2016:
What’s the first video game you ever played? I’m not entirely sure. I recall watching my brothers play games on their Sega Megadrive. They played Street Fighter 2, and Bare Knuckle, and Fifa 95, and some Formula 1 racing games. I also remember Midnight Resistance, a Contra clone with really good music.
With Street Fighter 2, I played all the common characters – Ryu, Ken, Guile, Bison, Dee Jay, Vega, Chun Li, Dhalsim, Blanka, E. Honda. My eldest brother would play sometimes. He particularly liked Fire Shark, the vertical-scrolling shoot-em-up. We don’t talk anymore. He has kids now.
I’m remembering now that there was a sort of tank commander type game that I used to play with my neighbour when he came over.
Used to play GTA and Midtown Madness at a cousin’s house. And some boat racing game. At another cousin’s, once we played some road rash type racing game.
I remember, during the school holidays, I’d go to the arcade at Tampines with my friend Gordon. We’d go early, before it opened. We would meet at the McDonald’s at Tampines Interchange. There was a Star Wars Episode 1 themed racing game by the entrance, which I never played because I had never gotten into star wars as a kid. I did play Crazy Taxi. There was a 3D Bare Knuckle-type game, called Dynamite Cop. I spent many dollars playing that one. I was always impressed by the people who were really good at Time Crisis, or DDR.
DOS – Blackjack. Ski Free. Chip’s challenge. Prince of Persia 2. Tomb Raider 2. It’s funny how there were all these games that I enjoyed despite getting stuck. Fifa 98 and 2000. Final Fight 3. Metal Slug series – Metal Slug 1, 2, X. Friends would come over to my place to play. I’m still pretty good at those.
Counterstrike and Dota were too really popular games that I played with friends in order to socialize, but I never particularly got good at them. I played Half-Life up to some point and got stuck and gave up. I played a demo of Opposing Force, and was always curious to try the actual game. I played Simcity 2000 (not sure how it ended up on my computer) and went on to excitedly ask my mother to buy me Simcity 3000 for my birthday.
Left4Dead led to hours of fun with friends when it came out. We also played some funny “pirate ship” mod of Warcraft 3.
I never got into Halo or Call of Duty. I liked Duke Nukem 3D – it had so much personality. And Quake 2, which had a pretty neat style. I liked the idea of Hexen (Heretic?) but I sucked at it.
- Games
- Prince of Persia. This was one of the first games I ever played. I read up quite a bit about it – Jordan Mechner, his thoughts about story, Karateka, how he drew the character animation by filming everything in real life and then drawing it frame by frame.
- Wolfenstein 3D – I still remember the protagonist’s square face, how it would get beaten up as he lost life, and how he’d grin when he gets the biggest gun. I remember all the Nazi bling bling you can pick up. [1]
- Duke Nukem 3D – This game was so cool – though the later stages seemed hard AF to navigate.
- Bare Knuckle – I played 1 and 3.
- Metal Slug.
- Red Alert – the first RTS game I ever played. I thought the music was really great. I thought the Tesla coils were really cool. My strategy was to defend the base with several Tesla coils, some troops and heavy tanks, just keep advancing up the tech tree and then build 8 Airfields and MIGs – which can then take out just about any building when you send them all together at once. Very fragile, but I always enjoyed the building up part more than the micro-managing combat part.
- Digimon Cards – I collected these when I was between 7 and 10 years old. I was late to the game – I didn’t really bother until I found a rare-ish card on the road somewhere. After that I started buying and trading them with friends (I think). I’d buy them from the mamak shop next to school, where you could buy a packet of 3 cards for $1.50.
- Mortal Kombat 3 – this was the first Mortal Kombat game I played. It was pretty difficult. I was young and afraid of all the fatalities. I remember the final bosses were really cheap and hard to beat. I started doing better after learning some of the combos.
- Terranigma
- Final Fantasy and other playstation fun
- Fighting games- GGX2, Street Fighter 3S- arcades, w/ JS, sticking to 1 character
- Tomb Raider 2
- Zelda
- Zork
- Final Fantasy 6
- Final Fantasy 7
- Dragon Age – I have a funny story about this one, how I played the nicest possible role at first, but then had the game hang on me in a way that I couldn’t get out of, so had to start a new game and then dicked around through the start – only to have it influence the end result.
- Mass Effect 2 – funny story about this one too.
- inFamous
- Uncharted 2
- Starcraft
- Simcity 2k, 3k
- Half Life
- Grand Theft Auto
- Heroes 3
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Feels:
[–]Blackzach9 2445 points
VIDEO GAMES: Best games I’ve ever played are:
- Terranigma- Incredibly epic bildungsroman (journey of a hero) that gets you to grapple with a lot of big questions.
- Final Fantasy VI. Amazing characters. Depressing to contrast this with FF13.
- Final Fantasy VII. The one and only.
- Mass Effect Series.
- Dragon Age: Origins.
- GAMIFICATION: http://gamification.org/wiki/Gaming_can_make_a_better_world
- Habit RPG
- Jane McGonigal
- SCVNGR
- Games People Play
- Finite and Infinite Games
- Game Theory
✱
2012:
SC3K: I remember getting Simcity 3000 for my birthday. I was terrible at it as a child- I’d spend hours terraforming the map into an unrealistic, geometrically perfect fakery with no trees and a perfectly straight river- and then build roads extensively around the edges of the map. I’d inevitably run into bankruptcy, the cost of maintaining the roads would kill me. And then I’d start over, doing the same thing.
I used to play Simcity 2000 on our old Windows 3.1 computer. It came with the building editor, and I’d spend hours assembling a perfect (and on hindsight, terribly boring) city, with perfect orderly rows of identical buildings. (I did the same thing in Fifa 98 with all the player models. I gave every player my favourite face and hair, keeping only the skin and hair colour unchanged.)
Fifa 98: I remember getting Singapore to win the World Cup. It was possible to turn off fouls so you could shove the goalkeeper while he had the ball, and then score with it. But I also managed to play quite well without the fouls. The indoor court was quite fun, too. Blur’s Song 2 remains anthemic. I remember playing Fifa 2000 too, on amateur mode it’s possible to simply dash forward all the way after kickoff and lob the ball over the keeper’s head when you’re right in front of him.
Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. When I was younger, I’d only ever make it to the graveyard stage- one of the bosses was impossible to defeat without some degree of skill. I’d eventually complete the game. The 4th level with the caves was a total pain. I think I remember using pen and paper to try and figure out where I’d been and where I ought to go.
Afterburner was fun. I loved being able to do the 360 rotation, it felt great to take the enemy planes down, and the mothership that refueled you was so huge and badass.
Golden Axe 2 was a good memory. I remember it only worked on the old controller with 3 buttons- for some reason it didn’t work on the 6 button one. I tried Golden Axe 3 on an emulator much later, and somehow it didn’t seem as beautiful as GA2. Possibly because I was too young to notice very much about the graphics.
Bare Knuckle 3 (aka Streets of Rage) was an old favourite. To this day I could probably do a good run on the hardest difficulty. Axel was always my favourite character, because of the specials with the sword and bat. I remember mimicking his moves when I was in Kindergarten. There’s a mission where you have to rescue a political figure- and for some reason me and my brother used to keep letting him die, because we liked the alternative ending better. I got really, really good at that game. I still remember the nuances of all the enemy characters, and most of the secrets. The music and enemy noises are still very fresh in my mind.
I played BK/SOR 1 too, and I enjoyed it, even if the pace is a little slower.
I remember playing Red Alert at my friend Keith’s place in Primary School- we’d go there before school started on days with the afternoon session, and on saturdays with supplementary classes. I’d tell my parents that the classes were earlier than they actually were, so that we could go and play. I remember that I really liked Tesla Coils. I got pretty far in the Allied missions- which was the only CD I had- but I don’t remember completing the entire game. Enemy subs were annoying. There’s a pretty fun spy mission. Tanya was a badass, but sometimes she’d die accidentally in stupid ways. Mission failed. The music was fantastic, and so were the cutscenes.
I think we also played Metal Slug at Keith’s place. We used to abuse the extra credits- when faced off against the second boss in Metal Slug 2 or X, we’d just throw all our bombs and die so that we’d get more bombs to use. I remember buying it myself at a pasar malam, and bringing friends home from Primary School to play it after we finished our group work. I remember ZW and JS used to play it with me.
I first encountered Heroes Of Might and Magic 3 at Ericko’s house, at his birthday party. He was from OEPS, too. We tried to play a game with many, many players- but it took really long and we never really got anywhere. But I was hooked with the interface and atmosphere, and I remember playing it at JS’s house, and then playing through the entire Single Player campaign years later- I think after my ‘A’ Levels.
Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers was another fun one. I only ever used Ryu, Ken, Guile, Vega and I think Sagat. I remember my brother and I trying to get every single one of the endings for every single character. I think we did manage. I remmeber Ken’s shoulder being really broad in his outro. It was hard if not impossible to execute Zangief’s and T-Hawk’s 360 moves on a joypad.
Sonic 3. I could still do a quick playthrough of the first two Acts if I played it today. Oddly, the second act is clearer in my mind- probably because I was stuck there for quite a while. But it was the underwater stage- Act 3- that was the real killer. Rarely, if ever, made it past that. I can’t remember much about the casino stage (except that Robotnik removes pieces of the floor at the end), and I totally can’t recall what comes afterwards. My memory is confused by my emulator experiences of playing Sonic & Knuckles.
OTHER GAMES-
Prince of Persia,
Wolf 3D,
Duke Nukem,
Bare Knuckle,
Metal Slug,
Red Alert,
Digimon Cards
Mortal Kombat 3
Terranigma
Final Fantasy and other playstation fun
Fighting games- GGX2, Street Fighter 3S- arcades, w/ JS, sticking to 1 character
Tomb Raider 2
Zelda
Zork