Post a random classic gaming memory. Tell us a story!

[Manga4life]

I figured I would start a thread where people can post daily about memories stored away in their minds about classic moments you've had with games and/or about gaming in general. Spill the beans and tell us all a story about your favorite moments in gaming history whether it was beating a certain game, hunting for a certain game, playing with friends, Christmas day hauls, or anything that you can tell us that has to do with your most treasured and classic moments playing and enjoying video games.

Who would like to go first?

[Genesaturn]

I went to a Catholic school when I was younger and since it was down the road...got to walk home from lunch. I would always bust out some games before going back. One specific memory , was playing Three Dirty Dwarves on Sega Saturn and in one cut scene there was a swear word and my mom was watching me play. At the time I was probably in 7th grade maybe? and I never heard a swear word in video game...the look on my moms face was priceless followed by.."WHAT THE HECK KIND OF GAME IS THIS!?" Every time I play TDD I always think of that moment.

[hellraiser]

I remember in junior high when street fighter 2 first hit consoles. Lookin back it's funny how big street fighter 2 really was. I mean it was the game everyone talked about, played and wanted. Being good or bad at that game effected your street cred!!! Lol!

A buddy of mine was lucky enough to get a copy on snes before me. I came over and he already had a bunch of game genie codes. Air fire balls, fast and slow sonic booms, even color changes! I was blown away! That was one of the greatest Saturday's of my youth. To this day I'm a really big fan of fighting games and capcom although I later jumped to the M.K. side!

[Manga4life]

This story kind of goes hand in hand with the Mortal Kombat thread I posted the other day.....

I remember sometime in mid 1994 I was spending the night at my friends house despite it being a school night and I brought Mortal Kombat over so we could play it, it was supposed to blizzard the night before so we were like 80% sure we'd have no school the next day. We stayed up until like 2:30am playing the game and beating it with multiple characters as well as playing against eachother one on one, we finally decided to go to bed because much to our dismay we looked outside around 2:15am to see not a flake of snow on the ground so we figured we'd now be going to school in the morning. When we woke up and looked outside we saw that the blizzard had in fact came and we turned on the TV to see that school was indeed cancelled and we could hang out all day. We decided to earn some money and shovel driveways for cash and we made about $15 each and went down the street to a bowling alley and spent every red cent playing the arcade games they had. They had MK, MK2, NBA Run n' Gun, a 2 player shooting game, one of the Splatterhouse games, and one or two more, it was an awesome time and one I'll never forget for as long as I live.

[Neb6]

Maybe not so much stories, but perhaps some highlights:

- 1979 - My older brother took me on a tour of the arcades in the downtown core of the city I grew up in. At the time, it was a pretty glossy place, filled with book stores, music stores, movie theaters, indoor gardens, etc.... Anyway, the second I saw Tail Gunner on the second floor of the last arcade on our tour that day, I was HOOKED! That was the beginning of an obsession.

- 1981 - Walked past Space Fury and heard it speak. It wasn't the first time I had heard a game talk but it was easily the best quality synthesized speech I had ever heard (and to this day, along with Star Trek : The Strategic Operations Simulator).

- 1982 - saw Gravitar, Space Duel, Mr. Do, and TRON for the first time. Was blown away. Was so intimidated by the TRON arcade machine that I watched other players play it for over 6 months before giving it a try. Eventually racked up 450,000 points.

- 1983 - Laid eyes on Major Havoc. Was happy to see another vector game in a world of raster titles. Was pleasantly surprised by what would turn out to be the most ambitious vector game ever made.

I think the main thing was the awe-inspiring look and sound of the early arcades (music, lights, and dark labyrinths lit by the coin-op screens -- packed with neon and chrome). People everywhere and over thirty completely different types of gameplay. Along with that was a huge array of interfaces. It seemed like everyone was making totally insane custom cabs.

It wasn't until 1985 that I was to see an arcade cabinet that stole the show. And that was the deluxe hydraulic Space Harrier cabinet. I dropped a TON of coins into that one.

After that, the arcades started to suck exponentially. But they certainly did have their day, and it was great.

[TheRetroVideoGameAddict]

A fond memory for me would be going on a vacation with some friends and my dad back in 1993 and pouring loads of coins into Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II at a local arcade/resteraunt. We must have blown at least $100 each on those two games and my dad got mad because we ignored going out on the boats and hiking and all that jazz in favor of playing at the arcade, but man o' man was it a blast and when I finally owned both games for my SNES I barely ever left the house. But still, I'll always remember my times spent inside of that arcade while we played them in arcade format for all those hours during that week, memories like that you can't buy.

[Lictalon]

For some reason, this memory comes to me:

I think it was 1989. A group of friends and I went on vacation with one of the friend's families. One of them had just bought WWF WrestleMania for the NES, and to us at that time, that was a big thing. The night we got there, we started playing against each other.

During one of the fights, I was playing the Honky-Tonk Man against (I think) Andre the Giant. Because of Andre's moves I kept backing away from him.

My opponent yelled, "Stop running and fight like a man!"

One of my friends yelled back, "He doesn't fight like a man, he fights like a Honky!"

[BricatSegaFan]

One of my fondest memories was my time I spent at the arcades playing the Neogeo MVS. I was soo good at all the king of Fighters and fatal fury games.

I remember spending a lot my money my dad gave me for the mall on KOF.

Still have to say KOF 96 and 98 are my faves.

[The 1 2 P]

My story involves the now non-existant arcades over here. Back in the late 90's I was in an arcade playing Mortal Kombat 4. It was one of the first times I played it and I had gotten all the way to the final bose. For some reason all of these people had appeared out of nowhere and were watching me play. I was using Mileena and on the final boss fight I used every single special move she had and still lost. That was amusing to me as all of these random strangers saw me get my butt kicked by the CPU.

But even more amusing was when I went back to that arcade two days later and again got to the final boss. This time, instead of using any of my special moves all I did was use the low kick sweep over and over for one round and the high kick round house over and over for the second round. And that beat the boss, just button mashing the same move over and over again. Meaning that the programmers made the boss immune to the majority of your special moves but vulnerable to the more common moves, which is cheap but still amusing. If only I had figured that out two days earlier.

[Niku-Sama]

a memory I have is at KB toy store there was always these HUGE bins neatly organized with NES games they were trying to clear out because SNES had been out a while and I think playstation had just came out, any way around that time relate other systems to the same era in your own head.

any way I remember finding some of my rarest games in there for super cheap. i'm talking about sub $5 cheap, the one that sticks out most in my mind was Mega Man 6. if you can imagine for a minute now. Finding Mega Man in a close out bin brand new for $5. I had already started collecting by then, It started with the megaman series and went from there.

Sadly though I had megaman 1-4 by this time and so I had a gap for a long time. it wasn't until about 4 years ago I was able to find a decent copy of megaman 5

Needless to say I still have the box and everything for Megaman 6 how ever its been through a few moves and I broke the box down to keep it from getting any more damaged than it already was, infact all my game boxes I broke down flat so I would still have them atleast

[treismac]

My first Summer break from college I worked as a pizza chef at a pizza joint, The Loop, which was walking distance from a Wal-Mart that had Street Fighter Alpha. Occasionally my manager would give me some cash to grab cigarettes when the restaurant was dead. Well, as you might imagine, it was damn near impossible not to pop two quarters into the arcade machine when I walked past it. The situation always delighted me on account of I always enjoyed getting to leave my places of work for a small mission, plus I was able to play one of my favorite arcade games while I was out and about. All these years later it still makes me smile to think back on it. All three parties are now gone: The Loop is a Moe's Southwest Grill, The Wal-Mart is a World Market, and only the Lord knows the fate of the arcade cabinet that I use to love feeding quarters both in and out of work.

[StealthLurker]

Playing Samurai Showdown 1 in the arcade with one hand (my right arm was broken in a cast). The game had recently come out and I loved it. Didn't let a broken arm stop me from playing. Learned to hold the stick and hit buttons with one hand. One exceptional memory was being able to beat a stream of decent people. One of them was I guy I recognized from school that I didn't really like too much. After I beat him in front of his friends for about 2 credits... I heard him mumble to his friends, "man I feel stupid losing to the guy with one arm!"

Another one was getting Super Mario Bros 3 a year before it came out for the NES... then showing it/playing it with neighborhood friends. It completely blew their minds. We thought we were the luckiest kids in the world at the time.

.

[dgdgagdae]

Celerystalker, you have some great stories. Thanks for sharing.

[celerystalker]

That was very kind of you to say. Thank you very much.