So I assume many of us have played some games for the first time long after their release date. Like, maybe you didn’t have a specific console growing up so we didn’t play the “classics” on it, or something.
I’m just wondering how many of you have played an older game and thought “wow, I wish I grew up with this game”?
For example, for me, many years ago I played Super Metroid for the first time and fell in love with the idea of just wandering aimlessly around the game world, occasionally stumbling into new areas. I would have loved to have played it as a kid with childlike wonder without worrying about finishing the game or making progress.
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Not really older games, since I grew up parallel to them, but I’m kind of jealous of the ubiquitous NES culture in the US in the mid-late 80s.
Consoles were a rarity in the UK till the 90s, and the Sega Mastersystem was largely the only game in town where I was before that. I didn’t even see a NES in person till the 00s. Seeing ads in comics for NES games, or hints of NES Mario and Zelda in magazines was a rare glimpse into another world.
I was a console kid and wish I had more exposure to the beefier DOS/PC games available in the 90’s, lots of gems
I feel like I almost completely missed out on PC gaming from the late 80s to the early 2000s. I played a few mil-sim games from Novalogic and Jane’s but that was about it.
I wasn’t exposed to an FPS until half-life was a few years old. My first real gaming PC was built for Half-Life 2.
I totally missed Doom, Quake, Descent, Diablo, System Shock, Deus Ex, Wolfenstein, Fallout. I didn’t even know about Elder Scrolls, Myst, Riven, Maniac Mansion (or any of the other Lucasfilm or Tim Schafer games like it).
I did catch some lower spec games like Sim City, StarCraft, Worms, etc., But it seemed like none of them really caught my attention longer than a few hours. I was mostly interested in SNES and PS1 around that time I guess.
The Elder scrolls
You put it perfectly here
I would have loved to have played it as a kid with childlike wonder
That feeling you get when you play a game you like when you are a kid is something you don’t get again as an adult, I remember the first times I played Minecraft, I remember that sense of adventure and discoverery that sadly I haven’t been able to experience again.
I can only imagine what would have felt playing Morrowind, Oblivion and even Skyrim with the mind of a child.
I know these games are not that old… but hey! I was a child when they came out.
Morrowind was earth shattering when it came out. It looks like ass compared to today’s games but at the time we’d never seen anything that looked that good, with that epic scale of a world, before. It was magical.
Tons of them!
I was a child when we had something like the gaming industry established already so there were already some true gems out there, but as a child I grew up playing child games, also started with the PS1, my first game was Grand Turismo, and yeah 6 years old me did not like it, also DBZ Ultimate Battle 22, this one was my jam, until many many years later I realized it sucked lol, but what can I tell, I played some shovelwhere and Disney games, although I think they were fine, I never played big titles like MGS or FF VII for example, and my favorite game from the PSX that I replay even today is Toy Story 2, no regrets.
One that never clicked with me back when it came out was Halo. Everyone else claims it’s this amazing, must play game, but I just couldn’t get through it. I even tried again this year and bought the Master Chief edition in t he steam sale for $10, but got bored with it by the time you board the Covenant ship. I really want to know what I’m missing here, but to me it seems like a cookie cutter FPS with the most basic, boring-ass story. Sincerely asking, what makes this game so good?
I was just the right demographic and everything for Halo. Had an Xbox. Had the game. Had 4 brothers to couch co-op with. Was a weird backwards military-obsessed family.
Played it a bunch. A BUNCH. But while I enjoyed it, it didn’t really leave any kind of impression. I thought its story was shallow and its characters unremarkable caricatures even at age 13. Years later when I saw people going on about how DEEP its world-building was and how BADASS Master Chief was and how ICONIC the game was I was just kinda…nonplussed? Whole game was just mediocre to me. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t like it or whatever, but it wasn’t groundbreaking for me the way it was for (apparently) many others.
Make of that what you wish!
Ooh, great question! Super Metroid is one for me too. I love metroidvanias now, and really enjoyed the nonlinear / exploration elements of Super Mario World, but I didn’t play a proper metroidvania until my teens. I think I’d take CV:SotN over Super Metroid, but I bet I’d have been more than happy with either.
I wish I grew up with some OG gameboy RPGs. Final Fantasy Legend, Dragon Warrior Monsters, Crystalis. They were just a bit too far before my time for me to get much exposure when I would have liked them best, so I don’t have any real nostalgia, but in revisiting old games I’ve always been drawn to those.
I went back and played (and beat) Super Metroid finally a few years ago. It was an amazing experience that I’m sorry I missed out on as a kid, but I don’t think I would have had the patience to beat it then. I ended up on a Metroid binge after that. Played the Samus Returns remake and Dread, and am currently playing the Prime remake. I think Metroid has been stuck in niche consoles for so long a lot of folks haven’t been exposed so I appreciate the remakes.
The first time played Super Metroid, it was after I played Fusion and Zero Mission, and I was actually rather unimpressed by it, despite it being basically a platinum standard for 2D metroidvanias.
It was only later, after playing various romhacks including randomizers and getting much more accustomed to the game engine and the sheer number of possibilities afforded by various speed tricks and sequence-breaking techniques, that I gradually realized why it’s held in such high regard. The game is…neat, if you simply play through it once. But the more you learn about it the more you can do with it and the more fascinating it becomes. There is a seemingly infinite depth to it, which is not at all obvious on a first playthrough. In fact, some of it appears to be accidental, possibly game design bugs on the programmers’ part, yet somehow such imperfects have made it even more of a masterpiece.
I was lucky. Born in the last gen-x year and with parents in the upper middle-class in a western country. I could save up to whatever console and game I wanted but yeah, I never did play any sega consoles and I never did own a c64. But I did get my feet wet with some c64 games as I had friends who had it.
I’m glad I grew up with these games. Todays games, while superior or pretty much every way, all seem to lack “something”. There are exceptions of course. Games like dead red redemption 2 are something else!
Yeah Super Metroid was as awesome as you can imagine as a 14 year old!
Aww, you missed out on the C64. My favorite thing was to get the new magazines when they came out every month so I could copy the BASIC code or ML code for games. So many cool games to play from those mags. It kept me busy for hours and hours.
I got on the Amiga train in 1990 instead. BBS and early internet!
I loved my Amiga. I got one the same year as you.
i managed to get my hands on two Amiga 4000 040 in a local auction a few years ago.
Other than replacing the batteries and some minor repairs, i’m ashamed to say that they are just collecting dust.
Still, pretty to look at. God i wanted one back in the day! Now i’ve got two! 😄
