iPad Age and Gaming

I'm 15 (just a month from 16) and is a pretty new gamer.

I got a PS2 1½ year into launch and mainly played things like Jak and Daxter and the SSX series. (still had my fix of Rachet and Clank and Beyond Good and Evil, but no God of War, Shadow of the Col. or Metal Gear Solid)

When I then got my Wii i started checking out what gaming really had to offer!
Soon after I bought a PS3 and is now a pretty hardcore gamer clocking in at 30 hours of Fallout 3
Looking forward to games like Killzone 2, Final Fantasy XIII and such.

Gaming pretty much exploded in my life, and voer the past year I've learned a lot of history and technology.

Over just a single year I went from not knowing who Solid Snake where to I know am a decent user of the CryENGINE2 and a member of a mod team. Knowing what shaders, bump mapping and such is, and I understand why it is so crazy to see Mario and Sonic in the same game (Super Smash bros. Brawl)

 

Male here, 32 (sigh...)

I started with a Thomson MO5 in the eighties, than I had an amstrad 464 Great times!
After that I think I managed to have most console/pc over the times
I remember fondly the times where we were a group of elitist "Uber nerds"

Now it's nothing special to be a gamer/computer user
and with appstore, it's becoming a trivial thing to be a dev as well...

I really wonder how the gaming scene will looks like in ten years!

 

Hi,

I am 34. I started playing when I was 26. I come from a very poor family, but I am very good at school. I am from Mexico. I am an organ performance musician. I had an audition in the USA and the University offered me a full scholarship. Then, Spanish departement needed a teacher, so the open a kind of a competition for the job. I got it. After that, I bought the xbox and more than 50 games. Now I have the Xbox 360. Now, I am doing a doctorate in Montreal and I always play in the metro or just waiting for it on my ipod touch.

 

i'm 37. grew up on my Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum 48 k with rubber keys (still got them both in fully working order), then progressed to the Atari ST (still got that too). Also got my mega drive and game gear as well

i like gaming, but old school retro gaming. i love the games for the machines as mentioned above. i also love arcade machine games.

but i hate modern games consols. psp, 360, xbox etc etc. cant put up with them. However, i do love the ipod Touch games. Dont spend too much time playing them, but like to play them on my work commute or in the evenings if the wife isn't in the room

 

I've been playing games (more or less) since the gameboy color was around, I think around the time of Pokemon Yellow. I've been 16 for about a month now. Gaming for me has been tricky, since it was only about two or three years ago that I could really play anything that wasn't a gameboy I started with my yellow gameboy color, and moved to the sp, and then through both ds'. After that, I had a psp for a little while, andthen ditched that. Then, I finally got a gaming computer about six months ago, and loved every second of it. But I had also gotten the iPhone the day it came out, and got apps the first days the store opened. And I've had my original iPhone for the entire time they've been out.

Soyeah. Yay!

 

wow a 56 year old that plays video game wow i thought i would never live to see that.
(I'm not discriminating you I'm just wowed cause my mom dosent even play video games and she's 38or39)

 

I usually lurk about on TouchArcade, feeling old but picking up hints on what to buy, tips on how to play and leaving the very occassional comment in the forum. Now, thanks Marlene!, I feel ancient at 62 - hopefully not the oldest member here I started my 'love affair' with computer games back in the early seventies when, as a computer operator, I would play Collossal Caves on the company's mainframe. Once games came home I followed the usual course of Pong, Fairchild Channel F, Philips G7000 (Odyssey in the U.S.), Atari 2600 and then Commodore 64. Many other systems followed this as my son shared my love of Video Games, and still does. I still have all of the systems I owned plus many of the games. I really love my iTouch for its compact size and the great number of old and new games playable on it. I don't know if anyone remembers the "RATS" game that was used to demo the old Burroughs B20 systems back in the 1980's but I think that it would translate well to the iPhone/iTouch using the accelerometer to move through the maze and the touch screen to shoot the rats

 

lol... bad girl!

 

First off, LOVE this thread. Nice to know there is a whole community of 'mature' gamers out there.
I'm 34, and remember playing with Pong as well. Was my dad's and he obviously passed on the love of videogames to me when I was still a young buck.
My first gaming console was the ColecoVision (that's where Zaxxon is from).
And yes, games were ridiculously expensive for that time, as was the console.
I "graduated" to the Adam computer system which used audio cassettes as it's disk drive. Crazy to think back how much things have progressed.
On to the intellivision.....
Of course, I also remember spending countless hours playing on the Apple ][ and it's monochrome monitor. My how times have changed.
For hand-held, had the short lived Lynx (think it was by Atari at the time) and of course the gameboy.
Xbox, Xbox 360 now. I've inherited my wife's PS2 as well
I also remember spending every sunday as a child where my parents would bring me to the arcades while they'd run around and do chores (different time back then...LOL).
Of course, I spent enough time as a youth hanging out in arcades and spending quarter after quarter with friends as well. Do kids today even still go to arcades?? Probably not with this whole online gaming world. Back in the day, we used to have to play together in our basements...

And yes, all this to say how times have changed. Games today are incredible compared to what we used to play. I sometimes see footage of classic videogames (Moon Patrol was my favourite if anyone remembers that) and I can't believe how simple it looks. It's unbelievable what we're playing with today.

And just one thing that's always stuck with me in terms of how pricing has changed, is that I remember when I had my first BBS (on the Adam, 300bps), I had to upgrade my hard drive. Bought a 40mb which was huge back in the day, cost $400!!! Can you imagine??

Anyways, enough of my reminiscing. Great thread. Thank you.
I guess it's safe to say we all have fond memories of video games, and none of us listened or cared to those that said video games were for kids. Or, we're all just still kids at heart, and really, there's nothing wrong with that at all!

 

Great thread Going on 30 here. Where to start? I've been gaming since I remember being alive and will continue till the day I die. My goal for retirement is to have enough money for me, my games and my wife to live comfortably.

First memory of a video game: My dad setting up an odd console that only played pong on a small black and white TV. The system itself wasn't new at the time (must have been.. 1982 maybe 1983). But I was amazed. He took us very often to the arcades, me and my brother, where all 3 of us would spend hours playing games. My favorites were Slap Fight, Gorf and ghosts & goblins, but there were so many more

Next: Atari 2600. I played that system till my eyes went red. Yar's revenge anyone?

Next: Commodore 64. That beast lasted me years and years. It's the only computer where, if you bought it used, it came with stacks of pirated floppy games lol. I learned to program basic on this thing.

Next: IBM 8086 computer. My cousin had one. My uncle had just payed over 2 grand for it. It was huge. This is where I first played nethack (or rogue).

Next: Nintendo. I got this one a little later because I had to buy it with my own money. My first game was dragon warrior, it was also my very first RPG.

Next: Gameboy (grayscale). Portable gaming. I almost became a mute. I'd take it everywhere. Never did I complain about going over to grandma's or family gatherings lol. I really got into the final fantasy RPGs on this machine.

Next: PC 386 computer. I loved this machine. Wolfenstein 3-d, Ultima Underworld, so many other great games. I remember when I got my first 8-bit sound card and heard the wolf-3d machine guns roaring hehe.

Next: Super Nintendo followed by Playstation. Once again I got the SNES pretty late, but I got to play tons of great games on it. My favs were the megaman X series by far. PSX is where I played Metal Gear Solid and other great titles.

After that, I got out of consoles and stuck to my PC for years. Like many, I spent thousands on upgrades and the best video cards. I got hooked on Everquest and then a few other MMOs and eventually figured out that those turned me into an antisocial prick so I gave them up. Now I play mainly on my Xbox 360 and iPhone. My PC, even though I can run any modern game, sits in the corner and acts as a media box.

 

I am 40 and have been fortunate to have grown up with a gaming dad. We owned the very first cartridge console game, the Fairchild, and then when that failed we had an Atari 2600. As a teenager I got addicted to Apple II and C64 games (I had both).

I don't have as much time to dedicate to gaming these days as I wish I did, but I commute via train so the DS has been my friend for a long time. The iPhone really is changing that though as I don't even carry the DS any more.

 

I feel somewhat of an oddball being 15 at these fourms.

 

I'm 25, which means I'm from the Nintendo generation. Like a couple others here, I definitely remember wasting countless quarters playing arcade games. when I was little, games like Galaga and Pacman were still everywhere, but when I was a tad older we were all hooked on Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat.

I actually remember seeing a demo of Virtua Fighter before it came out. They had it on a big screen and, if I remember right, it cost a couple dollars to play. There were crowds all over trying to figure why block headed characters were supposed to be revolutionary. No one really understood the whole 3D concept yet.

I also witnessed to the rise and fall of virtual reality. It rose, people said WTF, and it fell.

 

Me too! I thought iPod/iPhone gaming was something for people at our age!

Then again, other people on my age who have iPod touches Barely know what an "App Store" is.

One of them think an App Store is where she downloads more Tap Tap Revenge tracks xD! And nothing else.

No matter how much I try to tell them about the awesome world of free and paid games and apps they just don't want to listen!

Guess you have to have some experience to value the things the iPod/iPhone has to offer

 

I was a huge fan of Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis. I remember playing when I was like 5 years old. I still think the originals are better than the new ones

 

I'm 23.

I should have been a Nintendo kid, but my parents didn't want me to have a video game system, so I became a PC kid instead. I gamed on consoles at friends though.

Gaming history:

PC 286:
digdug
grand prix
a game with a cannon shooting at some parachuting people.
PC 386:
dune
syndicate
Bubble Bobble
all the Commander Keen games
On friends consoles:
Street Fighter 2
Pc Pentium 100mhz:
wipeout
Pc this gen (1 Ghz ++):
Deus ex
Half life 2
Guild wars
Strategy games

Now I have bought PS3 and 360 , so my pc-exclusive days are over. I'm glad my parents made me use the computer though, made me learn coding for it as well.

 

Ah, don't feel that way. Just remember that gaming bridges generational gaps. Yours is not the first to grow up around the medium, and neither was mine.

I'm 27, btw. First console was an Atari VCS/2600 (technically the 2600 Jr. version). Played that thing to death...literally (internal components melted ). The downgraded port of Intellivision's AstroSmash for 2600, titled AstroBlast, is still one of my favorite games, btw. Would love to see someone bring that over to iTouch/Phone.

I also owned those mini arcade machine decks (Popeye, Ms. Pac Man, and another one I've forgotten). They were thrown out when my family moved from our original apartment. Sad. Those things fetch a friggin' mint on ebay now.

Next up was that magical Christmas where I got both a Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System. The Nintendo vs. Sega system wars started in my house a console generation earlier than it did for most people in the US I guess. And Sega and Nintendo have both remained the top two developer/publisher companies in my eyes ever since. Never owned the "other" console of that gen (Atari 7800) until I bought one off of ebay about a year or so back. Retro gaming, IMHO, is only worth it if one goes all out retro.

I pretty much own every console from every gen save for the 2nd gen consoles besides Atari VCS and the real 3rd gen consoles (ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and, sadly, Vectrex...though I had a friend as a kid who owned one and I was soooo jealous of him growing up).

Oh, and I don't own a NEO GEO. Too expensive. But I'd kill to have one.