What were/are your consoles?

[SuperBacon]

Spectrum ZX

Played it to death, and my Dad used to take me to every carboot on earth to uncover tapes. Colin The Cleaner was the bollocks.

NES

God, I loved it. Quite a few of us in my block had one, so we'd all swap games, and have little tournaments of Duck Hunt, Track & Field and the like. 

SNES

As mentioned in the other thread, it just seemed so colourful and bright compared to the NES, a more vibrant, immersive world. 

The pads were a lot nicer to hold than the NES as well.

Megadrive

It wasn't as glamorous as the SNES, but the games were amazing. I aways wanted a MEGA CD, but never got one. I don't know if I even ever saw one for sale. To me it was mythical like the Neo Geo. T2 game was a favourite on here. 

N64

Just the most fun console ever. The controller was alien, which was fun as well, it had Goldeneye for you and all your mates, it had Banjo Kazooie for fun, and it had Ocarina Of Time for all the saddos like me that just liked getting on the horse and riding for ages.

Playstation

Came with Die Hard Trilogy, which was amazing and then it had GTA. This console is tied into a very depressive period in my younger years so I played a lot of long, immersive games like FF7 to hide away from the world, but I still look back fondly, especially after we all got ours chipped. 

Playstation 2

Desperate to get one, I got one on Xmas Day, but I wasn't allowed to open it. My Mum had overspent, so we had to return this one and get the cash back, and then we went round the corner to buy another one with a cheque that my Mum knew would bounce. What a time!!!

Anyway, the PS2 was a serious bit of kit, and due to the fact that I not long after I got mine, found myself working in a pawn shop meant that I now had hundreds of games to play. Medal Of Honour the best of the lost.

X Box

To be honest, I remember being not very impressed with this, and only really played Halo and Counterstrike. It was really ugly as well, all X Box's are to be honest.

I do have an X Box 360 as well, but only turn it on when the kids are here to play GTA5 with them. 

I've also had every iteration of Gameboy, and still have flashbacks of the screen fading as the batteries went.

Not a gamer anymore, I don't think I ever really was, but that didn't stop me buying 10 or so magazines a month on gaming. 

But I have been giving thought to getting something to play. I've seen these little consoles on Facebook, where (I assume) it's just an emulator in a shell, and it has 50,000 games on it or whatever. I'm tempted. 

 

[Carbomb]

SEGA Game Gear - my first ever console. Like everyone else, I learned pretty early on to get an adaptor and not bother with the hour that six fucking AA batteries would get me. Got the Master Gear too. Had a load of games for it, most of which I loved. There was Marble Madness, Ax Battler: Legend of Golden Axe (an RPG, but with active slash-'em-up combat for the battle encounters), Shinobi GG, Chakan The Forever Man, Devilish (a very imaginative combo of shoot-'em-up and Arkanoid-style bat-and-ball, which I've never seen since in any other game), Sonic, Sonic 2, Super Monaco GP, Columns (of course), NBA Jam, and a whole slew of much-loved titles that it'd take me too long to type.

 

SEGA Master System II - a friend of mine had it, then discovered the guitar, so sold it to me quite cheap. Came bundled with Alex Kidd In Miracle World (all the MS2s had that, I think - I forget what the MS1 had bundled with it). Had some great titles - Pro Wrestling was a surprisingly great game for an 8-bit, even with only four tag teams, of which two could never fight each other, i.e. face vs. face, heel vs. heel. Michael Jackon's Moonwalker was a classic, even if it or its MegaDrive version could never match the arcade shoot-'em-up version. Zaxxon, Action Fighter, The Ninja, Shinobi, all tons of fun.

UKFF STORY BONUS: I first met @Jaffa when I advertised my old MS for sale on here (we hadn't played it for years) - we met up in Manor House, just round the corner from me, where I handed over the console, and we then went for pints at The Finsbury and had a great ol' time. We met up a few more times, but then lost contact - I hope he eventually comes back on here.

 

PlayStation - as everyone's said, a game-changer. First game I got was Deathtrap Dungeon, which remains uncompleted to this day. I'm on the last boss, but the save is bad - I have no items left, so it's really just me against a fucking great big red dragon with a sword. Can't dodge him quickly enough. 

I got it in '98/99, and I managed to get an absolute ton of games for it cheap, of varying quality, from local pawnbrokers, for a couple of quid each. Still got most of them. Vagrant Story is one of my favourite games ever, which I've replayed a few times, plus, in 2000, I briefly worked for Squaresoft Europe, so my name's in the end credits of the European builds of Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve 2, and Final Fantasy IX. 

One particular memory I have is of my sisters bugging me to play (repeatedly) Resident Evil so they could watch - they found it terrifying. Unsurprising - that bastard dog is probably a lot of people's enduring memory of that game.

Also, I had a lot of fond memories watching movies on it with mates - around Tottenham Court Road, there were lots of computer fairs where you could buy parts and devices, and all sorts of semi-legal stuff as well. There was one guy chipping PlayStations so that, with the right attachment at the back, you could watch VCDs. So my uni mates and I would go down to Chinatown and buy all sorts of import VCDs (they were always more popular in HK and therefore with the London Chinese community too). First watched South Park on my PSX.

 

SEGA Dreamcast - one of my favourite consoles ever. I still have it, and I must have racked up so many hours on that machine playing Giant Gram/Giant Gram 2000, Fire Pro Wrestling D, Shen-Mu, King Of Fighters '98 (was a special edition called Dream Match '99, different from the actual '99 instalment, which wasn't very good), King Of Fighters 2002, Garou: Mark Of The Wolves (basically Fatal Fury: The Next Generation), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Virtua Cop 2, Eldorado Gate (a strange, episodic RPG of which SEGA released instalments of two-episode discs every couple of months when it first came out), Power Stone, and House Of The Dead 2. 

Love that damn machine.

 

Neo-Geo Pocket/Neo-Geo Pocket Color - I first discovered the original, black-and-white console back in '99 at Shekhana Computers in Wood Green, who sold loads of import stuff. I was initially sceptical of a portable in B&W so many years after the Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and Game Boy Color, but it was a genuine, full 16-bit console, and it had some tremendous titles on, including a portable version of King Of Fighters '97. 

Then I discovered, while living in Japan, the Pocket Color, and I fell in love with it. They had all the great SNK fighting games ported: King Of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown (which, for my money, is still one of the best fighting games ever), SNK vs. Capcom: Match Of The Millennium (this was actually the first instalment in the series, before the full home console version), Gals Fighters (as the name suggests, all the popular female fighting characters, including the fan-panderingly-proportioned Mai Shiranui, but also, amusingly, the SNK universe's supreme dickhead, Iori Yagami, as the boss, trying to muscle in on even a women's tournament by sticking on a skirt), and The Last Blade (a much underrated fighter set in the last years of the Shogunate). There was also Sonic The Hedgehog (a very faithful rendition), PacMan (a stone-cold classic on whatever console you play it), Metal Slug: 1st Mission & 2nd Mission, and some good puzzlers, including Puzzle Bobble. 

The only game I regret not getting for it was Big Bang Pro Wrestling - the only wrestling game for that console.

But I still have my Pocket Color, and it's still one of the best consoles I ever had. No need for memory card - has a battery-powered memory, and also has colour settings for when playing the B&W games, and also has a setting to allow you to play in either Japanese or English.

 

Game Boy Advance SP - my first Nintendo console, although not my first device. I got the SP because they based the design on the old Mario/Donkey Kong Game & Watches, of which I had one and loved. I got suckered in purely by the design. Glad I got it, though, as I've had some great games on it - I must have played Fire Pro Wrestling A the most, though.

 

PlayStation 2 - what's to be said about the best-selling console of all time (apparently) that no-one's said already? So many great games for this, no point listing them. And the first console to have a DVD player with it.

 

Ban-Dai WonderSwan Color - mainly got this for the intrigue. A decent little portable, only really popular in Japan. Played Final Fantasy II on it, which was good. But the quality of the components can't have been very good, as it broke down within a couple of years. Still got it as a bit of memorabilia - it's unplayable now.

 

Also had, years after release when they were much cheaper: MegaDrive II, PSP, Nintendo Wii, XBox, XBox 360

Edited January 9, 2023 by Carbomb

[DCW]

NES was our first. Myself and my brother got it as a Christmas present from my uncle Niall. He took us on a ferry to Hollyhead near Christmas time as a treat (how easy we were to please back in those days!) and we were allowed set it up on Christmas eve because he'd gotten pissed on horrible Sheridans crap version of Baileys liqeur and was feeling charitable. Endless hours of Mario and Duck Hunt were had on it.

We sold it a year or two later to a lad down the road we didn't really like (and who died in a stolen car crash that tipped into the canal a few years later) and used some of the money to buy a Mega Drive after playing FIFA, again on my uncles one. We had the smaller Mega Drive 2 as opposed to his original one. The FIFA that you could make say 'goal, goal, goal' in an annoying American accent by tapping the a button when you scored was my favourite. Remember renting Desert Storm loads on it, as well as the Beavis and Butthead game. My brother had an obsession with a game called 'Cool Spot' which I couldn't really understand. Had a decent soundtrack to it at least. Streets of Rage was probably my favourite on it.

My ma's then new boyfriend bribed us with a PS1 in early 1997, him having knocked up my ma which ended my 10 year run as the youngest kid in the family. He turned out to be a very decent sort and is involved with running the Irish homeless world cup teams these days in his retirement. We had FIFA 97 (with the indoor football) and Porsche Challenge at the start but very quickly built up a huge collection. I'd say the PS1 hindered my schooling to a big degree as my brother moved out to go to college and it was left solely in my custody. G Police, Nightmare Creatures, FIFA 98 with the Blur intro and LMA Manager was where I got my education in those days by pretending to be sick or by just waiting for my Ma to go to work and letting myself back in. We were all very surprised when the truant policeman showed up and the PS1 was taken away for a few weeks as punishment.

I got a PS2 in 2001 and was obsessed with GTA, Smackdown Know Your Role and later the Medal of Honor games. I also loved the Black Hawk Down game even though it was fairly shite. Worlds Scariest Police Chases the game (voiced by THE Sherriff John Bunnell) was another naff favourite. Then when I disovered the fifa obliterating Pro Evo series I was again hooked and returned to my mitching from school ways. I was 15/16 at this stage and miserable in an all boys school, and npbody was really bothered. No police calling anyway.

PS2 was last console I played with any affection. I tried with an Xbox 360 in the mid 00's but ended it up using it mainly for netflix and my friends Sky account that he left logged in. In covid boredom I bought the Xbox Series S in 2021 where you buy all the games online, but other than a few spins on Flight Sim and giving Fifa a go I wasn't using it. So gave it to kids club that was looking after a rake of Ukranian kids in the summer of 2022. The latest gens just seem too complicated, daunting and online focussed. I'm not arsed getting hockeyed by a folul mouthed 11 year old American on FIFA or whatever. I get enough abuse at work!

[HarmonicGenerator]

Gameboy

This was the first one for me. Inherited from a relative who decided they were too old for games, came with Mario, Tetris, and Asteroids. An essential whenever we went on holiday, an essential for any spare minute once Pokemon Red/Blue came out.

Upgraded to Gameboy Color which must have been for Pokémon Gold/Silver (I was all aboard the Pokémon hype train for a while there) but those games aside I didn’t have quite the same love for it as the original.

I had a Gameboy Advance which I assume was again for a Pokémon, though I couldn’t tell you which colour at this point. I mainly remember the excellent version of Mario Kart the GBA had.

Tried a 2DS for train journeys in 2016/17 but never quite got into it. Got far enough into whichever Pokémon it was to get the luchador bird guy.

NES

This was our first proper console. I don’t remember getting it, but I remember Mario again, Duck Hunt, Kung Fu, the first level and only the first level of one of the Dizzys, complete with its weird slightly different looking cartridge, McDonaldland, and a simple Pac-Man style game called Trog where you were a dinosaur going after eggs before the cavemen got you.

My brother in law got one of those arcade machine emulator things recently and to my joy I discovered Trog was on there, it’s still great.

The only other main Nintendo console we had was a Wii which got a lot of use. Wii Sports was the big one, but it had another fantastic Mario Kart, and we had the full set of Guitar Hero instruments which meant a hell of a lot of Beatles Rock Band.

 

Megadrive

This bridges the gap between NES and PS1. We had the six game cartridge with Columns, Italia 90, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and the others and to be honest, I think those were the only ones we ever played. Who needed extra games, this one game was already six!

We did get a Game Gear at one point, and I played Sonic on that, plus the first part of the first level of Ecco the Dolphin, but I never loved it like the Gameboy.

 

PS1

This was the console that hooked me. I wrote about it lots in the PS1 Nostalgia thread (Thread of the Year by the way, vote for it when the Awards go up).

It’s been Sony consoles all the way from there.

 

PS2

This was THE one for me. My favourite of all, because I played it constantly for about a decade. 

We were somehow lucky enough to get a PS2 on release day through pre-order and opening that bright blue box on Christmas Day 200….1(?) was an absolute thrill. Got Tekken Tag Tournament (the best Tekken), SSX and FIFA 200……the one with Paul Scholes on the front. All played to death.

It’s the PS2 games I’ve got the most nostalgia for. Not just Tekken Tag (I would subscribe to the expensive levels of PS Plus instantly if they made this available), but the first 3 Guitar Heros and the Aerosmith one, Jak and Daxter, Simpsons Road Rage (again, instant subscription if I could play this again), Futurama, SmackDowns 4 and 5, and many many more. This was the console that went to uni with me and my housemates and I would have Tekken 4 tourneys most nights in final year. It survived long enough that in 2012 when my wife and I were first together, she brought her copy of 007 Everything Or Nothing (or maybe it was Nightfire) over to mine because she still had them despite her dad chucking their PS2 years earlier.

Oh, and it had a DVD player!

PS2 is my favourite.

 

PS3

Got this to play Ghostbusters and Arkham Asylum. There were games I loved on the PS3 - Red Dead, Uncharted and WWE All Stars (the best WWE game). But as a console I never quite got the same feelings towards it as the PS2. Kept it until it stopped being able to read discs in 2017, but had no major desire to upgrade again.

 

PS4 

Until I got a new phone contract which came with a £100 Dixons voucher for some reason. I didn’t question that because it meant the PS4 was now just about affordable and I could play Uncharted 4.

When my wife and I moved in together in 2017 the PS4 came too, and we spent a lot of time playing Crash Team Racing, the Last Of Uses, Assassins Creeds and Spiders-Mans. The PS3 years had me kind of falling out of love with gaming but the PS4 started to hook me back in, not only playing games but finishing them. It was a godsend during the lockdowns too, and it lived until pretty much this day last year when it just wouldn’t switch on anymore. Completely dead.

 

PS5

But again, through sheer generosity of a relative with money, we got a PS5 last Christmas. It’s almost exclusively been used to play PS4 games up to now. It’s not perfect - so I have the Guardians of the Galaxy game and most levels are decorated with this glitchy red sparkling thing that also appeared in Assassins Creed Odyssey whenever you went into a cave, and the red sparkles apparently mean your console’s faulty, and I don’t know how to fix it - but since the PS4 stopped working it’s been good to have. I mostly just play whatever free games are on the basic PS Plus each month, and will buy one or two new ones a year max, while my wife has spent the last three months consumed by Red Dead 2.

Still, bring back PS2s.

Edited January 9, 2023 by HarmonicGenerator

[Fanny Pack]

91-93 Master System (Alex the Kidd built in)... word on the street is it was called just Alex Kidd though?

93-97 SNES, Mario World, Mario Kart, 

97-02 PS1, Fifa 98,

02-04 Xbox, Fifa 2003

04-08 PS2 mini, Tiger Woods 2005, San Andreas, Pro Evo 5

08-09 Wii, 

09-21 Nothing, apparently theres this thing called "having a life" that I had a go at but was probably harder than any console game I ever played.

2021- PS4, got round to playing GTAV and RDR2. Oh my.

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Fanny Pack
Forgot how shite the Wii was

[Fanny Pack]

7 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

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. 

Italia 90 was a great game, my cousin also had the fantastically named James Pond aswell.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

First console was the Commodore Amiga, was addicted to playing Lemmings and the Quavers game on it

Next was the NES, only ever played Mario Bros and Duck Hunt on it from memory 

Then I dipped into the hand held scene with the OG GameBoy, Mario Land, Tetris and Soccer were the 3 games I played the most on it

Next was the original PlayStation which I got the most use out of for years as I had it chipped to get bootleg games playing mostly ISS Pro, FIFA, Rayman, Oddworld, the first Smackdown game, WCW Mayhem and others

I also had the PS2 and PS3 again to play what had now evolved to Pro Evo, FIFA, NBA Street and the WWE games

I went back to handhelds with the GameBoy Advanced and SP, the latter I got the NES design of, playing Sonic, Road to Wrestlemania and a couple of other titles 

Next handheld was the PSP, I had a few games and movies for it but I mostly played the Football Manager games on it

After years of Sony consoles, I wanted to upgrade and try something different so opted for my current console, the Xbox One S, mainly for its 4K compatibility to use for 4K movies (need a remote to fully use it though)

[Jazzy G]

8 hours ago, Fanny Pack said:

Italia 90 was a great game, my cousin also had the fantastically named James Pond aswell.

I had Robocod on my Amiga. 

[FLips]

Fond memories of James Pond, though I always preferred James Pond 3. I remember renting Aquatic Games and not having a clue how any of it worked.

[The Gaffer]

The PS2 DVD talk has reminded me of how awful it was trying to hear the dialogue in any movie over the noise of the original unit's fan. I mean it was my first DVD player too, granted, but it was a right awful one. 

Still, falling out of bed on Saturday and picking from your small but growing stack of discs to have on in the background reminds me of an achingly simpler time. 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

This is going to be a long one from me as I am old and relentlessly into gaming.

First system I ever had was a NES. I literally do not remember a time in life before I had this so I cant place when I got it, who I got it from etc. although it would have been roughly '89 / 90. I took this thing everywhere and have a very vivid memory of being baffled and slightly angry that my Nannie didnt immediately know how to play Super Mario Bros. when I gave her a go. She just kept running into that first goomba in world 1-1. Obviously loved all the main ones like Mario, Duck Hunt etc. but my fondest memories are of Digger T Rock. Bayou Billy and Gumshoe. I suppose back then you just played the shit out of whatever games you had and those were the ones I happened to own.

Next up was the almighty Game Boy. At the time, my dad used to go to work in Florida for a couple of months most summers. I think he brought the original brick Game Boy back for my brother and I and a good assortment of games - Mario Land, Tetris, Kirby etc. This was obviously far easier for me to take to whoever was looking after me at the times house so it was probably my most used system for quite a while. Very fond memories of just playing Links Awakening all day every day all summer and finally beating it. A beautiful game. I would also rate Mario Land 3 / Wario Land as one of my favourite games ever made.

We got a Mega Drive at some point in the early 90s and I am fairly sure that would have been a Christmas Present. I cant imagine my parents would be forking out for one of those even for a birthday. This coincided with me being able to rent games from our local Global Video. I can still remember the membership number as I was in there weekly for years (it was 09). Obviously being a young child in the early 90s a lot of the time was spent playing Sonic but I was also really into comics at the time so I spent an incredible amount of time playing Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, Captain America and the Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, shite Batman movie tie-ins etc etc etc.

I have a very clear memory of going into one of the big co-op's back when they used to sell games, toys etc. I had birthday money and was dead set on buying Rocket Knight Adventures. They didnt have it in stock that day so rather than waiting, I took a punt on a game I had never even heard of - Gunstar Heroes. Turned out to be one of the best gaming purchases of my life. Incredible game and for me still the best co-op run and gun game ever. 

We ended up having a SNES as well as our older cousin handed his down to us. There really isnt much you can say about this that hasnt already been said but what a fucking machine. To this day one of the best game libraries on any console. A lot of the very best games (Super Metroid, Castlevania IV, Chrono Trigger) I didn't get into until much later. My fondest SNES memories from the actual time are playing Super Star Wars, Super Empire Strikes Back and Super Return of the Jedi with my older brother. We were full blown Star Wars obsessed little nerd weirdo's by then and those games just brought us so much joy.

I didnt actually own this next console but I think its worth mentioning anyway as it had such a massive impact on me and left me with one of my clearest memories. I had older cousins who were really into gaming. I was visiting their house and went into their room and they were sitting playing something I had never even seen / heard of before. It was an Atari Jaguar. Importantly, they were playing the port of DOOM! I had never seen anything like it at the time.

Next one is a bizarre but true left field choice. I went on holiday to Florida in October 1996 and spent all my money on the Virtual Boy. Realistically a totally impractical piece of shit however at least the Wario game was really, really good even if it has probably done irreparable damage to my eyes and neck. 

Next up for me was the Nintendo 64. Its difficult for me to put into words just how badly I wanted an N64. I used to get my mum to buy me video game magazines from the supermarket at the time and I vividly remember seeing a very early preview of Mario 64. I simply could not believe that this existed but knew I had to have it. I remember just sitting in my back garden in the summer staring at the images thinking "how can I get this? what can I do to get money to get this?"

Fast forward to Christmas 1997 and I finally got one bundled with Goldeneye 007 and Star Wars Shadows of the Empire. Two of my cousins got 64's around the same time so this kicked off years of pure joy playing Goldeneye, Mario Kart, WCW Revenge, WrestleMania 2000, No Mercy, Diddy Kong racing. Impossible to mention that system without saying what absolute masterpieces Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time are. 

The following year, we got a PC in the house for the first time. I never owned a Playstation so when I found out I could get Resident Evil 1 and 2 on the PC it blew my mind. Another very vivid childhood memory is walking into Beatties (remember those?) and they had a Lucasarts collection in a bargain bin. It must have been insanely cheap because my parents got it for me with no hesitation and it wasnt my birthday, christmas or anything like that. All in one collection we had all the Monkey Islands, Full Throttle, X Wing and, one of the greatest games ever made, Tie Fighter. My brother and I absolutely lost ourselves in Tie Fighter for months.

I lucked out a second time in a similar way to the Gunstar Heroes purchase mentioned above. I went into a shop in Glasgow with birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and I was dead set on buying Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. The guy behind the desk was like "do not get that, get this, just trust me, please buy this game" For some reason, I listened. That game was Half Life. From only just seeing things like Doom and Dark Forces to playing Half Life only a couple of years later was like a quantum leap. Unbelievable stuff.

I'll stop there but will probably chime in again later with PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, GBA, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, Switch, PS4 etc. 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Ironic Indie Lad

[FLips]

I completely forgot about this! Somewhere in the MegaDrive era, maybe 1994-1997ish we had a TV Boy which was an Atari Clone you tuned into your TV and it had a load of knockoff, legally differently named Atari 2600 games on it.

I remember playing Pitfall a lot, and a game I think was called Three Pigs or something which looks to be a clone of Oink! 

At that age I’d play anything so generally had a decent time with it even though I could tell back then it wasn’t nearly as good as my NES or Megadrive.

Edit: The full list of games and their fake counterparts are here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Boy

It looks like I misremember it as Three Pigs, it was actually Wolf!

Edited January 10, 2023 by FelatioLips

[Tamura]

I remember playing on my friends' computers back in the day, they had VIC-20/Commodore 64 or ZX81/Spectrums. I got horrendously stuck playing Ship of Doom as to how what do with the sonic screwdriver (the difficulty of finding the right verb and sentence structure will resonate with anyone who ever played many text adventures). It saddens me to know the whole game can be done in under 8 minutes according to a walkthrough at what seems to be a regular speed.

Dragon 32
I badgered my dad to get a computer for the family. Since he was a university lecturer, he wouldn't get a computer like a Spectrum since he thought it was more of a games console (he was probably right about that to be fair), so with one eye on an educational tool he bought a Dragon 32 instead. Quite why he didn't get a BBC Micro that plenty of schools used I'll never understand, I really wanted to play Elite (although the one time I tried playing it on someone else's computer I couldn't even figure out the initial docking part, so never got started). But the Dragon 32 did get some of the decent games like Chuckie Egg and Manic Miner. I did learn how to program in BASIC though, which eventually led to me getting a job as a multimedia computer programmer in 1993, so it probably worked out better than if my dad had bought a Spectrum.

PC (386)
Somewhat of an upgrade from the 32K Dragon, although I had to cope with the horrors of the 640k memory and needing boot disks. Insane to think how much tinkering had to be done just so you could play a game with things like the sound on and a working joystick. I think the first game I bought was Phantasie 3, a RPG I'd played on my friends Amiga but never got too far on as he thought it was boring watching me play an RPG (very much correct on that score)
 

I also loved The Secret of Monkey Island, but I think the game that had the biggest effect on me was Civilization, which kick-started an ongoing obsession with Sid Meier games. Strangely though I never played Railroad Tycoon, although I was never into train sets either. Sending a some carriages round, then bringing them back again, then putting then in a siding? What's all that about? Give me Scalextric over a train set any day of the week. Still have a desktop PC to this day.

Playstation 1 and 2
I bypassed the early Sega and Nintendo consoles, and despite work attempting to port some of our software onto the Amiga CD32 never bothered with that either, despite their cheeky advertising campaign.



But there was a lot of buzz around the Playstation launch so I took a punt. Things had come a long way since the eight minute playthrough on Ship of Doom on the Spectrum, the playing time on Final Fantasy 7 was ridiculous. The quick playthrough took long enough, but the repeat play to find Yuffie and go through the whole chocobo breeding and races in order to get to the difficult locations for things like the Knights of the Round summon materia and killing Ruby Weapon and Emerald Weapon. I was a bit slow off the mark getting a PS2 (around 2011 I think!), I only bought a second hand console so I could play Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (as Baldur's Gate 2 on the PC is my favourite game ever), only to be a bit disappointed that it was more of an action RPG (I really should check these things before buying).

Maybe one day I'll get a Playstation 3/4/5, but I'm happy enough playing strategy games from 10+ years ago. When you start your gaming with grapihcs like Pettigrew's Diary, there's never much of an urge to spend lots of money just to get the newest console that has slightly better graphics than your perfectly fine current console.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Tamura

[westlondonmist]

Atari STE-Not a console but we had it to play games on. It was really my brothers' I can't remember much but there was Viz the game, Robocod, Rock star ate my hamster and Utopia. I'd say Ocean and Codemasters ruled it. 

SNES-  Again was my brothers'. We had a system where you could pirate the games onto a floppy disk so we had a shit ton of games. Great console but I was young and shit at it. 

Game boy-opened a kids account and got a game boy for £5. Yay me, my first console. 

Lynx-I actually had this years later finding in a pawn shop. 

Virtual Boy- was on holiday in Florida and it was like $20 and games $5. I'd never even heard of it but thought fuck it why not. Worth the money although awkward to play. 

PS1- Saved and bought it, then had it chipped and had plenty of games. The polygons seemed amazing at the time. 

N64- bought second hand pretty much to play the superior Wrestling games. I didn’t have much on it. 

Dreamcast - git it day if release, it was great. Crazi Taxi, Shenmue, Chu Chu Rocket, Jet Set Radio and some underrated Sonic games get it a thumbs up from me. 

Gamecube- my brother talked me into going 50/50 with him on it. I didn’t really want it as I was at a point where games weren't important for me. I was 17 and within 2 years I went to uni where I didn't really have the money for games as I spent it all on booze. 

DS- I loved the Professor Leyton games. 

Wii- Really got me back interested in gaming. It offered something different and I had fun with the system. 

Wii U- Wasn't a big enough improvement over Wii but did have some good games. 

Switch- day 1 buyer and was playing more than ever. I think the handheld aspect helped. Love the console to be honest. 

Evercade (handheld & VS). Played loads of games I hadn't even heard of, played some oldies I'd played years ago and even played some games frkm the 70s and enjoyed it. Has loads of consoles such from 2600 and Intellivision to PS1!/GBA and arcade games from 72 to mid 90s.