Hi all. Thanks for stopping by. I've been playing games all my life. As a shy kid games were my friends. The one thing I was good at. A safe place for me to be myself without judgement and for that I will always love them. This list is quite long but believe me it could have been longer. But, anyway here are some of my fav's growing up....
First up is Renegade (check out that box art!!) for the Spectrum +2 (128k version). Its your basic beat-um-up/brawler and can be completed in under 10mins. But, I loved it. The music is amazing, even now. The stages and bosses were fantastic. It made a skinny, wimp of a boy feel like a badass!! Flying kicking a guy off a motorbike as he tries to run you down was the best!! The sequel Target Renegade was also awesome. A bigger game but this time was 2 players!!
My next computer was the Commodore Amiga 500. Here is were I discovered Frontier Elite 2. A space trading/combat game that sunk it's teeth in deep. Remember playing it for 12 hours straight once. Family had their concerns.
Around this time I went on holiday. Whilst browsing an arcade I noticed the was one cabinet louder than all others. I flowed the sound to find a group of people crowded around one machine. Street Fighter II. It blew me away. The cast of characters, sound, music, the crazy special moves and the inputs needed to execute them. It was all new and it was all incredible. It became the thing of legend, the game you talked about with friends at school. It left an impression on me that lasts till this day.
Some of my friends had got the SNES by this time and this was where I discover the holy trinity of Super Mario World, Link to the Past and Super Mario Kart. The first is the greatest platformer of all time (no joke), the second is the greatest Zelda and the third the greatest Mario kart in my opinion. Now I should say I never played Ocarina of Time or Mario 64 if any of you are screaming at your screens right now.
Next up for me was the Sega Saturn. A flawed console in many ways with Sega not anticipating the advent of 3D. That said though it had some amazing exclusive games. Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop 1/2, Sega Rally, Manx TT, Last Bronx. My favorite though was Guardian Heroes. This was an Anime brawler with a branching path story. You leveled up character as you played upgrading various attributes. Like most brawlers you just move to the left defeating everyone you see. The difference here was there were three planes you could jump in or out of. The other difference was the amount and size of the enemies on screen at the same time. It was insane!!
Now, as we all know during this time Sony was killing it with the PlayStation. But I was happy with my Saturn until, yep you've guessed it, Final Fantasy VII. A game that needs no introduction. I saw the advert on TV and knew I had to play it. Wow, what an experience!! I had played RPG's in the past but not like this. The amazing graphics, battle system, characters, secrets to find and unlock. I think I sunk more than 70 hours into that game and loved every minute of it. I'll be honest though, the story baffled me. After that came the amazing Metal Gear Solid. A game that felt like a film. The voice acting unlike anything i'd ever heard. Not patronizing and shitty. It changed games forever. I must of completed it 3/4 times. The boss fights were unforgettable, the story amazing. The battles with Sniper Wolf and Psycho Mantis still to this day make me smile.
By this time I was no longer a kid but these are games that have had an effect on me. There are others released on later platforms that have continued to do the same but that it for another time.