Retro Gaming

[Hacky McAxe]

You guys are every lucky to have been able to play the games you played.

We were a very poor family living in housing commission. I was only lucky enough to play Alex the kid and Shinobi because my neighbour had it.

My friend and I convinced our parents to chip in and buy us a Sega Master System 2 which came with Alex Kidd installed. But we couldn't afford games so that was basically all we played. My family wasn't poor, they just couldn't justify spending money on my gaming habit.

I played most games at friend's houses. But I mainly played PC games as Dad bought a PC for work. When he wasn't home I would play games on that which was a mix of freeware games, demos, and games that friends loaned me. One of my best memories is when we got the demo for Moto Racer. It was just one level, so a friend and I kept playing it over and over again to see who could get the best time. We spent months just fighting to get a few more milliseconds off the time. Tried every trick to get better to the point that we figured out we played best while listening to My Sharona because it synced up so well with the track, so that had to be played every run.

Eventually I convinced a friend to loan me their NES that they never played and I ended up keeping it for nearly 2 years. Then every time we went to the video store to hire movies to watch, I'd convince my parents to let me hire a video game.

Great times. I honestly think I lose a lot of the enjoyment of video games now that I can afford to buy whatever I want. I have a Switch, and Xbox Series X, a PS5, and a very decent PC. But when I get time to sit down to game I end up looking through the thousands of games I have, maybe play 30 minutes of a game, then I just watch TV shows.

Being flooded for choice seems to lose the magic of it. I need to go back to those days where the only think I had to play was Alex Kidd, so I finished it as many times as I could.

 

[Wahesh]

You guys are every lucky to have been able to play the games you played.

We were a very poor family living in housing commission. I was only lucky enough to play Alex the kid and Shinobi because my neighbour had it.

I think a lot of people were like that mate, but it's because we knew so many people that had the same console that we'd borrow games from them and then you could also swap with people at school, brothers friends, video store etc... we had a few ways of trying new games.

 

[Wahesh]

My friend and I convinced our parents to chip in and buy us a Sega Master System 2 which came with Alex Kidd installed. But we couldn't afford games so that was basically all we played. My family wasn't poor, they just couldn't justify spending money on my gaming habit.

I played most games at friend's houses. But I mainly played PC games as Dad bought a PC for work. When he wasn't home I would play games on that which was a mix of freeware games, demos, and games that friends loaned me. One of my best memories is when we got the demo for Moto Racer. It was just one level, so a friend and I kept playing it over and over again to see who could get the best time. We spent months just fighting to get a few more milliseconds off the time. Tried every trick to get better to the point that we figured out we played best while listening to My Sharona because it synced up so well with the track, so that had to be played every run.

Eventually I convinced a friend to loan me their NES that they never played and I ended up keeping it for nearly 2 years. Then every time we went to the video store to hire movies to watch, I'd convince my parents to let me hire a video game.

Great times. I honestly think I lose a lot of the enjoyment of video games now that I can afford to buy whatever I want. I have a Switch, and Xbox Series X, a PS5, and a very decent PC. But when I get time to sit down to game I end up looking through the thousands of games I have, maybe play 30 minutes of a game, then I just watch TV shows.

Being flooded for choice seems to lose the magic of it. I need to go back to those days where the only think I had to play was Alex Kidd, so I finished it as many times as I could.

I had one mate who was pretty lucky. He had a SMS 2 like we did but had plenty of games he could play, and one of his neighbours had all these games he would loan him, and even another mate who had a Mega Drive and they'd swap their entire consoles and games sometimes just to borrow.

Anyway fast forward to 97, he asked his parents for a Nintendo 64 for Christmas. I told him to get a PlayStation but he wanted the N64. He got Killer Instinct Gold with it (awesome game) and 1 or 2 more after that - that's it. Reason being... in 1998 he won a PlayStation at a school raffle. He chipped it, and bang. Found a guy who could give him all these great new games for discount prices. Added to this he would buy PlayStation magazine which would come with a few demos for him to try, added to hiring games from the video store, so he was pretty lucky.

After that he got a PC and sort of stuck to PC gaming from then.

My Dad brought a PC home from work which we used to play games on, plenty of Apogee and Shareware games though, like Scorched Earth, Cyber Dogs, Raptor, Doom, and plenty of others (it didn't have a CD rom). And then in 1997 he brought home another PC which had CDs and then I was able to play so much more games and buy them for PC, Need For Speed, Death Rally, Skunny Kart, ARL 96 lol... so much more.

 

[Hacky McAxe]

I had one mate who was pretty lucky. He had a SMS 2 like we did but had plenty of games he could play, and one of his neighbours had all these games he would loan him, and even another mate who had a Mega Drive and they'd swap their entire consoles and games sometimes just to borrow.

Anyway fast forward to 97, he asked his parents for a Nintendo 64 for Christmas. I told him to get a PlayStation but he wanted the N64. He got Killer Instinct Gold with it (awesome game) and 1 or 2 more after that - that's it. Reason being... in 1998 he won a PlayStation at a school raffle. He chipped it, and bang. Found a guy who could give him all these great new games for discount prices. Added to this he would buy PlayStation magazine which would come with a few demos for him to try, added to hiring games from the video store, so he was pretty lucky.

After that he got a PC and sort of stuck to PC gaming from then.

My Dad brought a PC home from work which we used to play games on, plenty of Apogee and Shareware games though, like Scorched Earth, Cyber Dogs, Raptor, Doom, and plenty of others (it didn't have a CD rom). And then in 1997 he brought home another PC which had CDs and then I was able to play so much more games and buy them for PC, Need For Speed, Death Rally, Skunny Kart, ARL 96 lol... so much more.

I remember when I borrowed a game from a friend that was on 24 floppy disks. He had already finished the game so he lent it to me, but after hours of installing I found out that the last disk he had opened it up and rubbed dirt into it so it wouldn't read.

I ended up taking it apart, fully cleaning it, then spent two weeks recovering the data. I think I played the game for about 2 hours and didn't like it.

 

[Wahesh]

I remember when I borrowed a game from a friend that was on 24 floppy disks. He had already finished the game so he lent it to me, but after hours of installing I found out that the last disk he had opened it up and rubbed dirt into it so it wouldn't read.

I ended up taking it apart, fully cleaning it, then spent two weeks recovering the data. I think I played the game for about 2 hours and didn't like it.

Shit mate, sounds like a mission. Do you remember the game was called?

I remember an neighbour of mine had a game called Zork Nemesis. He only had a 2GB computer - Windows 95 days - and that game came with 5 CDs. Now 3 of them were to install the game and the other 2 cds had other things on them like art work, maybe the OST etc. He was worried that the game wouldn't fit on his computer when he installed it lol. He needed to delete a lot of files and even then he couldn't get it to work.

Compare that to what happens today - 8 DVDs in order to get GTA 5 installed LOL.

 

[Hacky McAxe]

Shit mate, sounds like a mission. Do you remember the game was called?

I remember an neighbour of mine had a game called Zork Nemesis. He only had a 2GB computer - Windows 95 days - and that game came with 5 CDs. Now 3 of them were to install the game and the other 2 cds had other things on them like art work, maybe the OST etc. He was worried that the game wouldn't fit on his computer when he installed it lol. He needed to delete a lot of files and even then he couldn't get it to work.

Compare that to what happens today - 8 DVDs in order to get GTA 5 installed LOL.

Blanking out the name of the game. It was a point and click adventure but not Sierra or anything like that. I think it had some sequels later.

 

[EXPLORER]

Captain comic

 

[likeadoggy]

pong

 

[Wahesh]

pong

Commander Keen 4 had a pong-like mini game in it - Paddle War.

 

[Wahesh]

Blanking out the name of the game. It was a point and click adventure but not Sierra or anything like that. I think it had some sequels later.

I played a series of point and click games - maybe you've heard of it - Art of Murder?

Art of Murder: FBI Confidential - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I played:

FBI Confidential
Hunt for the Puppeteer
Cards of Destiny

I've got the other 2 but couldn't be bothered installing them. Those hidden object games can be a mission.

This was back when I was really getting into Criminal Minds on TV so was into that kind of stuff.

 

[Hacky McAxe]

I played a series of point and click games - maybe you've heard of it - Art of Murder?

Art of Murder: FBI Confidential - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I played:

FBI Confidential
Hunt for the Puppeteer
Cards of Destiny

I've got the other 2 but couldn't be bothered installing them. Those hidden object games can be a mission.

This was back when I was really getting into Criminal Minds on TV so was into that kind of stuff.

Haven't heard of any of those oddly enough.

I was big into the point and clicks back in the 90s. The Sierra ones were my favourites (Space Quest, Heroes Quest, Police Quest, etc), but there were heaps of other good ones like Lucasarts ones (Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones)

I'm going through the old point and clicks. I think the game I'm thinking of was Gabriel Knight but I could be wrong.

There was a decent point and click released a few years back called "Tumbleweed Park". It was pretty much a tribute to X-Files but it was a really good game. They also re-released Day of the Tentacle not long ago. Amazing game.

 

[Blue_boost]

Who remembers Super Nintendo SmashTV.. I used to be sweating playing that game. Pure arcade

 

[Blue_boost]

I found a game boy a few days ago, first gen

 

[Precise]

I know it’s not ‘ full vintage’ by a long shot but just picked up a Wii U as felt they where starting to climb in price recently and will cover all the Wii games to with better hardware into the future.

Got a black CRT IBM monitor the other day but finally, will post a picture of the retro games room soon.

 

[habs]

20 cents used to go a long way back in the day

 

[Wahesh]

Who remembers Super Nintendo SmashTV.. I used to be sweating playing that game. Pure arcade

I remember Smash TV, but not the SNES version. I'm sure I saw it in the arcade a few times - Timezone Campsie back in the day

 

[Wahesh]

I found a game boy a few days ago, first gen

I had a Gameboy Pocket which was given to me as a gift, then later on I got the color one (purple). Batteries on both used to go straight away so I bought the adapter cable.

After that I played them all on no$gbc or whatever the emulator was called lol.

 

[Wahesh]

20 cents used to go a long way back in the day

You're telling me. I remember sometime in 1998 we came across an arcade cabinet that had Street Fighter II on it and it was 20 cents a play. We couldn't believe it lol. This was in some kind of club or RSL in Ballina far north coast.

 

[Hacky McAxe]

I had a Gameboy Pocket which was given to me as a gift, then later on I got the color one (purple). Batteries on both used to go straight away so I bought the adapter cable.

After that I played them all on no$gbc or whatever the emulator was called lol.

View attachment 27333View attachment 27334

I remember about 20 years back when I spent hundreds of dollars building a kick arse computer, then I installed a gameboy emulator and spent the next few weeks just playing Pokemon.

 

[Wahesh]

I remember about 20 years back when I spent hundreds of dollars building a kick arse computer, then I installed a gameboy emulator and spent the next few weeks just playing Pokemon.

Back in the day I had an IBM 486 that ran the gameboy emulators great. I remember all the stores were selling the latest games for $50 then you can download them (less than 300kb) on a floppy, take them home and play them lol.