Recently, I was catching up with one of my friends from my school days. He is a good buddy of mine. We hadn't met each other for quite a while now. Catching up, the topic of the school and the days that had gone by came up. One of the things that we always used to do was to game on the computer. A lot. From the computer, to the playstation, we have played a hundreds of hours together. It was nostalgic to remember and talk about those days, and it made me think about the games that I started off with when I was a kid...
I got my first computer in 2002-3 I think, when I was in middle school. As with any parent, the computer was to aid me in my learning and education. As with any kid, the computer was for me the window to playing games. That was it. I did not want to do anything else. Windows 98 was the operating system, and I remember the games that were on it.
I started off with Dangerous Dave, and it was a fun game. It did not really get me hooked or anything, but I had fun playing it. Then, there was Wolfstein 3D which was a riot... I always remember surprising a soldier and him shouting "sarge" "sarge" before I shot him down. But what really got me going was the game Roadrash.
I think Roadrash is also where my fascination for speed and bikes got to me. Roadrash was such a rage! I could kick off cops and other racers, or whack them with chains... It was such a thrill to fly past traffic at speeds I could not even imagine. I've probably spend a hundred odd hours playing Roadrash itself. Now that the thrill of racing games had got me hooked, I was not interested in other games as much. The second game which gave me a blast of a time was Need For Speed 2.
Where do I even start with NFS2... This was the game that made me fall in love with a whole genre and generation of racing games! I was always looking for a challenge with NFS and I would play knockouts and tournament series by the dozens with different cars, just to understand what each car was capable of, and without crashing against barriers. I loved the game and I still love it! NFS 2 lit the fire and a love for gaming. Roadrash had simply managed to ignite the fire, but NFS really got it going!...
NFS 3,4, and 5 didn't really do it for me, But NFS Hot Pursuit 2 was another amazing game! I remember driving my Ferrari F50 Spyder around the Mediterranean Paradise track. The soundtrack in the game was my first introduction to English Rock music on a much larger scale. I still listen to the soundtrack now and then. They bring back many fond memories of days well spent racing exotic cars on beautiful tracks.
Another game comes to mind now. I still play it now and then when I have nothing better to play. The Amazing Spider Man was one of the first games I had seen with such detailed graphics, and being able to play as a proper super hero. Of course, as a kid, Spider Man was the toughest game I played before managing to crack it. The "Enter Venom" chapter was probably the hardest in the entire game. I still remember the intro - "Welcome, true believers and newcomers alike... Spider Man co-creator Stan Lee here..."
It probably is the precursor to all super hero games that have come so far, from the Batman Arkham Series and probably set in motion the Spider Man game franchise.
And finally, I've to pay ode to the one of the two games that gave me most enjoyment and satisfaction in my early teenage years and high school; WWF Smackdown 2: Know your Role.
I cannot tell you enough how much I loved this game. Part of it was all the teenage hormones raging hard inside and the rush of wrestling as your favorite character. Plus the boyish violence appealed to most of us. It was cheap thrill. We would play, 4 people at one go, fighting ridiculous combinations and matches. Royal Rumble was the most battled, each of us vying to get our chosen superstar to last the 30 men rumble.
Curses would fly and aggression was let loose and scores would be settled as we battled for supremacy and there was no holding back. Sometimes, alliances were formed and broken when seen fit. It was every fucking man for himself.
I still cannot get enough of it, and play Smackdown or WWE on the playstation.
I'll probably continue this series a little more. Now that I think of the gaming days when I was a kid, a lot more games come to the fore and stand out. I'll talk about them in the next post.
I am sure most of you here have grown up playing some video game or the other. What games did you play as a kid? And why do you love some of them? Cheers!
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