What were/are your consoles?

[BomberPat]

Spinning off from the SNES thread, and the cosy nostalgia therein, what consoles have you owned and when? What was your gaming journey? Hopefully this could encourage some fun chat and trigger some nice memories.

Here's mine:

1. Commodore 64

The first gaming of any kind I can remember. The first game I ever played was either Rainbow Chaser or a Frogger clone called "Frogs In Space". Or, as I knew it, "Space Frogs", as that's what my half-brother had written on the cassette case, a cavalier approach to labelling games that resulted in a football game I only ever knew as "Shit Footy". 

2. SEGA Master System

While I was very rarely permitted use of the C64, for years this was like gold dust. I wasn't allowed in my older brothers' room, and that's where this lived. They had - and I swear this is true, as so few people believe me any more - an old black and white TV in their bedroom, and that's what the Master System was plugged into. One of the very few times one of my brothers allowed me into that room, I watched him play Altered Beast in black and white.

Sometimes my brother was allowed to take the Master System downstairs and play it on the living room telly - lots of memories of watching him play Alex Kidd after he finished his homework. In later years, my twin brother and I inherited this console, and I continued playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World to death. Even finished it once.

Other games I played to death on it include Sagaia, the aforementioned Altered Beast, and R-Type. Operation Wolf was one of very few games I remember my Dad getting into.

3. SEGA Mega Drive

At this point, I'm a full-blown Sonic The Comic reading fanboy. I'm sure I've mentioned before on here that I never technically owned the Mega Drive, though.

My Mum ran the local youth club, out of the village hall that was just across the road from our house. She bought a Mega Drive for the club, but during the summer, the club didn't run, so the console came home with us. As a result, I had a Mega Drive for six weeks of the year. At the same time, my Dad was working at Ritz Video, so we'd get cheap rentals of every game we wanted rather than ever buying any (beyond the games owned by the youth club). Eventually, at a non-youth club event, somebody nicked a couple of games from the village hall, so Mam made the decision that the console would live with us and only be taken to the village hall on the evenings that youth club was actually running. Result!

I probably have the most nostalgia attached to this console - I can practically play Sonic 1 blindfolded, have sunk as many hours into Streets of Rage 2 as I have probably anything else in my life, think Castle of Illusion is one of the best games ever, and even have a soft spot for some of the absolute dross and poorly dated platformers on this console. World Cup Italia 90 was the last time I was good at a football game.

4. SEGA Game Gear

My very first handheld, for a given value of "handheld". Loved the versions of Sonic 1 and 2 on here (same as the Master System versions).

The fun story around the Game Gear is that I made friends with two new kids who moved to the village, who may as well have come from another planet - their dad is a professor of Philosophy, their Mum was an American who worked as a Japanese translator, they spent the summer in America, went to a posh public school, and lived in the biggest, weirdest, most definitely haunted house I had ever seen. They introduced me to a ton of stuff I'd never known about before - Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Monty Python, Dungeons & Dragons - and were the first people I knew with an actual Windows PC, rather than the Amstrads, Acorns and BBC Micros I was used to. So they were the first PC gamers I knew, and we played The Secret Of Monkey Island together, and later Warcraft, Age of Empires, Dungeon Keeper and StarCraft, all the games that shaped my tastes in PC gaming.

They were also the only other people I knew with a Game Gear, and they would come back from America with a ton of new games, and brochures with lists of other available games - some of them unavailable in the UK, so it all felt very exciting. We didn't understand that the "Genesis" mentioned on these brochures was just the Mega Drive, so imagined some mysterious and amazing other Sega console. Anyway, one of the games they brought back with them was Tails Adventure - a weird Sonic spin-off, unavailable in the UK. I once described it to someone at school, and they thought I was making it up. It eventually surfaced on a Sonic Rarities collection for PS2, and has aged fucking horribly.

I even got the bulky, expensive and fucking useless TV adaptor for the Game Gear. There's no way I could have afforded it, and no way my Dad would have agreed to pay full price for it, so it either fell off the back of a lorry or was picked up cheap at a carboot sale - likely someone selling it because it didn't fucking work. It had a huge aerial, drained batteries, and was really unwieldy, and I don't think I ever managed to tune it in to an actual TV channel - and even if I could, I'd have gone blind trying to focus on the tiny screen to watch it anyway.

On top of that, I had the Master System adaptor, so we could play all our Master System games on the Game Gear. My Dad figured that meant we didn't need the Master System any more, and sold it, only to find that his favourite Operation Wolf was unplayable on the Game Gear - the way the Master System version worked was to assume you had a lightgun plugged into port one, and you had to plug the controller into port two to use it, but of course the Game Gear had no port two. Eventually, the B button died, rendering just about everything else unplayable too - my last effort was playing Shadow Of The Beast, but only able to jump and not punch, which got me to the first level boss and no further.

5. Nintendo Game Boy

A Nintendo! My first. I was won over by the very '90s transparent case model. Mostly used to play Mario, Kirby, and Kirby Pinball, as far as I can remember, though was dusted off for the first Pokémon game. The aforementioned rich friends lent me their copy of Kid Icarus, and it was hard as balls.

6. Sony PlayStation

The game changer. At first this was another youth club special, though I was growing out of attending there, and my Mum stopped running it, so we ended up buying our own, but taking all the games we'd initially bought for the club. I remember being really excited for Gran Turismo, because there were mad promises being made about how great it would be, and I still think of the PS1 as a bit of a golden age for racing games. My Dad's intermittent gaming time picked back up thanks to TOCA Touring Cars and Colin McRae Rally, and discovering Championship Manager around the same time.

Responsible for two long-lasting obsessions - at my first secondary school, I befriended someone who asked if I'd played Final Fantasy 7. I hadn't, but once I did, it blew me away. It was my first JRPG (my previous RPG experience being stuff like the early Ultima games or The Bard's Tale, but never really getting into them), and I loved it. Coinciding with getting the internet, and hanging out in computer rooms at school, meant that I just fixated on this game and everything around it, in chatrooms, fan sites and the like.

The second was wrestling. Another new school, and another new game - Smackdown 1. I've told that story on here before.

 

The nostalgia element dies off after that, so no more long write-ups, but the rest goes:

7. PS2 - just a given that I'd get this after the PS1

8. Nintendo GameCube - first Nintendo home console, bought right at the end of its lifespan, when you could barely find the games in shops any more. I played Smash Bros at a friend's house and loved it, and a few months later someone sold the console and some games to the record shop I worked in, so I bought it for myself as cheap as I could justify as soon as they left.

9. Nintendo DS - probably bought for a Pokémon game, which I then barely played. Enjoyed the Mario & Luigi game, played very little else.

10. Nintendo Wii - once again, bought almost solely for Smash Bros. I wasn't gaming enough to justify getting one of the "bigger" consoles, and my girlfriend at the time had a PS3 anyway. I still love the Wii, some really brilliant and underappreciated games on there beyond the obvious.

11. Sega Dreamcast - bought on a whim. Mostly used to play Shenmue and little else, but a friend gave me all his old games, so I did dabble. I loved this console, even getting one as late as I did.

12. XBox 360 - second-hand, lasted a few months before it died a death. Largely just used for the Mega Drive Collection and Fable 2, as far as I can recall 

13. Nintendo 2DS - another one bought for a Pokémon game I never finished, and Ace Attorney. Didn't care for the 3D gimmick, so got this weird Fisher Price looking monstrosity when it came out. Served me well - I got into the top three in Europe at NES Remix before someone found a bug exploit and fucked it for everyone. For a while, having no smartphone, this was briefly my only source of mobile internet access.

14. PS4 - something I treated myself to when I got a new job and moved into a new flat on my own. Still have it now, still going strong, was a lifesaver during lockdown.

15 & 16 & 17 - Mini Mega Drive, Mini SNES, and a RetroCade Raspberry Pi gimmick, because I'm a sucker for finding new and expensive ways to keep playing the same games I was playing way back at the start of this list.

[TildeGuy~!]

My first console was a Mega Drive I received for my 6th Birthday, it came with Sonic and Green Dog, the best memory I have of the console was playing Streets Of Rage 2 with my dad on practically a daily basis, I bought him a Pandora’s box for Christmas a few years back which has about 15000 games on but tons of his favourite genre side scrolling beat em ups he still plays it practically every day even though he’s in his early 70s now.

I got an Original Gameboy not soon after with Super Mario Land, Tetris and Donkey Kong Country, playing Pokémon Blue was tons of fun as well as Super Mario Land 2: The Lost Coins.

My first mistake in console buying was getting a Sega Saturn, if I remember it came with Battle Arena Toshinden which was absolutely shit, Virtua Fighter 2 was a lot better fortunately but I got rid of it within a year after all my mates had went with my next console and I fell in love with the system.

The Sony PlayStation was one of my favourites as I got it chipped so would also pop down to the market to get new games every Sunday, 3 for a fiver. 

Playstation 2 came up next which came with Crazy Taxi.

The PS3 I purchased after a Christmas bonus came with Call Of Duty 4 which felt other worldly at the time 

After that the PS4 and PS5 were day one buys.

I guess you could call me a Sony fan boy.

I also own a PS Classic with all those USBs which have practically every PlayStation title you can think of.

I did own a PS Vita for a short time but wasn’t a fan, I got a Game boy Advance quite late and ended up gifting it to my nephew.

Edited January 9, 2023 by TildeGuy~!

[FLips]

Nice thread!

As mentioned in the SNES thread, my first console was the NES.

I would have been around 3 or 4 I believe. I have no memories of actually opening the gift or how I felt at the time, but I have plenty of memories of taking it everywhere with me so I could play Mega Man 2 and Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden).
Sadly I remember the console gradually just dying off as games took more and more blows to work and eventually I moved on. It's frustrating looking back with my knowledge now because a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol probably would have sorted it out more than banging on the top of it.

A few years into my relationship with my wife, she bought me a NES with all my old games (for better or worse). I knew I was going to marry her long before this, but it certainly confirmed my feelings!
The only one I don't have now is Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt which I remember buying in town with my Nana and only playing Super Mario Bros. I don't recall Duck Hunt at all despite being told we did have the gun for it at one point.

My games then and now:

Mega Man 2
Shadow Warriors
Bubble Bobble
Parasol Stars
Super Mario Bros 2
Super Mario Bros 3
Gauntlet II
The Simpsons: Bart vs The Space Mutants
Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong JR
George Foreman's KO Boxing
Super Mario Bros 1/Duck Hunt

This would have been my ranking as a kid, and honestly the only things I'd change now are moving Mario 1 and DK above The Simpsons.

I have so many fond memories of the games I had despite some of them being rubbish. I took Mega Man 2 everywhere with me and despite not playing another Mega Man until Mega Man 8 I loved the little blue lad. I always did the robot bosses other than Quick Man, Crash Man and Heat Man because they were too difficult, especially the teleporting platforms on Heat Man and the lasers on Quick Man. I remember when my Uncle came over to play it and him and my parents got the dragon on Wily 1. I couldn't believe what I was watching. The screams of unfairness as they realised they had to fight every boss again and got Game Over.

Shadow Warriors was even harder and I don't think I ever made it past Level 2 but I played it to death anyway. These days I can get to Level 6 at a push but still haven't finished it and don't think I ever will.

Bubble Bobble is one me and my brother played a lot of and got real excited when we correctly guessed random passwords and ended up in late-game levels. The time limit ghost is up there with Sonic drowning as a core childhood nightmare.

Parasol Stars was a banger too, and again one I never completed but enjoyed playing relentlessly. In fact looking at my collection of NES games I never actually completed any of them alone, and only Super Mario Bros 2 with help from my Mum. I got killed off the first dragon in Gauntlet II, made it as far as Stage 2 on Simpsons, couldn't beat more than a few boxers in George Foreman. It was tough and the choice in levels on Mega Man 2 is probably what kept me coming back so much.

From there my Mum got a MegaDrive off my Aunt with Sonic 2, PGA Golf and the Mega Games 1 with Columns/Super Hang On/Italia 90 on it.

My memories of the MegaDrive are too massive to write about in here as it was the console I played most from getting it right up into the PS1 era. Maybe someone will do a MegaDrive thread one day and I can gush for hours in there. It covers so much ground: Mortal Kombat, borrowing games with mates, renting from Movie Zone. It's also the last console I remember playing with my Dad before he abandoned us.
I still get a warm feeling when I think of coming home from school and my Mum had pulled the sofa right up to the telly and was playing the Sonic games. She adored them and it's one of the things that reminds me that she was younger then than I am now and how similar we are.

As I mentioned in the SNES thread I had one of them as a secondary console round my Grandparents/Dad's. If you want to read more about that it's all over in that thread!

After the SNES it was the PS1 which again, not to avoid clogging this thread up I went into over in the PS1 Nostalgia thread. An all time great and probably my favourite console of all time.

Not long after that was the Gameboy Colour which me and my brother both got one year for Christmas. He got the purple one with Pokemon Red and I got the Turqouise one with Pokemon Blue. Similarly to the SNES, the games I had contained some right shite but Pokemon was enough to get me by. WWF Betrayal was amazing for a young WWF fan, and I had a pair of Looney Tunes games where they both had different characters and it was like a Metroidvania where you could transfer them to the other game to open new parts. Impressive at the time but forgettable now. Other than that I had Dr Evil's Lair or some guff Austin Powers game which was a collection of loosely Dr Evil based minigames including Reversi and some scooter game, Bugs Bunny in Crazy Castle 4 and Super Mario Land. I eventually got Pokemon Crystal which was fantastic.
I think I only had it for Pokemon which honestly was enough at that age. Like the SNES, it was other people's games I was more interested in. My aunt had Link's Awakening and Tetris on her chunky OG Gameboy, and I borrowed a dodgy 52-in-1 cartridge off a mate with a bunch of games on it including the a Wario game, Super Bomb Jack and a load of japanese Shin-Chan games.
I borrowed Donkey Kong Land 2 off another mate and completed it before he did. We had a cherry blossom tree in the front garden when I grew up and I used to climb up and sit in it to play this.

From there I had the PS2 which was great at the time but in hindsight I don't have many lasting memories of it other than playing hours and hours of WWE Smackdown Here Comes The Pain and Timesplitters round my mate's house. The GTA games were good but I never raved about them like most do, I finished FFX using a cheat disc so never got the proper experience of that. I dicked a mate 8-0 with Nina Williams on Tekken 4 once and he refused to play me again.
PS2 era was when I joined secondary school so that 11-16 age was where I formed my strongest friend group and we just all played football and wrestling all the time. Any memories of the PS2 I have are playing games with them and not really much alone. I have very little nostalgia for this era.

During the same time I got a Gamecube after reading a double page review spread of Mario Kart Double Dash in Gamesmaster round my mate's house. I practically begged my Mam for one for Christmas as she was apprehensive about the cost and the fact I already had a PS2.
One of my lowest moments as a person came at this time, as despite being a single parent working part time to support me and my brother, with no support from my Dad, she somehow managed to get me a Gamecube. I single-handedly ruined this though by snooping in her bedroom while she was out and finding it, stupidly leaving a bag on her bed. When she asked, clearly heartbroken why I had spoiled it, I half-heartedly lied and feigned that I didn't know she had one. I was mortified then and even moreso now.

Despite this I loved my Gamecube. The Mario Kart Double Dash game I got came with the Legend of Zelda bonus disc so that was my proper introduction to the main Zelda games and what made me a fan to this day. I played that Wind Waker demo so many times I knew it inside out and Wind Waker is still my favourite Zelda now. I stupidly borrowed my mate the Gamecube once and he accidentally deleted my Ocarina of Time save which was at the Shadow Temple. I never finished it until it came out on the 3DS.
Other games I loved from this era were Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion, and F-Zero GX.
I remember buying Super Metroid from CHiPS and falling in love with that too. But my fondest memories of the Gamecube where Warioware and Super Smash Bros Melee. Along with Double Dash our group of friends played these to death.

After the Gamecube gaming got a little less exciting for me. I had it up to the 360 which was my first console I bought myself. When that happens it loses a bit of the magic and eventually when I started buying retro consoles as much as I enjoyed them it never truly brought me the same happiness having them as a kid did. From the Gamecube I got the Xbox 360, The Wii, DS, 3DS, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X.

At one point or another I've also owned a Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Sega CD, Xbox, and probably a couple of other bits. They all have their ups and downs but when you're older and you're footing the expense and barely have as much time to play it, and even less friends to play it with, it's just another thing. I have good recent memories of recent consoles, and there's been some great games, but none of them come close to what it was like growing up.

Edited January 9, 2023 by FelatioLips

[gmoney]

Sega Master System (about 1992)

Shared between me and my two older brothers. I absolutely loved it to start with, but later when everyone else had a Megadrive and we never got one, it seemed like a lame console. Fond memories of Double Dragon, George Forman's KO Boxing and Altered Beast. 

Amstrad GX4000 (no idea)

Bought by one of my brothers at a very heavy discount, we only ever had one game, a racing game, for it and that was shit. Never played, but it sat in a cupboard for years.

Umpteen Spectrums, a couple of Commodore 64's and a BBC Micro (1994 - 1998)

My dad went through a bit of a strange period of buying every Spectrum he saw at car boot sales, which was a lot of Spectrums. He'd give them to me and I'd frankenstein the good parts of them into the best one I could, though eventually I settled on one with a built in tape player. C64's were much rarer, and one time we got a BBC Micro. No idea what happened to all these, but I imagine my dad lobbed them all, and the 100+ tapes we accrued. Best games were Skool Daze, Football Manager (the old one) and Way of the Exploding Fist.

SNES (1996)

My brothers, though he gave it to me later. Great step up from my older consoles, you didn't have to wait for tapes to load, and the games weren't hopeless dated. One thing though, we never had many games for it. We had Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter and Striker and they got played a lot, but we never had Zelda, Metroid or Mario Kart. I ended up selling it for about £30 in around 2006. I could have doubled that if I held on another few years. 

Playstation (1998)

The first console that was truly mine, bought for me for my birthday, my older brothers had moved out so no need to share with them. I'd already played it around friends houses for years of course. First game I had was Crash Bandicoot 2, which I actually don't hold much affection for. S'alright. Main games I loved for this at the time were WWF Warzone (was super hyped for Attitude when it came out, but was a disappointment. Never loved the Smackdown games on PS1). World Cup 98, Theme Hospital, Vagrant Story, , GTA, GTA 2.

N64 (2000?)

Ended up flogging the Playstation to buy an N64 as by this time I was obsessed with WCW/NWO Revenge and WWF Wrestlemania and eventually No Mercy (the less said about the reversal system on that the better...). In terms of other games, only really the classics, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario 64. I didn't stray much further than that, they wrestling games were enough. 

Playstation 2 (2004)

I'd gotten into going out and drinking in the meantime, so stopped playing games at home as much. I still played round mates houses though, but it wasn't until GTA San Andreas was released that anything tempted me to get a console. I had a job now so could pay for my own shit, so didn't rely on birthday presents. Such an amazing experience that game, that I don't think anything will touch for me. Other games I was into; Viewtiful Joe, Bully, various Pro Evo games, the one with Collina on the front I remember the best.  

X Box 360 (2014)

Note the 10 year gap and the belated purchase of a 360. I had a decent-ish PC now, and couldn't justify having a console as well. I eventually did because I wanted to play GTA V with mates. They all had Xboxes, so that's what I bought. I don't remember buying much else for it to be honest. 

Playstation 4 (2018)

Bought for Read Dead Redemption 2. A pattern emerging. Fun stuff on here, but I used it for mainly watching things. 

Playstation 5 (2022)

Got it for Elden Ring, and aside from that I don't think I've played anything else. Great game, but there's fuck all else appealing coming out for it. 

 

[FLips]

Glad to see I’m not the only one to suffer through George Foreman’s KO Boxing (sponsored by Doritos!).

[gmoney]

I honestly have nothing but positive feelings towards it. looking at it now, it's objectively shite, but at the time... He ate burgers between rounds, what's not to love?!

[The Gaffer]

Love threads like these. In the order I bought them:

1. Sega Megadrive

I must have been around seven or eight I guess. 97/98, so in terms of how this stuff was positioned in shops, the Megadrive was already ancient history and immediate retro gaming in the face of the PlayStation. How times have changed! I remember getting it in a big red box, with the 6-in-1 cart, and pretty much only picking up a scant few other games in pawn shops from there on. My first active gaming memory is literally thinking I was playing Sonic by holding the controller and looking at the demo that played each time after the title sequence. It dawned on me after a few goes that I kept getting the same score for doing the same moved in the Springyard Zone. 

Streets of Rage's music changed my brain. It probably developed this internal rhythm clock I have more than anything else. I used to hum the entire soundtrack to town and back on days out with my mum. I literally must have looked like a seven year old Bez, gurning out all these Yuzo Koshiro bangers. 

 

2.  PlayStation

Is still the greatest. Swooped into the gaf in '99 along with a stack of games. Got the lot with the proceeds of my communion money - a fine Irish Catholic tradition where you go to all your relatives houses dressed like Al Capone and they gave you money. I was right out the gates with Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout and...uh...Rugrats: Search for Reptar. The Net Yaroze demo disc was also sufficiently 3D weird enough for me to know I was messing with a whole new kind of gaming, here. 

PS1 was just so...I don't know...acidey. Terrible draw distances, jaggy lines, funky colours. Metal Gear took over my life. I beat it on easy and though I'd accomplished something few on the planet had. Cried when Sniper Wolf died. Drew my own base maps influenced by the game. 

PlayStation was the sharing console too, of course. We all took turns at Crash, Tekken etc. The mortification of going to someone's house who hadn't unlocked all the extra Tekken characters was sheer embarrassment. 

Final Fantasy VII happened and totally changed my life insofar as absolutely mauling me with the depth of imagination and feeling a piece of media could affect me with. 

 

3. Sega Master System

The fuck? Yeah, my main retro diversion around 2001/2002 became a curious obsession with the Master System. Essentially there was a Cash Converters near us that someone had sold about 100 games for the thing in, and nobody else was buying them. I started buying them. 

For me the Master System wasn't the ill fated predecessor to the Megadrive, it was some weird unloved underdog that I felt a weird need to staunchly defend. I loved how primary the games were, how nobody owned one, how it has bastardised downgrades of Megadrive games. I used to look up dozens of niche geocities and angelfire sites that similarly pledged their love to what was really - Phantasy Star aside - a pretty terrible console. 

 

4. PS2

Took me about a year after launch to get one, nailing it eventually by convincing my mum to get one on a buy now, pay later scheme whilst she was sorting a new fridge for the gaf. I got MGS2, TimeSplitters and whatever This is Football game had Rio Ferdinand on the cover. Decent footy game, from what I remember. 

The other two games represented in different ways what the PS2 would mean. In MGS2 you had the crazy graphics and cinematic immersion, in TimeSplitters you were playing what basically felt like a PC shooter at the time. Very fast for its time, as a first wave console launch game. 

I played loads on it over the years, of course. Tony Hawk, Final Fantasy X, Snake Eater etc but I never felt like the PS2 was 'mine' oddly enough. There was quite a bit on it that just never hit me in the feels. Didn't get Ico, or a lot of the top JRPGs. A cooler, 'proper gamer' black box came along too...

 

3. Xbox

The Xbox was my big boy pants. I was 12 in 2003 when I got it from the proceeds of my confirmation money - the sequel to the communion fund - and for me it was the big leagues. I was already into PC gaming at the time, but mostly easy to run stuff like Half Life, Unreal, Doom etc. I was never going to be able to afford a decent gaming PC so for me the Xbox - as it was perceived by many for a few years - was essentially a gateway to mid tier PC gaming from a console. 

Halo. Within minutes of playing it you just know this couldn't have been pulled off in the splendour it deserved on the GameCube or PS2. Okay...there wasn't much else on the system...but playing multi platform games was a definite step up. Halo 2 was a massive deal for me as well at the time. My mum bought it when I was in school and had it on top of the Xbox with a Lucozade and pack of chocolate muffins as soon as I got home. My mum was good people for my gaming habits. 

 

4. GameCube

Bought one Stateside and thought I could put it through a travel adapter that only sorted the pin connection and not the voltage, and the thing blew out of the socket. Eventually wound up getting one second hand primarily just to play Day of Reckoning, Twin Snakes and Resi 4. They were all great, but I've never been a big Nintendo guy so the first party titles and - invariably - system as a whole didn't really resonate with me. 

 

5. Xbox 360

I kind of feel like the 360 was my PS2, and I'm probably not alone in that here. It wasn't the most personal and isn't the most nostalgic on the list, but it's the one I probably expanded my genre horizons most on, got the most value for money banger after banger titles, had in some form or fashion for the longest etc. 

Gears, Halo 3, Oblivion, Skyrim, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Dead Rising. Killer system. 

 

6. PS3

The entries are going to be a little shorter here, but that's how it goes right? Systems have blended together ever since this generation, which isn't all that bad as it's become largely about the games. Got it to play Guns of the Patriots. It was alright. I done most of my gaming on the 360 this gen. I do fondly remember how hilariously reviled and botched the system launch was initially, but it felt towards the end as though it was in more homes than the 360 when all was said and done. 

 

7.  Everything Since

Yeah like I said, it's not happening. I'm not into the narrative that gaming is dead - christ, how long has that been going on for? - but it's not about system allegiance or percieved coolness anymore. As such I don't have much to say about any of the more recent consoles. 

 

 

[FLips]

10 minutes ago, gmoney said:

I honestly have nothing but positive feelings towards it. looking at it now, it's objectively shite, but at the time... He ate burgers between rounds, what's not to love?!

We both got completely different games too!

 

[gmoney]

Oh shit, you didn't get the burger animation! No wonder it's not aflame in your heart like it is mine. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by gmoney

[Jazzy G]

This may take a while... 

The earliest I can remember is a Grandstand Pong console thing with switchers to alternate between squash, tennis, football, and shooting (although we didn't have the gun). 

From there when I was about 6 I think we had a Spectrum for a little while. I remember the Clumsy Colin game, which was a licensed title from Skips. He was their mascot at the time if memory serves. 

After the Speccy we got a Commodore +4. The games I remember most from that were Kikstart, Treasure Island, something called Army Days which was like a Commando clone, and a Defender clone that I forget the name of. I played a fair bit of Kikstart and Treasure Island on that as they were the games I was least bad at. 

From there we got a Commodore 64, and I had so many games that I played on it. Notable ones included One Man And His Droid, Short Circuit, a poet of Buggy Boy which I loved, Bombjack (one of my favourite games and earliest memories of videogames from playing on the arcade version while my mum cleaned the pub she worked at, which is the one she's landlady of now), Space Harrier, the Dizzy games, CREATURES, Yogi's Treasure Hunt (the first game I ever finished), Batman The Caped Crusader (which had a different level on each side of the tape), Boulderdash. I'd be here all day listing them. We had the light gun as well, and a tape with select levels from other Ocean titles to play though. And don't forget those loader songs by Jonathan Dunn. 

Sometime during this period I also ended up in possession of an Atari 2600 (the Daeth Vader), which my gran bought for my birthday using 5p coins she'd put away. I mostly played Desert Falcon, a Zaxxon clone, and Crystal Castles. I also got some paddles and Kaboom! Featuring the mad bomber. I used to take this to my gran's a lot where we'd play Asteroids, Galaxian, and Mr Do. I remember finding a second hand 2600 in a junk shop for £2 and buying it for my gran so she could play while I wasn't there. 

When I was 12-13ish I got an Amiga 600 for Christmas with Lemmings, which I played a lot. One of my school friends had a brother who copied lots of cracked games for me,, but I also got plenty of actual games as well. I played that terrible port of Street Fighter 2 a lot because I loved that game. I got my first "fight stick" a Maverick 2 back then so I could use punch and kicks. Also Pacland, which is probably when I started becoming a fan of him. Lemmings 2 was a regular feature, but mostly on the freestyle modes so I could find interesting ways to dispose of them. I also had Body Blows and Body Blows Galactic to further scratch my fighting game itch. 

Shortly after the Miggy I got a Megadrive 2. I played a LOT of Street Fighter 2 on this. First the Special Champion Edition, but I also managed to oursuade my mum to let me buy Super Street Fighter 2. I also loved Sonic & Knuckles, and would embark upon massive Columns sessions with my friends. The Streets Of Rage games became a regular fixture as well. I always played as Roo or Shiva in SOR 3. The Megadrive port of Virtua Racing was a heck of an achievement, even if it did only run at 15FPS

I ended up with a Multimega when my Megadrive 2 gave up the ghost, and so would play Road Avenger quite a lot. I can't remember having many other MegaCD games, but I also got a 32X with Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua Fighter, and Star Wars Arcade. 

I think the next thing I got was my best friend's old PC (an XT) and a selection of games on 5.25" floppy disks. One was Tag Team Wrestling, which I think also got a port on the NES, and the shareware version of Commander Keen, which didn't look or sound great in CGA with PC Speaker sound, but played well. 

A proper PC came after that, kept in mum's bedroom at first, then moving down into the living room. I played Descent, Doom, Command & Conquer, an RTS called Z, and Duke Nulem 3D, where I remember making a level where you'd start at my best friend's house, then fight out of his house, across the field and past the old folks' home at the back of my house, round into the front door, up the stairs and into my mum's bedroom to switch on the immersion heater. 

When my mum left my stepdad for my most recent stepdad we had a PS1. I had Colony Wars, Tomb Raider, then inevitably Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Alpha 3. The second Street Fighter Collection, Gran Turismo, which I couldn't play much of until I bought a magazine with a memory card on the front that had a save with all the licenses and a million credits. I also played the WWF games. I remember a marathon on Smackdown 2 with a friend one new year's day. 

When I moved to Barnsley for uni I had nothing to play on, but my housemate had an N64 and a PS1. We played through Perfect Dark, and occasionally had a blast at 1080 Snow oarding. I picked up Street Fighter EX+ Alpha to scratch my fighting game itch. He also had Gran Turismo 2, and we'd make our way through the simulation mode on that. 

When the other guy moved in he got a PS2, which meant we played GT3 a lot.

I used one of my student loan cheques to pick up a Game boy Advance. I played so much Fire Pro. I even went to the extent of finding and printing a document with all the wrestlers' real names so I could correct them. I think I made a Taz in it, or there was a Taz in it. During my time owning it I also had Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Revival, Double Dragon Advance, Final Fight Zero, the two King Of Fighters games, a great Sega collection with After Burner, Space Harrier, Super Hang-on, and Outrun on it. I traded it up to the 20th anniversary NES model GBASP at some point. There was an incredibly impressive port of Street Fighter Alpha 3 on it. Wario Ware was fun as well. 

After I dropped out of uni and moved home my gran got me my own PS2 one Christmas and I embarked on a massive binge of acquiring 2d fighting games from Capcom and SNK. I really would be here all day if I listed them all,  it there were a lot. I had some great times playing them with @air_raid. I also had GT4, the Bouncer, Okami, the Sonic Mega Collections, PES, SoulCalibur 2, Telken & Virtua Fighter 4, and a lot of old school arcade collections. 

While I was living at home I also picked up a Gamecube (Animal Crossing lived in this), a Saturn with Street Fighter Alpha 2, Sega Rally, Daytona USA (the horse is OP), Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers and others, and a Dreamcast, which I used to play Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, Chu-Chu Rocket, Sega GT, Metropolis Street Racing, Sega Rally 2, Power Stone and Dynamite Cop. 

One of the regulars at my Mum's pub gave me a Master System with R-Type & Sonic. The one with Alex Kidd built in. 

Another friend got me a NES for Christmas with the zapper, Mario/Duck Hunt, Kung Fu Master & Home Alone. 

I also picked up a SNES with Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Mario All-stars/World, Killer Instinct, Alien 3, and a few others. 

My gran got me an original XBox, I played lots of Fable, Project Gotham 2, and Dead Or Alive 3.

When I moved to Manchester at first my friend whose room I was taking over left me his N64 with Mario Kart and Goldeneye, and a little TV so I could play them without having to get out of bed. 

I got a PSP with Street Fighter Alpha 3, a FIFA game, Outrun 200ý (which connected to the PS2 version to transfer progress and unlock extra content), and Smackdown Vs Raw 2006 which did the same. 

When I moved to Burnage in 2009 a friend sold me her XBox 360 for £90. I played a LOT of Street Fighter 4, the Forza games (3 & 4), King Of Fighters 12 (bad) & 13 (beautiful), Tekken 6 & Tag 2, Fable 2 which I loved, and Fable 3 which was less good. 

I got a Nintendo DSLite Animal Crossing Wild World, Mario Kart DS, Professor Kawashima Brain Training, Wario Ware Touched, I updated to the DSi, and got the 3DS at launch. New Leaf was great, more best em ups, Mario Kart 7, the SNES versions of Super Street Fighter 2 and Alpha 2, several beat em ups, Outrun, Space Harrier, Street Fighter 4, Okami den, a few Pokémon games, and I actually managed to stay the course with them. It was my introduction to Smash Brothers as well. 

My gran got me a Woo. I played Mario Kart, Muramasa, Animal Crossing, Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, Mad World, I tried the remake of Okami, but the controls were a mess. I tried Mario Galaxy, and loved it until I remembered that I can't play games in 3D very well. 

I used the redundancy from my old job to buy a Wii U. There was no Animal Crossing. I played a fair bit of Mario Kart 8, Mario Maker, Smash Brothers, and some of the Virtual Console games through the e-shop. I also recently picked up that Wii U version of Tekken Tag 2 where the characters have Nintendo themed costumes. 

My best friend sold me his XBox One and I got a shed load of games for it, lots of those old ACA Neo Geo fighting games (I finally got a home port of Waku Waku 7) Tekken 7, more Forza (Motorsports & Horizon) 

The former Mrs Jazzy's dad gave me his PS4 when he got his PS4 Pro. More fighting games and beat em ups, Spider-Man, Miles Morales (which I managed to 100%), Kingdoms Of Amalur re-reckoning, the Metal Slug anthology, 

I got a Switch Lite one Christmas as well. The one right before Lockdown. I played Animal Crossing, Pure Pool, Okami, Streets Of Rage 4, Smash Brothers, The Takeover, Waku Waku 7. So many games. 

I'm pretty sure that brings me up to date. 

[chokeout]

ZX Spectrum

For reasons i have never understood or had fully explained to be, my sister (who is 3 years older than me) was, as a baby, given a spectrum as a christening present. I'm 90% sure it was my dad justifying getting himself one because it's exactly what i'd do. Because of this, we always had games in the house. Memories of playing it are reduced down to playing Airwolf and never being able to get past the 3rd screen, Ghostbusters taking an age to load and crashing all the time and the usual classics like Jet Set Willy, Jetpac and Chuckie Egg.

Weird isometric games always send me into a weird flashback, especially the Batman game.

 

The Spectrum was set up far longer than any of us ever used it and wasn't retired even as we upgraded which led to...

 

The Amiga 500

My dad was convinced we needed a new computer and had narrowed it down to the Amiga 500 or the Atari ST. It was down to a coin toss between the two of them so we went, en masse, to Joe Micro's in Rhyl, a shop that could be best described as a cupboard full of pegboard and miserable men. They pushed for us to get the Atari, probably because they couldn't shift them. My dad asked us which one we wanted and I said the Atari because (and it's still a very vivid memory) the box art for the Amiga had a screenshot of Nighbreed on it which scared the living shit out of me. I thankfully got outvoted and we left with the Amiga Screengems collection. Nightbreed screenshot is on the bottom right.

I talked about this with my Dad over Christmas but i can't stress how important this computer was to me. I'll get to the games in a minute but the above collection came with Deluxe Paint II. I sat there and taught myself to paint and draw with a mouse. By the time I was in high school and wanted to do media they were using Deluxe Paint 3 to add graphics and titles to video in media and it gave me a natural boost already knowing how to do it and gave me something to excel at. It directly led to me seeking out Photoshop, premiere and After Effects and again teaching myself when i was 14 and ending up in the job i've had for the last 20 years.

Anyway, games...

Nighbreed has an early level where you button mash to run away from a dreadlocked ghoul in a cemetery or you get bit like in the screenshot. I played it once, got bit and then hid the disk so its evil could never be seen by anyone else!

Shadow of The beast 2 felt grown up and is always pone of the first games i find when i bust out an emulator but Back to the Future 2 was the best thing ever, with the great digi score and levels that are almost mini games. I played that game to death.

It wasn't long before my cousin, who was a year older than us started giving us copied games and we had access to everything. Monkey Island 2 became an obsession, as did almost every point and click, especially the Lucas Arts games. It became almost a running joke on which game had the most disks to swap and become almost unplayable. Willy Beemish, i'm looking at you. You've not known frustration until youve tried to play the Amiga port of Street Fighter 2, reducing the controls down to a 1 button joystick and having to reload from disk every time you change characters. Absolute horseshit.

The Ocean movie tie-ins that were all almost identical with their squat character designs. Total Recall being a personal fav. Moonstone with its OTT gore and games like Gods all seemed to throw as much blood as they could, making them feel grownup when, looking back, they were almost cartoon like.

Dad became obsessed with Lemmings, still to this day the only game he has ever played for more than 5 minutes

While we still had the Amiga we managed to get a MegaDrive 2 which I think came with Sonic 2 and Megagames 2 and 3. We used to rent the majority of games for it because they were so expensive so summer holidays involved blitzing games as quickly as possible to give them back. Most of the games were just whatever was available so i have memories of joylessly completing Quackshot and World of Illusion just to fill the days. I can remember hating playing Robocop vs Terminator and grinding through to the last level only for my brother to run into the room and knocking the powerlead out from the back of the console.

Playstation 

Been mentioned in other threads but like many on here it was when gaming went from being a fun thing to an obsession. I have no idea how my parents could afford it but we got a bundle for christmas one year and Played Tekken 2 to death. Literally everyone came back from Christmas holidays with one that year, apart from Darren Jones, who got a Saturn, with no A/V lead and had to sit there while we all talked about how great the Playstation was. Enjoy playing Virtua fighter on your own, mate, we're all off to play Smackdown!

Renting Resident Evil from Blockbuster started a life-long obsession with the franchise. Randomly despite owning tonnes of games my strongest memories of it always seem to be linked to the Official playstation demo discs. Medievil, Pandomium, Cool Borders and wipeout all exist in my head as frantic short run throughs.

The timed Resident Evil 2 demo blew my mind. I think it came with the Directors Cut of RE but im sure i remember it being attached to a magazine as well.

Nintendo 64

Our media studies teacher let us set it up in the studio and we would waste hours playing Goldeneye on it. We were eventually allowed to play it in the Lecture Theatre which was basicially the cinema for the school which, at that point, seemed like the greatest thing ever.

Playstation2

Been mentioned loads on here before but was the natural progression for most and Timesplitters 2 was an amazing multi player game during Uni

Dreamcast

When I started Uni i got one in the first week when i had more money in my account then i'd ever had. Tony Hawk 2, the Capcom fighting games and Ready to Rumble became essentials in the student house and (the reason i bought it) Resident Evil: Code Veronica is still an all time great and almost made the VDU worth having.

By the time communal gaming in the student house became an obsession we ended up with a Kwiksave bag containing a...

SNES, a multitap and loads of games but most importantly Bomberman. that game never left the console for at least a year.

Gamecube

Was purchased specifically for Resident Evil 4

Xbox 360

skipped the original Xbox but by this point i was living in a shared house with friends and Call of Duty multiplayer became life 

Xbox One

natural progression

Playstation 3

bought secondhand to play 3D blurays when i got a new tv. Ended up falling in love with Uncharted and The Last Of Us

Playstation 4

My brother lent it to me when he went travelling. I rarely pick up a controller any more but The Uncharted Games and God Of War are all time great games and story driven games are all i seem to play any more......oh and remasters of Resident Evil games

Edited January 9, 2023 by chokeout

[Bus Surfer]

Atari 2600

This would have been late 80's. I don't remember much aside from playing Ikari Warriors and Space Invaders. The console broke several months after Christmas and I remember being devestated. 

Master System

A year or so after the Atari I was gifted a Master System. Alex the Kidd in Miracle World had some serious hours put into it. I have a memory of going to a friend's house who had recently been bought a SNES. he was playing street fighter 2 and I was extremely jealous. I went home and pretended the main guy in my Kung Fu game was Ryu.

We had an Independant games shop in our small town that would let you trade in games for unusually high prices or straight swaps so I made the most of it and went though whatever I could find in the that shop. When Mortal Kombat was released I remember walking to Woolworths pretty much daily after school to see if they had it. They never did. I eventually got a copy when a friend went to Toys R Us.That was one of my favourite days as a kid. I still also remember vividly the day when I found out the blood cheat for the Master system (2,1,2 down, up) It was printed in the games section of a Saturday Daily Mirror. I read that in the morning on a a bus trip to Bournemouth. I couldn't wait to get back home to try it. Longest day of my young life that was. 

SNES

I convinced my Mam to let me buy a SNES from my savings. I can recall it being £140 with Mario All stars and the Super Scope. The Scope didn't see much action but the SNES was a firm favourite. I didn't need to Cosplay as Ryu anymore! I remember getting the Street Fighter 2 Turbo set in the silver tin. Wish I'd kept that now. Too many goods games to count but I remember being stunned by how Donkey Kong Country looked and played. Magical

PS1

I had for Christmas in 1997 I think with Resident Evil and Fifa 96. I've spoke about Resi on here several times, it terrified me and I'd only play it if I had friends over. I also remember seeing GTA for the first time and it being the first game I can remember where following the story wasn't mandatory. It felt so strange to just do what you wanted without being forced into down a linear path. 'chipped' PlayStations soon became a thing but before I could jump on board my laser knackered and I couldn't play anything. I remember saving up for FF7 and not being able to play it. I legit swapped the game at Woolworths 4 or 5 times before I realised it was the console that was fucked. With the hump, I sold all my games and decided I was too old for consoles anymore. 

N64

My gaming hiatus lasted a year or so. Then I got back into wrestling and a friend had rented WCW/NWO Revenge from Blockbuster. I was hooked! I saved and payed money towards my own N64 for Christmas. I remember sneeking a few of those stubby french lagers up to my room and playing Revenge all boxing day evening and pigging out on Rose's chocolates. Fantastic times! Ocarina of Time was another firm favourite and I can't recall how many hours I sunk into that. 

No Mercy eventually followed and I recall playing the shit out of Golden Eye and Worms Armageddon but not much else. I think my Brother inherited the N64 in the end but I can't recall what happened to all the games. 

PS2

I was out of the loop with gaming until a friend showed me a GTA3 hype piece in a magazine. Everything about it looked amazing. I was working at this point so bought the console myself and my parents got me GTA3 and Tony Hawks Pro skater for Christmas. Again I have fond memories of playing GTA3 on boxing day evening after coming home from work. I can't remember why, but I sold the PS2 and games within 12 months. I think it was to fund a holiday with the lads. All I remember was being devestated when friends got GTA Vice City and I couldn't play it. 

Xbox 360

Was bought some point in 2008. I hadn't had a console for about 6 years at the point and coming back to gaming was weird as so much had changed. I recall getting Fifa 07 and Tiger Woods with it. The graphical leap was tremendous. Reading about online play was a total head scratcher. What the fuck?! I can play games against other people? Madness. Being able to watch YouTube and other online stuff really was novel at this time. Also the original Xbox live dashboard setup was amazing! 

I recall loving the Skate series, GTA 4 and Left 4 Dead. I had no end of issues with my 360. Had to send it off because of the red ring of death and in the end it was sat out of it's case due to an issue with the disk drive not opening. I think the last game I got was GTAV. 

XBox One

Picked this up early 2014. Was expecting no end of issues after the 360 but the Xbox One never let me down. I probably used it more for media than gaming. Majority of time spent was on GTAV and Skate 3.

Xbox Series X

Bought this a few months ago. I only really played Rockstar or sports titles these days but Games Pass is a great feature and I never feel bored with it. Been having fun going back through the older GTA games recently. They're not perfect but the noatalgia is high and I get a massive kick out of them. I'll more than likely have this for a fair few years unless something goes tits up. 

 

Are we gonna be the generation of oldies wearing cardigans but still complaining about campers or glitchers? I can't fucking wait. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Silky Kisser

[air_raid]

For me it was Game Boy, Super NES, a NES I got later because I was dorky enough to want to play the "real" versions of the Mario games instead of the tarted up AllStars versions, a PS so I could keep getting the up to date WWF and Street Fighter games, then my PS2. After that I stopped gaming properly because I finished uni and wasn't living with other gamers any more, and short the odd whirl on Diablo and a few CEX 50p purchases to try on Mrs raid's PS3, that was my lot.....

1 hour ago, jazzygeofferz said:

After I dropped out of uni and moved home my gran got me my own PS2 one Christmas and I embarked on a massive binge of acquiring 2d fighting games from Capcom and SNK. I really would be here all day if I listed them all,  it there were a lot. I had some great times playing them with @air_raid.

Literally discovering the CvSNK2 coin-op at uni was the impetus for me buying a 3rd hand PS2 off my housemate. We played it to death. CVS Chaos was a comedown. It took me a while to figure out why it was so different..... because SNK made it, and Capcom made the previous incarnations. Doing Rock Howard's "big move" on CVSNK2 was awesome fun even as an SF loyalist.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

They had - and I swear this is true, as so few people believe me any more - an old black and white TV in their bedroom

What's so hard to believe about that? People are so cynical these days.

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Even finished it once.

You're a god damned liar.

[Jazzy G]

My Megadrive 2 came with Mega Games 6, which I think had Alien Storm, Golden Axe, Streets Of Rage,  Super Hang-On, Italia 90 and Columns. I played Alien Storm so much. Managed to get to the last level, but never quite finished it.