My Gaming History

Computers
-Sometime in 1980-1984 or so I played games on the Apple IIe at my school. My dad was a principal of the school. The games I remember were swashbuckler (pirate game) and Sabotage (kill parachuters with a gun). I can't remember many other games.

-Sometime in 1980-1985 I played on other people's Commodore 64s. I only got to play a little on them and I can't remember what I played. Mostly I think I watched other people play. Jerks!

-1989 I got access to my first computer at school. It was a Commodore 64 again. I played all kinds of games on that thing. I don't think I played anything good though. It was all crap but hey it was games... I had a math class and the dumb teacher thought it was learning for me to play games on that. haha.

-1993 my roommate had a 386 computer. I bought some games for it (some world war 2 bomber game) and played some games on his computer. I also played Buck Rogers game which was so cool! I saw that computer games were clearly superior to console games.

-1993 I didn't see a computer again from 1989 until like 1993. My parents were too poor to afford a computer and non of my friends had them either. I did get some typing classes at school but we didn't have any games to play on them.

-In 1994 I got a school loan to buy my first computer. It was $3,000 a 486-66 in DOWNTOWN OAKLAND. I looked around forever and that was the best deal. I had to drive to downtown oakland, pack up my computer and RUN from the ghetto before anyone killed me. It was rough. I got that system mainly for Rebel Assault I saw in CompUSA. How little did I know it was a horrible game that was all eye candy.

-When I got my computer all my friends at college piled on the warez. I didn't know that was wrong or anything. I played all sorts of games on warez. We also played Warcraft I, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Galactic Civiliazations, Doom I, Dark Forces, Myst (didn't like it but cool graphics) and some more I forget. Later on I started actually buying games after the warez craze :) I talked to my flight instructor and he said if a game is good buy it. But he didn't consider warez wrong to try something out before buying.

-1995 got Doom II started playing it on Ifrag (made by Kali). We (Gotcha/Warp/Me) chipped in and all bought Warcraft II to play. Became addicted. :)
-1996: Warcraft II, Subspace, SpacePirate, Moto Racer (I think)
-1997: Warcraft II, Diablo, UO Beta, Age of Empires, Theme Hospital
-November 1, 1997 - Started at a top Computer Game Company
-1998: StarCraft, Half Life, Curse of Monkey Island, Commandos I?, Grim Fandango, Dungeon Keeper
-1999: Everquest
-2000: Diablo II, Counter Strike
-2001: Counter Strike, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Gran Turismo 3, GTA III, Commandos II, Return to Wolfenstein, Max Payne
-2002: Warcraft III, Counter Strike, Diablo II: LOD, Morrowind, GTA Vice City, Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor, Toon Town
-2003: Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, Planetside Beta

Let me know if some of these dates are off and I'll adjust them.

Console
From 1980-1984 I played the Pong Machines (2 of them my friend had) and I played on other people's Intellivisions, Colleco Vision, and Atari 2600.

-Sometime in 1981-1984 I got my first Atari 2600 used in some classified ad with like 5 games. I traded ALL of my Star Wars Toys for it. I had everything, the Millenium Falcon (sp?), AT-AT Walker, tons of figures. By today's standards that was a bad trade but it was all for games. =)

I continued to buy games for that. In the great Atari Crash I could get an Atari 2600 game for 99 cents at KayBee Toys! I sold all my system + games for like $20-50. I forget. I kinda wish I had kept it but with emulation today it's not really needed I suppose.

-Sometime in 1986 or 1987 I finally wanted the next generation of gaming system. I was thinking Atari 7800, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), or Sega Master System (Bastard). I was seriously going to get an Atari system because it was cheap but somehow I converted to getting either a NES or Master system. I'm glad I did because the Atari 7800 was the end of Atari. I started going through all of the NES vs. Sega Master System games. I went to stores and played them both and compared the hardware and games list. I decided that the Sega Master System had obviously way better graphics and was a cooler looking system. It also had better games (Like Rambo First Blood Part II). I bought my Sega Master System finally...

-Sometime in 1986/1987 I did a temporary system trade with a friend at school and got his NES. I got to play all they way through Zelda + some Excite Bike. I wished I had that system too (but was too poor) but I had to choose. I got my Master System Back.

-Until 1989 I dumped tons of money into Master System games. I was buying them at $50 each. When people bitch about about PC games costing $55 or $60 today I laugh because I was paying that much in the 80s without a job working odd jobs and such for money. And PC games last way longer today than console games did then... I paid about $1,000-2,000 on Master System games. Pretty good for some kid.

-I saved up like $220 over the course of over a year. It was the most money I had ever had. I then got the Sega Genesis System. That was an extremely exciting purchase for me. The graphics were so incredible compared to Master System or anything else I saw. Finally we could get an arcade like game in our homes! That was always a gamer's dream. I bought a ton of Genesis games and rented everything regularly. My fav games was: NHL 94.

-In Sept 1992 (I think) I bought a Super Nintendo just for Street Fighter II. I rented games for it all the time but in the 1 year I had to play it before going to college there was like NOTHING to play. People always talk about how awesome that system was and all the games that happened for it but it must have all happened in that year after I stopped playing. So they didn't get the good stuff out fast enough. That was the last console I bought until recently.

-Sept 1993-1995 I did nothing but play Sega Genesis EA Madden + NHL 94. We played in our dorm room all the time.

-2001 - I finally came back to Consoles with my purchase of a PS2. I got Gran Turismo and GTA 3. I bought it just for GTA 3. The only other game I got besides that was GTA Vice City. I rarely play it. It goes 1/2 a year without being touched. Console games just don't do it for me usually compared to PC games.

-2003 - Since a GameCube was only $149 + a free game (Zelda) I had to get it. I also got Resident Evil 0.

Arcade
I was a huge Arcade fan. In the 1980s Arcades were the happening places. In my city we had about 6-10 of them. For one birthday my mom took all the party people on a tour of them all. We hit one, then another, and another and so on. One really good arcade used to give you like 100 tokens for $5. Then it got worse and worse until it's 4 plays for $1.

-Arcades died for me when they started charging 50 cents a play. That's just too much. 4 for $1 I could go for but when you're used to the early 80s where you got a TON of plays for $1, you couldn't pay that much anymore.

-Through high school we played a lot of Street Fighter II at 7-11 and elsewhere. I always lost my money because I was the worst of the bunch. I don't like fighting games because I'm nto very good at them compared to my friends. Gotcha!, Warp!, and Skullder are all very good at fighting games.

-I went to arcades here and there but not much since the late 1980s. Today they cost so much money to play it's like forget it! I did love this awesome Skate Board game Sega had (Top skater?).

-You can play lots of your fav games on Emulation today! Get this awesome arcade stick! and Mame.

See my main games page for my fav arcade games.

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