Favourite Childhood Gaming Memories

[Harry]

1. At the time of Dreamcast launch and getting a Dreamcast Christmas day, everyone opened their presents but no Dreamcast for me, after a while I was trying to hide my disappointment and be humble and then I think my mum pointed to a trail of polystyrene bits leading up the stairs, to which I first found a DC controller, games and then the console right at the top! Awesome times. I got Soul Calibur and Sega Rally 2 and also another controller and VMU. Looking back I'm glad I told my mum about that simply games ad I saw in DC-UK magazine, they were selling them well cheap!

2. At the time of Playstation launch and getting a memory card case of a PS1 memory card with Sony stickers before Christmas from my dad, thinking back; this was probably his way of saying "shutup about it!", my mum wanted to get me a Megadrive!

3. My brother bought a PS2 at launch, my mate was getting his a lot later but got GTA 3 as soon as it came out so he brought it round mine to play early and I'll always remember seeing it for the first time and it was amazing, the graphics, scope and level of detail was amazing - and to think now you can play it on the iPhone piece of 'pizzle.

4. Went with my mum to see my grandma's once, we took a late train home and on the way I was telling her about Resident Evil Zero which had just come out. I somehow convinced her to buy it for me from Toys R Us which was still open and on the way back home. What made it 10x better was that I got a 256mb memory card free with it! Good times.

5. Bit of a "yarr'" one this, but it was when my dad and brother went to the weekly boot sale one morning and phoned me up to tell me about a boot disc and some games they bought for me to use with my Dreamcast. I was dead chuffed, first time I ever played F355 Challenge, even if it was the JAP version!

[Dogg Thang]

My biggest childhood moments are probably...

1. Making some progress in SeaDragon on the Apple IIe. A bugger of a game and I never finished it but I did eventually get good at it. Enough to make some progress and that was a big deal.

2. Playing Soft Porn Adventure on the same Apple IIe and thinking I was so naughty. Such a thrill. It even knew dirty words.

3. Getting my very own Megadrive with SF2. Even with prior game experience, that was an absolute highlight. A beautiful moment.

4. Being in eastern europe with my dad and him getting me a dodgy NES clone and a massive rake of bootleg NES carts including all sorts of oddities, like Street Fighter V and stuff like that. There was a surprisingly good Power Rangers game among them.

[J0e Musashi]

Street Fighter II in it's entirety. For me it is the world's greatest game of all times. I can take you to the very spot where the cabinet was in the arcade in Southend when I first played it in 1991.

There are others including my Mom and I learning to 1-life Daimaikaimura in a week, and the both of us playing through Zelda 3. Being the 21st member of CEX, having Shekana on the same street that I lived on. There's loads, but nothing will ever beat SF2 for me.

[Brad]

Old person alert:

Playing any old crap on my zx80
Getting my first Vic 20. Had the best version of jetpac.
Defender on my cousin's atari
Space invaders, pacman, Kung fu master, battlezone, star wars, 720 degrees and donkey Kong in my local arcade.
Getting my game listing in a sinclair magazine.

Elite on my neighbour's electron and chuckie egg.

Animal, street fighter and console gaming didn't arrive til I was at college / uni.

[Dogg Thang]

Ah the zx80 was a wonderful thing back in the day. Didn't have one myself but a friend did and I loved playing it.

[nakamura]

Getting a C64 with 300 games for Christmas. It was used and a bread bin but boy was it amazing. Took weeks to play all the games.

[briareos_kerensky]

Finishing Probotector on the NES. No Konami code, never knew its existance at that age.

Clearing for the first time to 100cc in Super Mario Kart.

These two on top of my mind. What I remember the most, however, cannot be possibly be considered "childhood", though Harry mentions DC and PS2.

[DJ Mike]

Walking into a Game shop for the first time and seeing wall unit after wall unit stacked high with Amiga games, and even more besides - even though I still only had a Spectrum at the time, I was getting very enthused about the Amiga. Sadly by the time I got one (1994) the choice in the shops was diminishing.

Finishing my first game properly without cheating - Mr. Nutz on the Amiga of all things.

Jumping from floppy discs to CD-ROM on the Amiga and finding out just how many floppy disks' worth of content you could cram on one CD!

Finally seeing Sonic 2 afters years of having only played the first one at a friend's house (and then Sonic 3 shortly thereafter) - and being rather jealous that nothing on my Spectrum or Amiga ever ran so smooth and fast.

Discovering Sim City 2000 and Transport Tycoon Deluxe in the 90s which to this day can still lose me for hours and hours.

[davesol]

Playing Ikari Warriors and Speedball 2 on my mates Atari ST

Having Snapper competitions (BBC) with my brother, sister and dad on a Saturday night - my dad always won, I was the best at Chuckie Egg though :-)

A few years later playing ISS Pro Evo on the PS1 against my dad. He was rubbish so me and my brother always let choose his own team (generally Brazil), plus he could choose our team (can't remember who the worst teams were), plus he got a 5-0 head-start. He still usually lost but I do remember the excitement on the odd occasion when he managed to score a goal :-)

[JammyD]

Finding out I could go on top of the level in Super Mario Bros. 3.

Buying NES games based purely on how cool the box looked. Knowing that the game would have to do me for the next year.

Beating Streets of Rage on co-op.

Watching the scenery in Arcade Metal Slug get obliterated and just being in pure awe at the level of destruction.

Seeing Virtua Fighter on the Saturn. Realising 3D arcade graphics in the home was finally a thing. Then: playing Ridge Racer on my PlayStation and being blown away by the speed of it all.

My first Quake LAN deathmatch (never played online). 16 players. Was instantly addicted.

[Uli]

Atari ruled my childhood world. some highlight is have very fond memories of:

Combat (Atari VCS)
Pitfall (Atari VCS)
River Raid (Atari VCS)
M.U.L.E. (Atari 600XL)
Seven Cities of Gold (Atari 600XL)
Rescue on Fractalus (Atari 600XL)
Miner 2049er (Atari 600XL)
Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy (Atari 600XL)
Forbidden Forest (C64)
Barbarian (C64)
Asylum (C64)
and lots of other adventure games i can't remember the names.

R.I.P.!