Atari 2600
The first game console that I have played is the atari 2600. One of my best friends had the console. At that time the atari 2600 was already at it's end, but as a kid playing your first video games, it's an awesome experience. I played classic games like pong, pacman, space invaders etc. They aren't interesting for gamers these days, but for me, I'm glad that I have played them. The experience might come in handy later on in the game developers world.
Image of the atari 2600
NES
After the atari 2600, the next game console I played was the Nintendo Entertainment System, the NES. With it's 8 bit graphics and more advanced games, it was a major difference compared to the atari 2600. At that time a lot of friends of mine had the NES and to play as much new NES games as possible we all (our parents) bought different games, played them and lend them out to eachother. I played games like Mario, double dragon, duck hunt, megaman, castlevania, battle toads, kirby etc. Great fun and unique experience.
Image of the Nintendo Entertainment System
Gameboy
I got the Nintendo Gameboy from my uncle and aunty. One of the best gift you can get when you are a kid. The games weren't that much different than the games on the NES, but it was nice that you could keep on playing when you were not at home.
Image of the Nintendo Gameboy
SNES
A few years later I (and my 2 brothers and my mam) went to Hong Kong to visit my family. My older cousin had a SNES with a lot of games. The SNES was the new console, better graphics, more advanced games. My brothers and I spend days with my cousin to play on the SNES. My mam bought the SNES in HK and we toke it back to the Netherlands. Without knowing that the SNES game cartridge was different for each region. Europe, Asia and US had their own cartridges and SNES console. The European and Asian SNES look the same except for their cartridge, but the US SNES looks completely different and we had the US SNES -_-. Back than I learned a valuable lesson about consoles and regions. In the Netherlands I could only get new games at stores that would sell import games.
I still have played a lot of games on the SNES. The game genres that were new to me then were 1 on 1 fighting and role playing games. I played games like Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, Dragonball Z, Zelda, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger (still one of the best games ever made) etc. The experience I got from the new
gameplay really was superb.
Image the US SNES
Image the European / Asian SNES
PC
While I had the SNES some friends of mine had a pc at home. On the pc, friends of mine had games like Duke Nukem, Worms, Wolfenstein, Wacky Wheels etc. It was on the pc where I saw nice 3D graphics for the first time. The SNES has Star Fox which is in 3D, but it didn't look as good as the first virtua fighter or Panzer Dragoon. I also played Real Time Strategy games like Warcraft and Command and Conquer. Racing games like Need for Speed and Test drive. 1st person shooters like Duke Nukem 3D, Quake. One of the best gaming experience I've had was playing games on your own local network with friends. Games like, C&C Red Alert, Diablo, Quake, Need for speed etc your own lan party.
The graphics on the PC were amazing, especially with the first 3D graphic VooDoo cards. From regular pc rendered to 3D graphics is still the biggest visual jump forward I have ever seen. The PC was the reason why I didn't want a N64 or playstation. There were just so many great games on the PC. And some of the populair games of the playstation were also released on the PC, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid.
In all those years I played a lot of PC games. Some friends stayed with consoles, so when I was at their place, I could always play on the N64, dreamcast or playstation.
Gamecube
It was early 2002 when my brother and I bought the gamecube. We pre-orderd the cube to have it on the first day of release. The first game we bought was the new Sonic. Only playing it for a few houres, we toke the game back to the shop switched it with the 1 on1 fighting game Bloody Roar. In 2002 my brother and I bought like 10 games for the cube, but most of them weren't interesting enough for me. Looking back at it now, 20 cube games later, I still don't like the cube that much except for a few games, the resident evil series, Smash Brothers. The cube just missed the action genre that other consoles did have.
Playstation 2
In 2003, I went back to Hong Kong to visit my family again. It was in HK where I knew that I should have bought a playstation 2 instead of a cube. The playstation 2 had the games that were not on the pc nor on the cube. Games like Devil May Cry, Tekken, pro evolution soccer series, God of War, Metal Gear Solid series, lots of rpg's. Knowing that I own a cube I just had to get that PS2. Up till now I still haven't regret it. It's one of the best buy's I have done. 4 years later and the PS2 is still going strong. In all these years great games were released for the PS2.
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