How I Fell in Love with Video Games
Birthday Post! My age is showing in this one..
Over the years, games have evolved and changed, but our love for them has only grown stronger.
Do you remember what sparked your interest in video games?
Was it a certain person, a specific console, or a game you tried for the first time?
The first gaming memory I can recall was playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles floppy disc on my dad’s old computer. I’m honestly amazed that was ever a thing, but watching tiny Leo as I guided him through the sewers was a fun time. I’ll never forget that game.
(Oh my gosh, watching that gameplay after not seeing the game in decades is amazing! Haven’t looked it up until this day.)
But I think what hooked me on gaming was when my uncles introduced me to the Super Nintendo and the PlayStation.
Zombies Ate My Neighbor
Every summer my older brother and I would fly to my grandparents house in Missouri to visit for a couple weeks. It was our favorite time of year because we were coming from a decent sized city in California, so visiting was like going to the jungle. Large trees and greenery everywhere you looked, fireflies at sunset, and fireworks we could light ourselves!
Our grandparents lived on the top of a hill and one of our aunts lived next door. We had an uncle who lived at the bottom of the hill and a cousin next door to him. The whole street felt like family.
But enough picture painting…
Some days my brother and I would walk to the bottom of the hill to hang out with our Uncle Lu. He had a Super Nintendo and he’d let us play Zombies Ate My Neighbor. I loved it, but my brother wasn’t a big fan of games so sometimes my Uncle would join the fight instead.
If you haven’t tried Zombies Ate My Neighbor, it’s a 2 player game where the goal is to save all of the humans and kill zombies with your water gun.
The creativity doesn’t stop there; you can use a weed eater to attack, soda cans as grenades, a fire extinguisher to freeze, and popsicles, dishes and silverware as throwing weapons. There’s a lot more than these, but it’s more fun to experience on your own.
The levels are designed beautifully and feel interactive with the use of trampolines that your character will happily jump on and pools they can swim through.
I don’t recall getting very far in the game and it didn’t have a save option. At the end of levels you were given a code, this code would be entered at the main menu to put you back at that last level.
I honestly miss requiring a notebook to write saves in, actually there’s a lot I miss about the early gaming scene.
We can chat on that another day.
Lara Croft
Another memory that stands out for creating my love for games is going to my Uncle Steve’s house to play PlayStation. He introduced me to Tomb Raider and Hot Shots Golf. I loved the graphics in Tomb Raider and Lara Croft was gorgeous to me! My favorite thing to do was walk around her house and practice hand stands in her training room.
Hot Shots Golf was a lot of fun to play versus, who knew golf could be entertaining? I loved the logic it required, having to gauge your shot based on the club type, weather, and wind was oddly satisfying.
Maybe it’s just my Spock brain.
Super Mario Kart
The games didn’t end there, my Grandma kept a Super Nintendo at her house for us as well. (We were the only grandkids at the time.) So since we stayed at her house, my brother and I would play Killer Instinct. There’s something about that game’s start up music and selection voice (below) that I love to this day. To be honest, a large amount of my Killer Instinct time was solo.
The game I played the most was Super Mario Kart. I raced as Koopa and my favorite track was Koopa Beach. The music in the game was on a whole ‘nother level! It was my all time love!
Oh wait, Mario Circuit! That’s my jam!
Or, or Donut Plains!
Honestly, it’s all amazing.
Do you remember how the trophies were announced in Super Mario Kart?
First off, another excellent song. Second, the animations were adorable and made you feel accomplished. Like Koopa hitting his bottles back and forth in celebration. Each character had its own cute animation, but if you got 4th, you just sat there sad.
Nintendo 64
For Christmas in ‘96 I asked for a Nintendo 64, it would be the first game console in our house. My brother had a Gameboy, but that’s single player. (Plus, he ended up breaking it with his head when he got upset at it.) He asked for a paintball gun that year.
Anyways, one night we were playing hide and seek in the house, I went to hide in my parents closet, I hid behind some clothes and discovered our gifts: the Nintendo 64 and Paintball Gun. I called my brother over, we were ecstatic, but quickly got out of there and never spoke of it again.
Now this didn’t stop our excitement Christmas morning, but to this day it still makes me laugh. I laugh more when my brother tries to say it’s his N64… Yea right, just like those Pokemon cards you stole from me..
Siblings!
The N64 was and still is my favorite console. (My original one is also still in working condition.) I spent a large amount of time playing Mario Kart 64, I played as Toad and wrecked everyone I versed.
I also had Yoshi’s Story, which honestly I could listen to those lil’ dinos sing all day. I beat the whole game and found every secret leading me to create my own walkthrough complete with hand colored drawings. (I wish I still had it to show you.)
Banjo Kazooie was also in the mix. This one I’d start up and just hang out or draw while listening to the menu music.
We didn’t have YouTube, so this was the only way we could enjoy video game music. Oh and yes, I beat Banjo Kazooie.
Video games have always been a piece of my life. They bring a sense of peace, a feeling of comfort, and they create lasting memories.
I think that’s why I’m so thankful for the gaming community and what it’s become today.
I’m not very talkative, it’s hard for me to put my words together when speaking in person. But if someone brings up games, I can chat as long as they’ll let me. So if you’re anything like me and you can read or listen to someone go on about games, feel free to join me on my journey.
Let me know how you got into video games and if you write on gaming, I’d love to read it!
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Loved reading this, you've got so many good memories there. I loved your story about finding the N64 in your closet, did that open up deep questions about how Christmas and Santa actually works? 😄
I can very clearly remember my first memory of seeing video games for the first time, it was Sonic the Hedgehog in a demo unit in a shop. What I knew about computers back then were that they were big and sluggish, but Sonic was bright, sleak and fast! It all started there for me
Ah, such nostalgia, thanks for sharing! The First game I ever played was Reader Rabbit (the first version but ported to MS-DOS). We had a NES but the games we had were very different than what most people had, some more familiar than others, Lolo, Solstice, Solomon's Key, Anticipation, Bubble Bobble, Mega Man, Mario, and of course Zelda.