Kevin's Watch

For me, it was when Final Fantasy VII exploded onto the scene.

I was actually an ardent hater of PlayStation during the FFVII era (I was a Nintendo fan boy, and I absolutely couldn't comprehend the fact that Nintendo was no longer on top of the video game market). I wish I hadn't been so childish, but, then again, I was a child, heh.

I remember seeing a display for FFVII at a toy store in the mall. It was the part where Cloud gets off the train and runs up to the first Mako reactor. So I'm standing there, drooling at the unbelievable graphics, and then Barrett says "What the hell took you so long" to Cloud or a variant. I was completely floored! I mean--wow, he just said "hell" in a video game!

It's kind of hard to understand how edgy and gritty that game was, now that San Andreas and other games are out. Looking back, it's not shocking at all really, but one has to understand that Nintendo had ruled the video game world for years; we had just come off from being the "Nintendo generation", where the majority of games were relatively squeaky clean.

It was all quite a blow. For me, my first encounter with FFVII was comparable with the experience of seeing Star Wars for the first time.

Final Fantasy VII opening was cool, the best way to open a game. Metal Gear Solid, just after you beat Sniper Wolf th second time and he says that their out of time. He then gos on to fight Metal Gear. That was cool.
There were a few other RPGs but I can't remember their names...

My first time seeing Sonic the Hedgehog was strangely moving.

As was playing Starfighter on the 3D0.

Perhaps though, the most memorable was the 3D0 ending of Star Control II. It was just lovely.

Well, the days of SNES were over, and I bought a new console: the playstation. It was good... but it wasn't until that Christmas that the most exciting time came. The first RPG I ever played was Final Fantasy 7, and it, for lack of a better word, ruled.

The Pumpkin King wrote:My first time seeing Sonic the Hedgehog was strangely moving.

Ha, indeed! Seeing Super Mario World at a display at my town's old Wal-Mart was also rather intoxicating. Seeing Donkey Kong Country for the first time also grabbed me, and then there was Super Mario 64, which I think I played for 30 minutes at an in-store display, once. Ah, those were the days.

*nods* I was in Kintergarten, I think, and I went over to a friend of mine's house and he had a Sega Genesis.

Before then I had played the original Mario on Nintendo, and was enthralled, but Sonic the Hedgehog blew me away I was in awe at it.


Which is strange when one considers I had, at the time, had significant experience with my father's Amiga 500, but ah well.

Civilisation. A game so open-ended that you can play it thousands of times without ever seeing some things happen the same way twice.

Civ2 and Civ3 are both equally amazing, and I can't wait for Civ4.

Playing War In Middle Earth for the first time (ooold computer game)... first totally free game I played...

Sonic the Hedgehog was amazing to see for the first time, because before that of course my only real frame of reference for consoles was the NES... atari was around, but not something I looked at much...

FFVII commercials on tv...

Ultima 4 when it asked me ethics questions as a child to determine my class.

free in terms of freedom of options. Very soon after that I played Civ I

The Pumpkin King wrote:Perhaps though, the most memorable was the 3D0 ending of Star Control II...

Man! I loved the StarControl games. Especially the quest game of the first one. I've been looking for a copy of it for ages, but so far no luck. Damn, that was a great game!

--Avatar

Avatar wrote:

The Pumpkin King wrote:Perhaps though, the most memorable was the 3D0 ending of Star Control II...

Man! I loved the StarControl games. Especially the quest game of the first one. I've been looking for a copy of it for ages, but so far no luck. Damn, that was a great game!

--Avatar

I can't help you with Star Control I...but Star Control II is open-source now! The 3D0 version of it. I downloaded it, and it brought back memories of the mid-90's, sitting in front of my TV and wasting hours upon hours in the game.

Great stuff.

It's called "Ur Quan Masters" now, though, cause even though the game itself is open-source, apparantly a large company owns the Star Control title liscence. >.<

www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol

Whee!

Awesome! Thanks for the link dude, much appreciated.

--Avatar

Sorry for the double post, just wanted to let The Pumpkin King know that I downloaded it. What a blast!

Thanks again man. And for those of us who, like me, really enjoyed some of the now really old games, and wished they could find them again sometimes, here's a handy link I found yesterday:

www.abandonia.com/index2.php

The home of abandoned Dos Games. Check it out if you've got any old favourites, there's a chance that it's there.

--Avatar

Avatar wrote:Sorry for the double post, just wanted to let The Pumpkin King know that I downloaded it. What a blast!

Thanks again man. And for those of us who, like me, really enjoyed some of the now really old games, and wished they could find them again sometimes, here's a handy link I found yesterday:

www.abandonia.com/index2.php

The home of abandoned Dos Games. Check it out if you've got any old favourites, there's a chance that it's there.

--Avatar

Ahaha, thank you so much for that!

They have Loom! I remember playing that on my dad's Amiga 500. Great stuff.

Glad it was useful, check every now and then, they seem to update it fairly regularly.

Loom, yeah, I remember that one. I really struggled with it though, 'cause I'm tone-deaf. So I couldn't get the stupid notes right. Had to use a walkthru for all those parts. Aaarg!

Some really great classics there.

--A

Loom was great.

A little off-topic, but my most traumatic moment in gaming was when I was playing Planescape: Torment and I read:

Spoiler

Don't trust the skull

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

I was just reminiscing about that first year with my Playstation when I came across this thread...

...I bought Twisted Metal 2 and Resident Evil with the system (didn't play TM2 much for about a month, then played it more than anyother game ever).

Other great memories of Rage Racer, Syphon Filter, Tony Hawk, Tekken 3, Medal of Honor, Ace Combat 2, Silent Hill...

Great era in gaming.

I think the most "exciting" moment during gaming for me was when the first Doom had come out. I was around 9 years old and super psyched about this game. I went with my dad to pick it up (who was a very avid gamer) and we spent the weekend playing it.

Now the "gore" back then was nothing what it is now, but it was a pretty violent game even for its day and I loved every moment of it.....until the end.

After we beat the Spider Mastermind and did our victory dance of blowing each other up with our rocket launchers, the ending scene plays out with the camera panning over a cute grassy hill with some bunnies in the distance. As the camera pans further to the right, I suddenly see blood running down in rivulets from a bunny's severed head impaled on a stick and the words "THE END" appear in red and then have bullet holes shot through them. I think my dad said my mouth had dropped open and my face was frozen in shock for a while.

I love bunnies.