Captain Wrong
04-04-2003, 02:08 AM
Those of you who actually read my posts might assume I'm one of those guys who was a hardcore gamer back in the days of the Genesis and TG-16. This, of course, being the salad days for the shmup and the time when 2d action was king. Well, you will probably be suprized to learn that even though I spent a lot of time in the arcade (usually playing NARC, Double Dragon, or Chase HQ), I wasn't really hardcore. In fact, I didn't even own a Genesis (my sister did) and by the time it came out I was spending most of my money on records with the arcade being more of a social thing than anything else.
Don't get me wrong. I burnt out my first 6 switch 2600, had well over a hundred floppies of Apple ][c games (all legally purchased, of course ;)), and a healthy NES collection. It's just that by the early 90s, there were other things (girls for one) that were demanding my attention.
This isn't that story, however. This is the story of how I got back into gaming.
I think I stopped gaming about the time Chase HQ left our local arcade (the cop that shouted encouragement to you sounded uncannily like our assistant band director. That game got a ton of quarters from us "band fags" for that reason alone.) I went to college and really didn't think much about games at all. I don't even remeber anyone in the dorms with a SNES or Genny. As I recall, no one I knew was gaming.
On one of my return trips to Ball State, the 2600jr made the trip with me. But it was more of a room accessory than anything serious. It was fun to have people over and we'd all go "oh man! I remeber that game!" but still more nostalgia than anything else.
Fast forward a few years and I'm out of school (again) and playing in a band called Ran (after the Kurosawa film, not the past tense verb). The bass player's house was the location of practice. He had a N64 and Goldeneye. I hadn't thought about video games in years, but Goldeneye totally blew my mind. Needless to say that game (and later Perfect Dark) became the number one reason we never got more than the first five songs we ever worked on finished. And furthermore, something inside of me changed.
I started getting more interested in playing Goldeneye than I was in practicing. Coming from the time when Mortal Kombat's digitized characters were cutting edge to the fully immersive 3d world of James Bond in game form was an eye opener. It didn't hurt either that Goldeneye was an absolute blast in multi-player (leading to my Captain Wrong moniker, but that's another story also.)
Now, you might think I'd rush out and buy a N64 and Goldeneye, but you'd be wrong. Though I was itching for a gaming console now, I read up first. At the time the options were; N64, PSX, and the Dreamcast, which was less than a year old. Everyone seemed to be down on the N64 for the slow game releases, cart format and small library. The Dreamcast was also getting bashed for being a Sega console, with everyone saying "it's good, but how long is it going to be around?" The PSX however, seemed to be the way to go.
I knew next to nothing about the PSX except that my bass playing friend had just gotten one and Tekken 3 and it was pretty cool. Also, in a simple matter of economics, the PSX had just dropped to $99 while the N64 was $149 and the DC $199. So, after a 3 hour trip all over town (almost missing a booty call in the process, another story), I was the proud owner of a PSX.
I figured this was going to be just another thing. I really didn't know this was going to be the beginning of gaming as a hobby, but it turned out that way. My first choice of games (Wu Tang and Intellivision Hits) were less than impressive, and to be honest I was feeling a bit of buyer's remorse. Then Gran Turismo 2 came out.
I don't know exactly what posessed me to buy it. I was totally unaware of the first GT. All I knew was back in the day, I loved racing games and reading EGM this looked like this was going to be the mother of them all.
Though today I can see GT2's faults clearly, this game was flawless to me then. The graphics blew me away. The attention to detail stunned me. I could not believe how far racing games had come from the days of Outrun. This game became an obsession. I think in the first month I logged nearly 80 hours of play time. Seriously.
It was somewhere in another late night GT2 session that it hit me. I'd become a gamer again. I looked down at my thumb. It was calloused and sore. The clock was hours later than when I'd first set down and I couldn't remember when I'd last gotten up. I realized it'd been like that every day that week and the week before. Basically all I was doing was going to work and playing GT2. Even when I was at work, I'd think of new tune ups for my cars or ways to shave tenths of a second off my lap times.
Eventually, I'd get an N64 (and Goldeneye) and a DC. The DC really showed me that the games I love are still the games I played (and a lot I missed out on) back in high school. Pure action games. Quarter munchers. The kind of games where putting your initals in the top slot on the high score screen is the goal, not hours of unlocking and repetition. The DC was the final step in refining how I am as a gamer today.
But I gotta hand it to Sony's little gray box and Gran Turismo 2. Though Goldeneye grabbed my attention, it was hours and hours of GT2 that reminded me of all the fun I used to have with Star Raiders and Bubble Bobble way back when. As much as I bitch about all the hype in gaming today and all the damage the Playstation generation has done to my beloved 2d games, it was none other than a very hyped Playstation game that got my game back.
Don't get me wrong. I burnt out my first 6 switch 2600, had well over a hundred floppies of Apple ][c games (all legally purchased, of course ;)), and a healthy NES collection. It's just that by the early 90s, there were other things (girls for one) that were demanding my attention.
This isn't that story, however. This is the story of how I got back into gaming.
I think I stopped gaming about the time Chase HQ left our local arcade (the cop that shouted encouragement to you sounded uncannily like our assistant band director. That game got a ton of quarters from us "band fags" for that reason alone.) I went to college and really didn't think much about games at all. I don't even remeber anyone in the dorms with a SNES or Genny. As I recall, no one I knew was gaming.
On one of my return trips to Ball State, the 2600jr made the trip with me. But it was more of a room accessory than anything serious. It was fun to have people over and we'd all go "oh man! I remeber that game!" but still more nostalgia than anything else.
Fast forward a few years and I'm out of school (again) and playing in a band called Ran (after the Kurosawa film, not the past tense verb). The bass player's house was the location of practice. He had a N64 and Goldeneye. I hadn't thought about video games in years, but Goldeneye totally blew my mind. Needless to say that game (and later Perfect Dark) became the number one reason we never got more than the first five songs we ever worked on finished. And furthermore, something inside of me changed.
I started getting more interested in playing Goldeneye than I was in practicing. Coming from the time when Mortal Kombat's digitized characters were cutting edge to the fully immersive 3d world of James Bond in game form was an eye opener. It didn't hurt either that Goldeneye was an absolute blast in multi-player (leading to my Captain Wrong moniker, but that's another story also.)
Now, you might think I'd rush out and buy a N64 and Goldeneye, but you'd be wrong. Though I was itching for a gaming console now, I read up first. At the time the options were; N64, PSX, and the Dreamcast, which was less than a year old. Everyone seemed to be down on the N64 for the slow game releases, cart format and small library. The Dreamcast was also getting bashed for being a Sega console, with everyone saying "it's good, but how long is it going to be around?" The PSX however, seemed to be the way to go.
I knew next to nothing about the PSX except that my bass playing friend had just gotten one and Tekken 3 and it was pretty cool. Also, in a simple matter of economics, the PSX had just dropped to $99 while the N64 was $149 and the DC $199. So, after a 3 hour trip all over town (almost missing a booty call in the process, another story), I was the proud owner of a PSX.
I figured this was going to be just another thing. I really didn't know this was going to be the beginning of gaming as a hobby, but it turned out that way. My first choice of games (Wu Tang and Intellivision Hits) were less than impressive, and to be honest I was feeling a bit of buyer's remorse. Then Gran Turismo 2 came out.
I don't know exactly what posessed me to buy it. I was totally unaware of the first GT. All I knew was back in the day, I loved racing games and reading EGM this looked like this was going to be the mother of them all.
Though today I can see GT2's faults clearly, this game was flawless to me then. The graphics blew me away. The attention to detail stunned me. I could not believe how far racing games had come from the days of Outrun. This game became an obsession. I think in the first month I logged nearly 80 hours of play time. Seriously.
It was somewhere in another late night GT2 session that it hit me. I'd become a gamer again. I looked down at my thumb. It was calloused and sore. The clock was hours later than when I'd first set down and I couldn't remember when I'd last gotten up. I realized it'd been like that every day that week and the week before. Basically all I was doing was going to work and playing GT2. Even when I was at work, I'd think of new tune ups for my cars or ways to shave tenths of a second off my lap times.
Eventually, I'd get an N64 (and Goldeneye) and a DC. The DC really showed me that the games I love are still the games I played (and a lot I missed out on) back in high school. Pure action games. Quarter munchers. The kind of games where putting your initals in the top slot on the high score screen is the goal, not hours of unlocking and repetition. The DC was the final step in refining how I am as a gamer today.
But I gotta hand it to Sony's little gray box and Gran Turismo 2. Though Goldeneye grabbed my attention, it was hours and hours of GT2 that reminded me of all the fun I used to have with Star Raiders and Bubble Bobble way back when. As much as I bitch about all the hype in gaming today and all the damage the Playstation generation has done to my beloved 2d games, it was none other than a very hyped Playstation game that got my game back.