Part I- First Gen (1990 1996)

I cant really remember my life before video games. Theres these little fashes of
memories, like racing caterpillars and whacking our damp old broom against the
wall of the back yard until woodlice spiralled out to the foor and scurried away
terrifed.
And memories of splashing around in the river that ran past the bottom of my
street, catching tadpoles in my hands and watching them wriggle and suirm.
And lots of memories of walking in the countryside around where I lived.
!ut apart from that, its mostly a ha"e, because when I was eight I received my
frst gaming console. #ell, computer to be e$act. It was an Amstrad %&% '(',
and it began my life as a gamer, walking hand)in)hand through life with games
flling the gaps in between memories and signifcant life events.
*arkers have been laid down throughout my life since video games became a
part of them, and piecing together certain events is easier when I think about
what particular game I was playing at the time.
*y earliest memories of playing any type of games came at the hands of three
di+erent cousins. !efore going to school on a morning, Id freuent my aunts
house. This was convenient for my mum and dad, since they had to head to work
before school began. ,ven more convenient was the fact that my aunt worked at
my school and only lived three doors away from it.
-one of this convenience mattered a .ot to me though, the thing I en.oyed the
most about the whole arrangement was the */)01/ &% that my uncle owned
and used for his high)fying .ob 2to this day, I still have no idea what he does for a
living3. 4or in the list of menus lay a collection of 01/ games. *any mornings
would be spent watching my cousin play a very primitive pool game 2which may
or may not have led to my obsession with homing in on pubs with pool tables3, a
uite addictive game called Alley Cat and a much more well)known classic.
Space Quest II: Vohauls Revenge. -ow, at this time I was only about si$ or seven
so much of the witty banter was lost on me, but the addictive looking gameplay
and pretty 2for the time3 graphics really blew me away. 1f course, I now own the
entire Space Quest collection.
Space Quest II: !elieve me, this is one of the hardest parts of any game you will ever play. 5ive it a
try sometime, I dare ya.
&laying these 01/ games every morning had a profound e+ect on me, and of
course computer prowess is now something my generation, and surely all
generations to follow, need to develop in a fast)paced, streamlined and forever
technically evolving society.
*y second memory is of playing Street Fighter II at another cousins house on
the Amiga system. This was back in the days when games came on foppy discs.
!ack then, Street Fighter II was sold in a bo$ with four discs. 41678 Anyway, I
loaded the game up, picked !lanka and used his electric attack incessantly and
beat the game. A tactic I still use to this day. Anybody who has spent any time at
all playing Street Fighter II knows the drill. ,veryone fghts over who gets to pick
either %hun)9i 2because of her special kick attack that is easy to trigger3, ,.
:onda 2because of his special chop attack that is easy to trigger3, !lanka
2because of his special electric attack that is easy to trigger3 and 0halsim
2because hes a super stretchy yoga guy and can attack people from way over in
the corner of the screen; and his special moves are easy too3.
Street Fighter II: !lanka is a serious badass. -o wonder I rocked at this game.
Street Fighter II is one of those special games. It achieved such fame that
%apcom didnt know what to do about it. #ell, they did actually. They ported it to
every console known to man and then released a million di+erent version with
minor di+erences. Its kind of like when a band re)releases an album from ten
years ago with an e$tra disc, but the e$tra disc is full of remi$es by members of
the band. /o, cue Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Street Fighter II: yper
Fighting, Super Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II !ur"o and, fnally, yper
Street Fighter II.
#hen %apcom fnally got around to making the third game in the series, they
decided it would be a great idea to ditch all of the original characters e$cept for
two 27yu and <en, who have appeared in every incarnation of the /treet 4ighter
series3, thus making that edition pretty forgettable. :owever, I digress8 #e must
move on, before I start getting too far ahead of myself.
*y third early gaming memory involved another cousin, the frst person I knew
who owned a 5ame !oy. The wonders of playing a game on a small handheld
device never ceased to ama"e me, and forever etched into my mind will be the
moment I completed a game for the frst time. That game was Super #ario $and.
I could complete that game with my eyes closed since I played it so often. ,very
little .ump, every e$tra life and every... everything else was there in my head. I
knew it better than the back of my hand. The only barrier to my completion was
the occasional death of the batteries.
Super #ario $and: The impending doom of a poor, innocent goomba.
!asically, while the cousin who owned the 5ame !oy was spending his time
perfecting the art of fring silly string into one nostril and out of the other, I was
perfecting the art of playing his 5ame !oy games.
And so, slowly, I was becoming drawn in to the world of gaming.
Inevitably, the begging to the parents began. I wanted a magic pi$el machine
and a game collection to be envied. All my friends wanted bikes, I wanted
electronics. And it didnt take long before my parents relented and bought me
my aforementioned Amstrad.
The Amstrad was as simplistic as they came, a black and green screen monitor
and games on cassette tapes. /itting waiting about ten minutes for a game to
load 2or at least, it always felt like ten minutes3. :owever, this humble machine
actually helped to bring me and my father closer, as there was one particular
game he en.oyed immensely. %in"all Simulator. *y dad always used to tell me
how good he used to be at pinball, although he never demonstrated this
anywhere else but on this game. :e beat me on a regular basis, and managed to
get to the second level, which always eluded me and my lack of patience.
1ne day, it must have infuriated me more than usual, and the cassette with
%in"all Simulator on it ended up smashed to pieces. I cant remember e$actly
what happened to it, but I do remember that the evidence ended up hidden
behind my wardrobe for many years, gathering dust.
*y dad thankfully forgot about his favourite game however, and was over the
moon when he realised that Amstrad games could be copied onto regular blank
cassettes. %ue borrowing lots of games from other people 2which ba=es me
nowadays, because it hints at the fact that someone else actually owned one of
these machines3 and suee"ing seven or eight games onto one tape. 1f course,
we had to make a note of the times when a di+erent game started on the tape,
but luckily my dads record player and the Amstrad keyboard deck provided
handy timers to make this easier. 4ather)son teamwork, in a fashion.
This was an era when simpler games were the norm, and I wasted many hours
during the summer and winter holidays mashing the keyboard playing some
absolute Amstrad classics like &h #ummy', (aley !hompsons (ecathlon, !he
Incredi"le (i))y, *et Set +illy, ,eachy ead and countless others. All of these
games were vastly di+erent, but they all had one specifc thing in common. They
all came packaged with a little bit of frustration)inducing venom. And they
sometimes led me to lose my temper. This led to unimaginable rage at that
impossible level, that unachievable target, that undefeatable boss. :owever, as I
grew older, patience became something learned and earned through
determination, and gaming was a big part of helping me to control my emotions
outside of the pi$elated world.
%lockwise from top left) (aley !hompsons (ecathlon- ,each ead- *et Set +illy- Incredi"le (i))y.
This was my life as a kid. This was the height of technological achievement in my eyes. >ust try to
imagine it without the colour as I only had a green screen monitor.
*y second gaming console was my frst foray into handhelds since mastering
Super #ario $and on that 5ame !oy. 1ne of my distant relatives gave me an
Atari 9yn$ one %hristmas. I was elated? it was truly a thing of beauty. It had a
sleek black design, slightly reminiscent of /egas handheld behemoth the 5ame
5ear. And while the power pack to connect it directly to the mains worked,
everything went swimmingly. It was an unusual boost to my communication with
my parents. After a year or so of being glued to my Amstrad in my bedroom, I
could now sit downstairs with my 9yn$ and watch television and chat at the same
time as playing. There was the occasional row about electricity usage, but this is
completely normal and healthy for any parent @ child relationship, even more so
nowadays when technology is rife. Id like to think that when my little girl grows
up that I will be more forgiving of the electricity usage, after the amount I burned
o+ whilst growing up.
Anyway, the cru$ of the story is that my power pack turned out to be more fimsy
than e$pected, and after only about si$ months of usage, it ceased to work. And,
as any other 9yn$ owners will well know, these little machines have a habit of
eating batteries in appro$imately half an hour. And they reuire si$ double)As.
*y parents habit of purchasing cheap batteries did not help my cause.
,specially since one of the games I had on the 9yn$ was Chec/ered Flag. The
name should give away the fact that this was an 4A game 2of sorts3, and some of
the levels actually reuired a full forty)odd laps. #hich si$ meagre batteries
could not handle.
/o in the end, I grudgingly accepted that Chec/ered Flag was out of my battery
range, and stuck with other 9yn$ classics including Scrapyard (og, a game which
infuriated me both through becoming increasingly impossible and because of
poor spelling as in a sign in the eponymous scrapyard that read B-o TrespasinC.
/eriously, even if youre only a scrapyard owner, you must need basic spelling
skills. Des, I was that anal at such a young age. And yes, unfortunately I still am.
Scrapyard (og: I mean, reallyE 6gh.
The only other game I owned for the 9yn$ was Road"lasters, which is a curious
game involving picking up green dots to keep your fuel gauge up enough to
reach each checkpoint. #hile this is innocent enough, you could also earn fuel in
red globes by blowing up enemy cars. All this takes place on seemingly normal
roads 2albeit in a post)apocalyptic landscape3. /o this begs the uestion, is this a
futuristic war"oneE And if so, why are the roads still in such good conditionE And
where are all of these cars driving to, since every place on the hori"on appears to
be on fre or ruinedE 1r am I .ust being pedantic againE
#ell it all makes no di+erence in the end. 1ne day, whilst giving Chec/ered Flag
another chance with a set of slightly more e$pensive and durable batteries, I got
the dreaded low battery light about thirty)si$ laps in. 6nbelievable8 In a fury, I
raced upstairs, hurled open my window and out went the 9yn$, shattering in the
alleyway below.
Chec/ered Flag: Dou can blame this game for the death of my 9yn$.
7egret overtook me at once. That was a gift, bought by a relative who knew I
adored games. &lus I was coming last in the race anyway, so had no chance of
achieving anything once Id completed all forty laps. I ran outside and gathered
up as many pieces of the console as I could and hurriedly hid them in nearby
bushes. *y frst handheld was no more, although I did pop into the bushes more
than a year later and found evidence of my crime still lying there, now home to
earwigs, slugs and nettles.
This remains the one and only time I ever destroyed something in a rage in that
way 2erm, apart from %in"all Simulator, as mentioned earlier3. The good news is,
my love for everything videogame continued despite that moment of anger.
I suddenly realise that I have neglected to actually talk about my life outside
gaming too much. *y younger years were not e$actly full of lollipops and
rainbows. *y parents fought like cat and dog, and the din could sometimes only
be drowned out by becoming immersed in a good game. The alternate reality
provided a method of escape from the madness happening around me. I
sometimes think that in some way my parents realised this. #hich is why they
kept supplying me with physical electronic solace to make up for the lack of
emotional support.
To this end, my youth was mostly spent plugging away at various games on
various consoles, and following the untimely death of my 9yn$ and the selling of
my Amstrad by my dad, things briefy went uiet in the world of gaming for me.
Then, when I was ten, one measly week before the summer holidays started,
tragedy struck. I was struck by a car whilst playing down my street. The impact
shattered my right femur and left me hospitalised for the entirety of the holidays.
/o, after not being an active gamer for uite a while, I found myself in traction in
the childrens ward at my local hospital. !oredom was a daily occurrence
shattered only by horrifc pain when tubes and needles were stuck into me now
and again. I still blame this stint in hospital as the reason I am petrifed of
needles to this very day.
:owever, the hospital had one ma.or saving grace. There was a computer on the
ward. An Amiga to be e$act. And one particular game would soon be luring me
back into the world of gaming.
That game was Syndicate. &roduced by !ullfrog 2the same studio that created
the infamous (ungeon 0eeper and its seuel along with !heme %ar/ and !heme
ospital3, it was a top)down mission based game where you could basically do
whatever the heck you wanted in a futuristic city. /teal cars, blow stu+ up, shoot
things, pretty much anything. Des, I do think this set the precedent for 1rand
!he2t Auto. It was unlike any game I had ever played before, but I must admit the
intricacies of it elude me now after so many years. I never played this game
other than the time I spent in hospital, along with another game that helped me
while away the hours, ,rutal Sports Foot"all. It was an irreverent, violent,
hideously addictive game that mi$ed sport with violence, kind of like a medieval
version of Speed"all.
Syndicate: Deah, .ust casually blowing cars up. Also note random civilians. Take Two Interactive owe
this game a lot8
Thanks to that Amiga, and my best friend bringing his 5ame !oy in for me to
play on whenever another poor in.ured child wanted the computer, my time in
hospital went by a little uicker. It was still a horrible e$perience for a youngster
though. At least most of the other kids could get out of bed and run around
whereas I was stuck with my leg in the air, unable to move for a good month at
least. The day fnally came when the doctors plastered me up and I could go
home, but even that wasnt easy. The plaster covered all of my broken right leg,
ran up to my waist and half way down my left leg. This didnt leave me much
room to twist or move at all, so I was once again resigned to remaining
stationary most of the time.
9uckily for me, I still had my friends 5ame !oy to keep me occupied as my
parents hoisted my bed downstairs for me to stay in while my bone fully healed.
It was a long healing process, but I cannot remember the e$act timescales. #hen
youre young, you tend to e$aggerate time uite a lot. It felt like months, but
could surely have not been that long. -eedless to say, it felt like an eternity for a
youngster itching to run around and en.oy his summer holidays.
1nce the plaster was taken o+ though, the long road to recovery seemed closer
than ever 2despite the fact that my damaged leg now resembled a rather poorly
looking, undercooked 4rench fry3. Anyway, to celebrate my progress I was
awarded with another new gaming console to encourage me. It was an Atari /T
AFGG. There was a catch though. It was set up at the other end of my bed to
where my head was. To play it Id have to get my butt up and walking again. 1f
course I got round this by sitting up shakily and shu=ing to the other end. This
was, at least, a kind of progress.
#hile my medical progress was lumbering along, my gaming prowess was
e$celling thanks to some of the wondrous delights on my new console. Rain"o3
Islands was one of the games I remember playing the most. *ind you, to this day
I still have not managed to get past level four, which features an infuriatingly
diHcult boss character 2a giant vampire who shoots vampire bats at you, and if
youve played this game Im sure you feel my pain3.
1ne game that I was insanely good at was Ro"otron : 4567. I can say with
confdence that this is defnitely a game that reuires infnite patience to e$cel
at. 4ortunately, since I wasnt really moving around much, I had that infnite
patience in abundance. The game basically featured levels of screens full of
enemies, indestructible items and people. #alk into the people to save them,
shoot everything else. I tried to play this game again recently and gave up after
appro$imately two minutes. Des, being a child with nothing better to do and no
adult responsibilities defnitely made playing games like that a lot easier.
Ro"otron: 4567: Any idea whats going onE Deah, me neither. -ow imagine trying to play it8
I had plenty of other classics to play on my Atari, like the revamped version of
Crystal Castles, #ar"le #adness, one of the many ports of %ac8#an, and 1houls
9n 1hosts.
1ne of my favourite things about my Atari had to be the loading times. Instead of
sticking a cassette into the deck, waiting for the sueaky reels to turn and churn
on the loading screen and then entering a password 2usually involving fnding a
specifc word in the instruction manual, which made things diHcult when you had
a bootleg copy of the game3, all I had to do was pop in the foppy disc and wait
for the title screen to boot up. It was so uick it was almost revolutionary to a
wide)eyed youngster like myself.
I distinctly remember one really odd disc that showed e$amples of BvirusesC that
had been concocted for seemingly no reason, as Ataris couldnt be hacked into
by vengeful cyber)terrorists. !esides, this was AIIJ, the only thing cyber)
terrorists were terrorising back then was their nappies. Anyway, some of the
viruses included one that fipped the screen upside down 2which can now be
achieved on certain versions of #indows with a simple combination of keys,
much to the infuriation of my co)workers3, one that BateC away the white screen
leaving it all black and one that BinvertedC the mouse controls. It has to be one
of the most pointless discs ever invented, and I still have no idea whether it was
purchased, came with the Atari or was slipped into a pile of games by some
sneaky so)and)so who had made it themselves.
7andom discs aside, my Atari days were happy ones and I grew uite attached to
the machine, and it was the frst console I owned that connected directly into my
television. 1f course, thanks to the angry destruction of my 9yn$ I now once
again retreated into my room freuently to game and did not spend much time
downstairs with my parents. *y Atari did, however, fall to the wayside in the
summer of AII( when the lure of the nice weather and spending more time with
friends seemed more tempting that playing the games Id played so many times
before. The Atari began gathering dust, which stood out even more on its dirty
white colour scheme.
0uring this period of the Atari being abandoned, a little bit of -intendo came into
my life. #e acuired a -intendo ,ntertainment /ystem, technically the frst
oHcial console I ever owned. I only remember playing Super #ario ,ros. on it
though, I dont think I had any other games for it. I also dived back into the world
of handheld gaming with the addition of a 5ame !oy to the household. I was
over.oyed to fnally have one of these delicious grey lumps of plastic to call my
own, and my game collection uickly grew. I started out with !etris, of course, a
game so infamous its had various news stories written about how it may actually
be benefcial for young minds due to the pu""le)solving aspect and the bigwigs
at :ollywood have even decided it has enough plot to turn into a sci)f epic.
%ount me o+ the KI& list for that one, guys. -o o+ense.
!etris was special though, as it was only the second game I ever got my dad
playing. There was a two)player mode, where you took turns to get scores and
tried to beat each other. I used to beat him uite freuently, but he stuck with it.
*y main childhood memories of my dad include playing the aforementioned
%in"all Simulator, playing !etris and watching !ruce 9ee and %lint ,astwood
flms. And playing darts with him. And him letting me watch ,vil 0ead when I
was nine. #hat an awesome dad. -o, seriously.
!etris: #hat are you doing manE :ow did you let it get this badE 9evel GE Dou suck. This game has
given you AJJ points out of pity.
*oving on from my !etris)inspiring bonding sessions, however, I also added my
old favourite Super #ario $and to the collection, along with #uhammed Ali
,o:ing 2a pretty fun little bo$ing simulator where you start at the bottom of the
world rankings and then slug your way to the top of the pile, increasing your
stats with training between each fght. The only downside was you played LasL
Ali, so you never got the fght him3, Cli;hanger 2based on the movie; and an
utterly terrible game. &lease avoid it at all costs3, Speed"all 4 2an ultra)violent
futuristic sports game where you get points for scoring goals or hideously
in.uring your opponents. 4un, in other words3, and whatever else happened to be
cheap in the second)hand section at the game store.
I spent so much time on the 5ame !oy, in fact, that my dad decided to sell the
-,/ to a colleague. /trangely enough, as he was cycling to work with the -,/ in
his backpack he got sideswiped by a lorry and had to spend some time
recovering at home. 9uckily for me, my dad survived the ordeal, but I have no
idea if the -,/ did. ,ither way, I didnt really miss it. It remains one of the only
consoles I never spent much time playing along with the /-,/. -ot that I dont
like -intendo, I was .ust too invested in what was to come into my life ne$t.
-amely a spiky blue mammal with red trainers who could run uite briskly.
Dou guessed it;
0uring a trip to the local supermarket one day, I was hypnotised by a game I
recognised, but had only played briefy before. There was a mini)tournament
taking place involving Sonic the edgehog 4 on the /ega *egadrive 2or 5enesis,
depending where in the world you live3. Des, this game had already been out four
years by this point, and its successor had already been out for two years, but this
supermarket was showcasing it anyway. I think the *egadrive had been
repackaged and was for sale at a cheaper price due to the increasing pressure
coming from /onys &laystation.
I begged my mother to let me stand in the ueue and have a go, and she
relented, if only to get some peace and walk around the store on her own to get
her shopping done without me picking various things up and asking for them.
The level was %hemical &lant Mone, and I e$celled, I mesmerised, I rocked8 And I
was hooked. The *egadrive was now number one on my %hristmas wish list. Its
only now, when I look back at this period of my childhood I realise I was always
one step behind. #hile I yearned for /egas machine, the &laystation was making
shockwaves with its slew of ne$t)gen titles like +ipeout', Rayman, !om" Raider
and plenty of others.
6nfortunately, my parents were not so keen on spending the money on a
*egadrive. They were more keen on me going out to play more, spending more
time in the perpetually dri""ly ,nglish countryside. #ell, Ill be honest, I used to
really en.oy being out and about and playing in the long grass down by the
riverside, and mooching around the swing set at the top of my street with a
couple of other friends discussing teachers and football and music. I was never a
completely anti)social child, but thoughts of computer games were always
hovering in my mind.
The begging for a *egadrive continued unabated, and I circled one in the
shopping catalogue as a hint. I think the months of harassment paid o+, because
I got my *egadrive for %hristmas after all. I remember the .oy when I realised
what I was unwrapping, and the ultimate .ubilation when I realised that Id been
bought a copy of Sonic the edgehog 4 as well. *y parents may have been
dysfunctional, but they knew how to listen.
I was plugged into that *egadrive for months. I remember the nerves of steel
reuired to beat the fnal, infamous level in Sonic 4, 0eath ,gg Mone. Dou have
no rings 2the only protection you have from one)hit kills, if you happen to have
never played a Sonic game before3, and you have to beat two bosses in a row,
both of whom have choreographed moves that need to be memorised. 0efeating
them was an e$ercise in patience as I would hit the .ump instead of the duck
button for the millionth time and /ilver /onic knocked me for si$ for the millionth
time. 0eep breath, still plenty of lives left. /ilver /onic defeated, you move on to
face 0r. 7obotnik 2this was before the days of the hilariously badly named 0r.
,ggman, you young whippersnappers3. /o, he basically leaps into a humongous
robotic version of himself and fres missiles and his own arms at you. And he was
big. I mean, taller than the screen big. I remember staring in awe at this gigantic
boss and wondering .ust how you were meant to beat him. I think it took me
about si$ attempts to start hitting him in the right place. Then another si$ to
actually kill him before he managed to whomp me with a failing arm. The sweet
taste of success was especially succulent after such a hard)fought battle.
Sonic the edgehog 4: #orst moments of my life. Im sitting here suirming .ust looking at these
pictures.
*oving on from /egas talisman, there were other brilliant and unsung *egadrive
heroes in my collection. 1ne of my favourite slices of insanity was called 1eneral
Chaos, bought on a whim whilst on a rare foray away from my hometown and in
the city. The gameplay was, to be honest, limited at best. Dou played the game
as the eponymous 5eneral, who is fghting a war against *a.or someone.
%atastrophe or something else puntastic like that. Dou pick a team of fve soldiers
to fght each battle. Dou could have fve grunts, who were evenly balanced all
round, or a group of stealthy soldiers like snipers and bomb e$perts, or a group
of demolition e$perts. Dou get the picture. It was utter chaos, totally living up to
the name of the game. It was also uite fun too, although I dont think I ever
managed to win the war. All those lives lost, for nothing.
Another *egadrive stalwart that I could regularly be found playing was 1olden
A:e. 1f course, this game predated the *egadrive by uite a bit, but it was on
this console that I played it again. And again. And again. I can now safely say
that I could probably beat 1olden A:e without losing a single bar of health. As
long as I get to play as the dwarf. The premise was simple enough, a side)
scrolling hack n slash game where the bigger the enemy was, the harder they
fell. *i$ in some dragons and magic and youve got a classic fantasy game. It
was super fun, if a bit repetitive, and I still fnd myself going back to it now and
again when nostalgia grabs hold of me.
Its strange to think that I had such a huge collection of *egadrive games and
yet I can barely remember the ma.ority of what I owned. 1ne particular curio was
called %o3ermonger. It was an army strategy game where you control what
starts out as a small army, and direct them around landscapes overthrowing
towns, villages and cities and battling other armies until you own the ma.ority of
the map. Then you move on to a slightly larger map with more enemies and less
resources and do it again. It was uite a delightful little development, and
sometimes I found myself watching the villagers in the neutral towns living out
their lives, making boats and raising sheep for slaughter. 1ccasionally being
invaded by marauding armies. At that point Id realise that was what I was meant
to be doing and had missed a great opportunity. The overall game was pretty
vast, and I never came anywhere close to really taking it to its peak. I do have
the game lying around though, .ust begging my now more 2supposedly3 mature
and 2uestionably3 strategic mind to take it on.
%o3ermonger: 9ookit all dem angels. Its a massacre8 4un. The sheep dont seem too bothered.
!ullfrog dug their claws into me again with my *egadrive too. #hen I had
e$hausted my interest in the games I owned already, I used to insist upon a trip
to 7it". #hich was basically a budget version of !lockbuster 2who, unsurprisingly,
bought 7it" out before practically going bust themselves; swings and
roundabouts3. There were no 0K0s back in these days, the racks were flled with
video tapes 25oogle them3. I would always reuest the same game, and my dad
would begrudgingly rent it time and time again. !heme %ar/. 1h, how that
fairground music drove him insane8 :ow he tried to get me to rent something
di+erent. Anything. Anything but that game again. /orry, dad.
!heme %ar/ was something of an obsession for me. The premise was as simple
as you wanted it to be. !uild rides and attractions, ramp up the ticket price as
necessary and watch the cold, hard cash come rolling in. I could .ust build up a
park, start turning over a si"eable proft and then .ust sit back and watch people
bankrupt themselves to en.oy my 5host 7ide and /uper /pinner, and then spend
the last of their pennies losing at the Arcades or the 5un /hoot. /eriously, I
would play one level for hours .ust to get my bankroll up to something ludicrous.
!ut as soon as the levels hit medium or hard diHculty, I struggled to make any
impact upon the poor deni"ens. They .ust didnt have the cash I needed. And so,
the game lost its lustre fairly uickly. #hich is why I only ever liked to rent it.
1ne thing I was missing though was some top notch two player games. 9uckily,
the *egadrive catered for that. I remember one night, my best friend was
staying over, and we had a trip out to pick a game to rent. #e snapped up !3o
Crude (udes. Its probably not one youve heard of, but it really did take co)op
gaming to the ne$t level. Its a side)scrolling beat)em)up where you play as two
burly 2incredibly burly3 dudes remarkably similar to 0uke -ukem, beating up bad
guys including evil versions of /anta 2called Atnas3 using your fsts or whatever
comes to hand. Including fre hydrants, cars and other enemies. I never played
that game much after that one night, even when I bought the game years later.
It remains one of those wonderful, one)o+ things where me and my friend spent
the night laughing like morons at this game and how absolutely ludicrous it was.
9udicrous and fun.
There were other options though. I owned ++F RA+, a uite e$cellent wrestling
game where you could choose from twelve whole wrestlers8 %ount Nem, twelve8
The game could handle four characters on screen at a time, which made for
some fun encounters when you played a tag)team match. The best thing me and
my best friend discovered that you could knock the referee out and then do
whatever the hell you wanted. And there were weapons hidden under the ring.
%hairs and buckets 2bucketsE3 were two of the weapons available for you to go
and beat the snot out of your opponent with. :owever, as with pretty much all
games with fghting, we had more fun beating each other up than actually
playing the game properly. 1ne misdirected punch in my friends characters
direction would result in us slapping each other silly while our computer
opponents seemingly looked on bemused, trying to intervene.
1f course, side)scrolling beat)em)ups were the best for two player action on the
older consoles. 1olden A:e, which I mentioned earlier, is a pretty good co)op
e$perience. I still think, however, that the ultimate buddy game series is Streets
o2 Rage. All three games are fast, fun, and looked really sleek for the time. The
plots are incredibly fimsy, yet still manage to outshine IGO of :ollywoods
action movie output. The bosses were insane, the henchman came thick and fast
and the special moves were epic. The main bad guy presiding over all of the
events in the series is one of the best in gaming as well. The mysterious *r. P,
who you beat the snot out of in the frst game, throw out of a window in the
second game and then beat up a robot version of in the third game. :ey, I told
you the plots were fimsy8 !ut I bet if youve never played them before you want
to now.
Streets o2 Rage 4: If you owned a *egadrive and didnt play this, you didnt really own a
*egadrive.
-ow I do believe it is time for this opening chapter of my life to come to a close
as we move onto my teenage years. &repare for drama, e$citement, intrigue and
the /ony invasion8
Part II- The Golden Age (1996 2003)
Part III- Levelling ! (2003 2012)
Part I"- #e$t Gen (2012 Present)