warrior. Before my parents realized these videogame things were going to be A Problem, they'd do things like subscribe to gaming magazines on my behalf. They went through game-liking spells too; I think this one was more for them than me. Nonetheless, I was a beneficiary of the Nintendo Power + Dragon Warrior deal. The marriage of math, story (however light), and videogames was almost too much to bear. My buddy and I would use the card that detailed the enemy stats to play Dragon Warrior in real life. We didn't know it then, but we were basically playing D&D. Dragon Warrior was the first game to get me out of bed an hour before school to play.

Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Mix. These were the days when I was spending as much time on IRC downloading and talking about games as playing them. I got into bemani on the ground level, the gateway drug to my obsession with imports and who knows how much money spent patronizing NCSX, wolfgames, Play Asia, and videogamedepot. Imported a third party mat (I think it said Let's Cool Now instead of Stay Cool in the middle because it was bootleg) and had myself a good old time driving my mom insane stomping around playing. Got my Babbage's coworker buddies into it, too. Come to think of it, DDR was the social cohesive for a few of the guys I just talked about before SF was.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Why weren’t you part of gamego/tnl in its hey day?!

[kingoffighters]

Interesting Dragon Warrior was brought up. Back to Phantasy Star, I played that game before Nintendo Power hyping the shit out of DW. I was so excited for it until I played it. While it was good (for the time), it paled in comparison to PS in every which way. Graphics, music, characters, monsters, battle mechanics, PS was so far ahead of its time, I think maybe it isn't until DW 3/4 that the NES caught up. Maybe.

I still think PS1 is better than 2 and 3 in many ways.

I have been on a NES kick lately and I actually bought DW1 (and Iron Tank) this past weekend. I am curious to see if I can stomach an early NES rpg.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Why weren’t you part of gamego/tnl in its hey day?!

Efnet was everything I wanted and more. Top SF players chatting in #capcom, niche stuff in #bemani and #gamemusic, free-flowing piracy until I had the money to go legit. I never even considered that there might be other gaming communities out there.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Were you going to send me the CvS2 ISO literally while 9/11 was happening?

[Fe 26]

I'd probably have to go with Sonic 1 if we're doing this in order. Thats the first one I remember being my game and having a lasting impact. I still remember reading about it in magazines and marveling at all the little robots. I remember asking to go to Toysrus to in Jackson MS to get it while my mom visited her sister. I remember the paper slip and waiting for the lady to get it out of the back. And I remember spending the rest of the trip going over the manual.

And when got home with it? It was totally worth it. Everything was gold. The way it played. The music. The style. It would start a love affair with the blue Hedgehog that would last until sonic adventure 2. We'd visit every now and then after that. Maybe a little Sonic Generations, or Sonic Mania. But 1 through 3S/k is where it was at. And it all started with 1.

Lunar for the Sega CD is probably the game that ruined my life if we're going to blame gaming for that. I had already picked up the sega cd for sonic cd (well duh, gotta get that sonic) and was drifting away to being a casual player at this point. But for some reason I decided to pick this game up for my older sister at the mall in Tupelo MS. They only had one copy used. I got it home and tested it before wrapping it. I was blown away. This music! This story. These cut scenes. I can go everywhere. I'm going in this cave. Holy shit a dragon. Holy shit I have a flying pet. I think I was just excited for her to open it as she was. It pulled me deeper into gaming like no game before it. I think it might have been what started gaming as being a common bonding hobby between myself and my sisters too. We'd watch each other play jrpgs a lot after that. More so than with other genres.

I'll probably think of some more later, but I'll have to give an honorable mention to Nier 1 as I think it was one of the first to be "artsy" art. Its too bad that ARBM hates story in modern games. It did a great job of using the gameplay for the story and message, where other games often bolt the story onto the gameplay.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Yeah, it sucks, and it's entirely personal. It's not them; it's me. I haven't been skipping dialogue in Bravely Mrgrgr or DQVIII 3DS before it though, so maybe I'm coming back around.