Spectrum

When i was 3-6 years old I had the use of my Dads Spectrum.

We'd all sit around on the floor in front of the screen and Dad would load the cassette

I have very distinct memories of the loading noise and how it seemed to go on forever.

Me and my brother's fave game at that time was the nevercompleted Wriggler (although I watched my Uncle complete it once, there were some keys behind a jail underground)

But also big plays occurred on Trash Man (which I remember sometimes being allowed to play in the morning before school, i really loved wheelin' the bins around)

The next best thing to Wriggler was this Burger making game.... the noises I love and young me enjoyed running over burgers and crushing bad guys.

There were loads of other games with really good gamey tunes that when as soon as I hear them I get such joyous flashbacks and feelings of being in a game, it's great!

The Big Computer

But moving on, the next computer was the ole PC.
I can't remember what era of PC Dad had, but my first experience using one was for some kind of kids maths game, called something like Leap Frog where I had to calculate the maths equations, and the correct answer allowed a frog to leap across lilly pads. I remember this being a handy game to play whilst Dad had to get my brother ready in the mornings.

However, from about age 8, I remember hilarious times playing 2 player Micro Machines with my brother forced to use the letters for direction on the left side of the keyboard, and I'd always take the arrows on the rightm and together we would share a keyboard and a small screen and laugh our way around the tracks. This is where the word Belibopter made us laugh hard for like, ever.

Dad also had the floppy disk Doom game! and the ability to set two PCs up, one upstairs connected by a long wire to the one in the living room, and it was just so amazing that they could talk to each other. The best thing about that whole set up was the fact me and my brother could play 2 player Doom, one of the best game experiences I've ever had. We could type on the screen and communicate from different rooms! All whilst playing 2 player coop mode on a game we got super good at.

We'd often spend hours in cheat mode on one of the very last levels where monsters spawn continuously and we practiced slaughtering them. I still have the cheat codes locked in my mind IDDQD and IDKFA heh.

Consoles

Also around age 7-8 my mum and stepdad had a console I can't remember the name of, but it had this cowboy game where my mum could program it in advance to put where objects or bad guys would appear, then we'd be able to try and play it, and then she could go away and change stuff and we could keep playing different versions of the same thing, it was like a funny graphicked shooting game.

Not long after that I remember they also bought a Master System with an inbuilt sonic the hedgehog on it. That was the true beginning of gaming. Hours and hours were spent, by the whole family, trying to complete sonic and enjoying the sonic music in the meantime. Eventually we all got really good at it, but i recall getting stuck on some early log leaping waterfall level, it took all of us ages to get past it, my stepdad was the first to make it.
There was so much hidden stuff to spot, it really kept th family gripped.

And i'll leave the music clip cos it's such comfy happy sounds :D

Graphic PC

Around ages 10-11 my mum bought a PC Windows 95, this was situated in her bedroom and was mostly used for her office typing, but it did have ability to play doom, just not 2 player doom, so I just sometimes played it by myself after school. But mostly with that PC i remember mum writing some little short stories about our pet guinea pigs or something, and then me and my brother would gather around the pc and she'd press play on that paperclip helper and some auto robot man voice would read her story! To us at that time, it was amazing... and hilarious when it pronounced words oddly.

Oh and the other thing that stands out is the graphics. Mum was able to make drawings and things to print out that we could colour in. We had a 95 clip art disc if I recall corrently, spent hours looking through crappy graphics in there.

2 Player Sega

By the time I was age 10/11 we had a Sega Mega Drive and got rid of the Master System. The cartridges stand out the most for me with this one. It was a much easier load, the cartridges were smooth and looked neater. We had a well good multi game disc that had a really good musicked game called Columns.

Many hours were spent playing my brother at this, we'd hum and sing along to the music, laughing when it got faster. One time we'd played so well we made it to the very ultimate last level, everything just slammed down without barely a chance to think, bu by then it felt so easy to do. I've played it since and am rubbish again. But it was always a great twp player game, another one with so many hanging out memories attached, just me and my brother having a laugh together in his room on a tiny TV.
I know it would definately be around 1997 because my brother bought his first ever cd single, Never Ever by All Saints. Random.

The Mega Drive also gave us one of the best games with addictive music ever, Golden Axe! And! being able to choose a character! AND, ride dragons. Another game where many laughs were had at the way the dwarf barged or the funny way someone died, but most of all, the almost completing it every time but failing to do so! BAH!
The furthest ever recorded was to the castle gates, in the castle there's a big black gap whilst fighting some skeletons, i think you're meant to run and leap over the gap, but try as we might, we all died trying to simply leap. Got to that point a couple of times too, never made it across!

Streets of rage was another great 2 player game, and a awesome soundtrack, one i like so much i sometimes find myself on youtube listening to it like it's an old album.
.
The Mega Drive was a proper gaming experience for me and my brother, it was always being played, whenever we were allowed anyway. I can't believe just being allowed "an hour" was long enough to do anything, but looking back i just have hours of memory within these games alongside my brother. And sometimes step sisters would join in too.
Games such as Cool Spot, Marble Madness and lots of Sonic, Tails, and special stages stand out the most for our old family fun times in game world.

Next time...

The next part in my computery journey brings forth the Playstations, alternative ways to PC, phones eventually become a thing and games get even better whilst playing becomes less family orientated.