Gaming: Through The World Cups
by Victor
Every so often, the fancy takes me and I look at my Gaming Life; how far my hobby has come and how much fun it has brought me. It is now time for you guys to join me in my reminiscing.
1978
At that time, I was just one year old. Barely able to hold my head above the ground, let alone a controller, I had missed out on the popular games of the day. Whilst the older gamers were enjoying such treats as Battlestar Galactica and Atari Football, I was still enjoying the freedom of going to the toilet without actually going to the toilet. Food and drink was brought to me and slowly but surely, the hand-eye coordination was being trained to someday soon be able to protect the millions and millions of innocent citizens that live inside of consoles.
1982
At five years old, the basics of being a videogame hero had all been learned. First words like ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’ had been complimented by essentials like ‘I want ’ and, even though I couldn’t verbalise why, pester power certainly worked. Being as cute as a button and having an afro the size of space hopper also helped. By this time, I had seen some of the older kids play about on Atari 2600s and even had a go. Not quite understanding what it was that I was doing, only understanding that it was fun. It’s a bizarre thought for gamers who became gamers for the first time during this generation of consoles that, once upon a time, joysticks had only one button, or two if you were posh. Games didn’t have credits and essentially didn’t even end. Games like Millipede, Centipede and Pac-Man were like the Neverending Story only, unlike the book, they really didn’t ever end but that was all we had back then and it was more than enough.
1986
By this time it had all really kicked off. I was nine years old and mixing with other primary school kids had shown me all the different ways that the kids enjoyed their games. Games had colour. Games had music. And you could play them with other folk. I remember getting a Sega Master System, along with Zaxxon 3D (yes, the Master System actually did have 3D glasses. Never managed to try them) and Kung Fu Kid but I could only play them on a black and white TV. Yes kids, way before 3DTVs, HDTVs, 1080p, widescreen, flatscreen, LCD, plasma, rear projection and other cool things, most families would have a main CRT in the living room and a pokey 15” black and white TV, with an antenna, for the kids.
We also didn’t have forums, but we did have fanboys. I remember the arguments about which platform was best. Spectrum, C64, C128, Amiga, Atari ST and so on and so forth. Don’t ever think that fanboy arguments are a product of the internet age. They existed way, way, way before the information superhighway first started accepting connections via 56k modems.
1990
Strangely enough, around this time, my gaming slowed way down; I had moved from Germany to England and was living with family who didn’t really believe in gaming. So we got an Archimedes computer. Which sucked. There was a very basic, vector based flying game called Lander. No objective of any kind. Or a map. You took control of a small rhombus, that could shoot scenery. Flying sapped your fuel. Landing on your landing strip replenished the fuel but, because there was no map, flying more than ten metres from your starting point would disorient you and you would run out of fuel and then crash. And die. Which was a really dull gaming year for me. Bizarrely, that year also had the dullest World Cup final in living memory.
1994
By this time, I had discovered that my little brother was the favoured child of the family. Where I got an Archimedes to do educational stuff with, his bedroom got kitted out with the best gaming equipment a teen could ever dream of: colour TV, Apple Macintosh, NES, SNES and a Gameboy. We didn’t live together, but believe me when I say that I spent every waking moment that I could at his home. Some might say to strengthen our sibling bond; others might say that my gaming addiction was getting out of control and that I played on his SNES more than he did, which is probably true but he got to play games he wouldn’t have had a chance to play because I used every single entrepreneurial skill of mine to make gems like Yoshi’s Island, Legend Of Zelda, Starwing, Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter and others appear. It’s around this time that certain videogaming sounds became forever seared into my mind. Honestly, for as long as I will live, I will always be able to instantaneously recognise the Tetris tune, Mario’s mushroom power-up sound and the sound of blowing dust out of a SNES cartridge.
It’s also around this time that I realised how competitive I could be. There was a friend of mine from Vietnam who had an uncle in China that sent him an import copy of Street Fighter II. Back in those days we had to usually wait about 9 months for a game to be released in the UK after it appeared in the far east and we were Street Fighter NUTS back then. As soon as he got the import copy I would be at his house after school and would play him on versus mode until about 11pm, which was the latest I could leave to get the tube back home, and we must have done that for about eight months. EVERY DAY. Here is a little secret: I never beat him once! Not even a single round. Not even when he’d put my strength up to level eight and he dropped his down to zero. Eight months. Immeasurable rounds of defeats. Six hours at a time on weekdays. Twelve hours at weekends. Those were dark days.
In terms of acting, Pierce Brosnan was at his peak here
1998
This coincided with my uni days, and the Nintendo 64. Thinking back I should have probably made more use of the fabled uni girls. I realised very quickly that if you were a geek during your A-Levels, you’ll probably be a geek at uni too and loose girls won’t be loose with geeks. It’s a lesson I learned about four hours after having my very first beer. Going back to gaming, at that time, all my friends got taken in by the Playstation 1 but I hated, and still do, the Playstation controller. I just can’t hold it for more than ten minutes without it becoming really uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. The Nintendo 64 was more than enough entertainment for me; Mario 64 made me fall in love with gaming all over again. Lylat Wars reminded me how much I loved bettering my high score. Goldeneye 64 showed me that being better than my friends made me a happy geek. Perfect Dark gave birth to my irregular sleep pattern. Mario Tennis taught me that tennis can actually be a tense game. Hybrid Heaven brought me RPG joy. In short, the N64 period was the time that gave me most gaming joy up until that point. Shigeru Miyamoto oversaw a lot of games which were perfectly in tune with my idea of what fun was. I had the cash to splash and plenty of time between lectures to hone my skills.
2002
Fast forward another four years and a new challenge was rearing its head: learning to game around a live-in girlfriend, and if you have a non-gaming partner then you can appreciate that it can be quite difficult to do. I had also swapped allegiance from Nintendo to Microsoft which was a wrench in itself. Before I made the jump from Nintendo 64 to the next console, I got to know a work colleague who I used to have daily three hour arguments with about the pros and cons of the Gamecube vs Xbox (also about Internet Explorer vs Firefox, but that is an article for another day). The game that finally persuaded me to swap was Dead Or Alive 3. To this day, I still think that it is the best 3D fighter ever. Better than Street Fighter IV. Better than Soul Calibur IV. Better than Virtua Fighter 5. There I said it… in my humble opinion.
When I got my Xbox, the love affair just got stronger and stronger. I had to import the Japanese controller, because the original controller was just aggravating, but once I had the necessary equipment there was so much to love about Xbox 1. Custom soundtracks, on the games that supported them, was an awesome feature. Project Gotham Racing was a game that I just could not put down and, when Xbox Live finally appeared, two things happened: Vice Destroyer was born and I finally kicked the 56k modem habit and joined the broadband revolution. Suddenly, everything I had ever imagined about gaming just materialised. Sharing high scores? Check. Talking with my friends whilst playing? Check. Getting more content for games? Check. Even though then, as now, it is very much miss and only sometimes, hit. But hey, you can’t have everything. It was also the time I finally took the plunge and got myself a surround sound system and could finally enjoy games and films in 5.1 – another revolution for which I have to thank gaming. Being able to hear enemies approach from behind was both surreal and intuitive but the best was yet to come…
2006
Suddenly, Microsoft turned up the volume to 11. I already had a soft spot for the Xbox, but the Xbox 360 made me love them even more. Achievements! Something that I didn’t even know I wanted but, as soon as I realised how they worked, I wanted more. In the early days, before gamesavers spoiled the gamerscore race, I used to sit in the office with my work colleagues and look at some of the achievements of my gaming peers and be astonished at how quickly they could race through games. Suddenly gaming and the internet were learning how to really complement each other, with various websites springing up that worked in tandem with the Xbox. The Xbox learned how to stretch my brand loyalty to the max. I don’t know of any other device which I have forgiven poor design as much as my 360. Two have died because of the RROD, but still, I love it like no other console before it.
Yes, you died on me twice, but I love you anyway
2010
As time has moved on, the goal posts have moved on again. Suddenly, gaming had evolved into something that I could not have predicted back in 1986. The Wii appeared and showed that gamers would appreciate gaming in a way that goes against my gaming grain. I also discovered that gamers can be incredibly traditional when it comes to their habit, becoming incredibly offended by the evolution of their hobby. The eternal argument about whether games are best enjoyed with a keyboard and mouse or a joypad has now evolved to include motion controllers. With an eye to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, I am wondering what the gaming landscape will look like then. On the one hand, games and games consoles will again have changed to accommodate even more tastes. If OnLive takes off, we might even see an end to fanboy arguments. On the other hand, if motion controls become the norm and gaming sessions require you to actually physically exert yourself, I just may say forget it and start visiting museums.
At this stage, I don’t even know what I want from my next console. 3D gaming is coming, make no mistake. Better graphics are also a given. No need to even say that sound will be even more impressive. All that I can hope for is that gaming will still cater for an old dinosaur like myself. And that maybe, just maybe, England will win the World Cup.
Last five articles by Victor
- An Open Letter To The Media
- Gaming: Through The World Cups
- Sleeping And A Videogame Obsession
- Unsolicited Insults
Dead or Alive 3? You just liked watching the bouncy bewbs eh?
I know I did 
There was something strangely hypnotic about Dead or Alive 3. Before I bought Xbox 1, me and my friend would finish work in Brixton, head down to Oxford Circus on the tube and spend about an hour, hogging the demo pods for the Xbox. For over 4 months before we both bought our consoles.
But Dead or Alive 3 had just enough depth for me to learn it inside out. Any more and it becomes so unwieldy and complicated that it is beyond the spare time I have, to become an expert. Definitely an absolute gem and it makes me very sad that the fighting fans felt it was the shittest fighting game in existence.
You can be competitive? No way! I don’t believe that!
Loved this article, such a great idea.
What a brilliant article, Vic!
It’s great to get a bit of background on the man, the legend, the DESTROYER. It also brought back many of my own memories from down the years, having had similar experiences. I too spent the 80s gaming in black & white, and I also had a Street Fighter addiction. Happy days!
Mole
Thanks for the kind words, Simon. MarkuzR has provided images that make the article better than it was already. It’s fun looking back to what gaming used to be like. Remember the original Gameboy? Compare that to the DS and it’s unbelievable how much fun we used to be able to have with such relatively poorly specced equipment. I remember playing a hockey game on Atari 2600, which was absolutely indistinguishable from the football game on that console, save for the behaviour of the puck. But I didn’t care. I used to love being able to rack up 25 goals per game against the computer.
I still wish that a service like Xbox Live had been around for the N64. I am so gutted I don’t have my Mario Kart cartridge anymore, because I managed a 8.69 second lap on Wario Stadium, which was not quite the fastest in the world, but still bloody zippy.
@Kat
I ain’t competitive. I just like to win.
Interesting concept, checking in at each cup appearance for a report.
Some might say that having been born in the 70′s, we had to slog through all the games up until now… I might say that we were teethed on games that were playable without tons of fancy bells and whistles, and have a better appreciation for what’s around now.
DOA 3 isn’t the shittest fighting game in existance. That title goes to Rise of the Robots and Street fighter. (the very first one mind)
I like the idea that we are able to better appreciate games now, because of what we had to go through previously. Do you remember how much of a rush it was, not to have to play games through in one playthrough because games came with the function to save your progress to the built-in memory pak? High scores being available on a game even after you switched off consoles was awesome.
I also remembered the notion of no game ever needing more than two buttons. How naive I was. Can you imagine playing Batman: Arkham Asylum on the Master System controller?
But the biggest thumbs up that gaming gets from me is the virtual eradication of ‘one hit kill’ gameplay. I am struggling to name the games now, but playing games where even a slight touch from an enemy would kill you stone dead, I used to hate. It’s sometimes a miracle to me that I became such an addict, even with such severe penalties when gaming for fun. Gaming has come a long way.
Great article, Vic!
Scary to think that the last time England were good the only videogame was Space Duel (probably).
I have many memories of games I have played in the past and games that I play today. I feel lucky that I got to experience games developing into the visual treats they are today. If games still continue to get better then think what the games of the future will look like.
Really good article Vic, got me thinking about my gaming life, some of it very hazy now, but lots of good times came flooding back.
Thanks for bringing that all back into my head :0)
This was awesome, Victor.
But I genuinely can’t imagine you as the competitive type.
Thoroughly enjoyable read, it was like reading my own experiences lol. I went from C64 > Mega Drive > Snes > Ps1 > Ps2 > Xbox360.
Didnt know you were a writer, must check out some more of your work.
OH NO!!! My comment from the other day is missing! It was lengthy too, saying how I used to remember important periods of my life by whichever concerts I’d been at that month, then it moved on to which guitars I owned at the time. Now I have to try and remember it all over again gods dammit.
I’ll come back again tomorrow
Thanks for the kind words, Pauly.
I look forward to reading your thoughts, Bossman.
Arriving late at the party here but fucking loved this article. A fantastic idea and utterly absorbing. People’s gaming histories and choices and reasons why are always interesting. It is always rather sobering to look back and see how far our hobby has come from those early black and white days. Days when one hit kills, three lives, and no saves were common and days which make us realise how fucking spoilt we now are. Great stuff, Victor.
Yeah, so, anyway… like I DID say before… I too gauge my memories on specific trigger mechanisms, although the World Cup has never played any part in that as I’m pretty much anti football if anything. When I was but a nipper, I was introduced to the world of computing and I suddenly found my calling… it wasn’t gaming, per se, but more the technology and what it could do, when pushed hard enough. When people are trying to recall mutual memories and can’t remember specific years, I only have to think about what computer I had at the time and that would always immediately tell me which year was being referenced.
In later years, this wasn’t exactly possible as I had my Amigas and stuck with them for years… so there was no specific point of reference, only that would have been “between X and Y” years. Instead, those years were mainly gauged by whichever guitars I had in my collection… starting off small and ending up with around five at a time, my total guitar collected comes in at 19 different guitars throughout the nine years that I played in a band. Those years are determined by which guitars I was playing or writing on… otherwise I’d have no idea what happened when.
Great article Victor, really enjoyed reading it and it was something very different