Yesterday my girlfriend went on an absolute rant whilst I spent a few minutes looking at Xbox 360 and PS3 stuff in GAME. Literally, just a few minutes. She’d spent the hour prior to this trying to find a piece of jewelry to match a top she’d just bought and we went in some shops twice because Amy wanted to double check just how close some of the shades of jewelry were. Then she bitched when I spent a fraction of the time looking at some of the new gen consoles.
The rant was directed at my financial situation, which was fair, but evolved into a more general attack on how computer games were “sad” and “a waste of money”. I fought back and compared her endless accessories and make up purchases as “a waste of money”… big mistake. You don’t want to say that to a woman. I didn’t anticipate that as an attack on her appearance, but it ended up a pretty fierce discussion that I couldn’t escape.
She was trying to convince me that I didn’t need to get myself in further debt buying an Xbox 360. And she’s right, for now. The new GTA and Pro Evo will be out in October and there’s no way I can go without them. Especially as I’ve now sampled Xbox Live on a mate’s machine. The PS2 just won’t do now anymore.
But calling games “sad” and a waste of time/money had me thinking.
I got to reminiscing about some of my favourite video game memories. Anybody who is a console/gaming buff will know that games can provide you with some of the most satisfying and happiest moments of your life. Not in the sense that you’ll win a race or a fight and say “this is the happiest moment of my life” (that would be sad) but looking back on time spent at a machine you raise a smile and wish you were still playing THAT game like you used to. Know what I mean?
I’ve invested so much time over my 20 years on this earth to Football/Championship Manager that I dread to think what the total time playing it would be. Months rather than days I’d expect. But they were some great months, let me tell you. On the first Champ Manager to have a viewable pitch with little dots running around (CM4?) I created my best ever team, in a game that spanned about 20 seasons – with Parma. I turned them into a footballing dynasty that swept the Serie A pretty much every year, won the Champions League a few times (something I rarely ever do) and was just generally packed with south americans (always a wonderful feat, they play the ‘beautiful game’ like its supposed to be played).
Equally happy times were spent playing it alongside mates. I remember back in the days of my early teens when me and a group of friends could spend 24 hours solid taking turns at what we then called ‘Champ’. One time in particular stands out when we managed to cram a whole season into one night of the summer holidays. As Inter Milan I won the league on the last day of the season because the keeper who I’d just signed (from a friend who was Fiorentina) saved a penalty in the dying minutes. This meant another of my mates finished second and I won the league. That was wonderful. I also had an epic three or four season online game with my good friend Toby, which we’ll always know as “eye-talia” in which we faced off as Inter (me) vs AC Milan (him) and that game produced so much hilarious banter it didn’t even matter who won overall (if we’re counting I picked up the most trophies ;)). That and loads more fun times can be attributed to football/champ manager. Wonderful game.
Legend of Mir, which most people probably aren’t familiar with, was another superb game that absorbed a large amount of my life during my teens. I could have been out binge drinking and fingering girls I’d never met before in parks – but I opted in favour of this MMORPG during my early teens. That’s not to say I was antisocial. But the days when you were too young to get a job, too bored to watch TV and in a rural community where there is nothing else to do – Mir provided the perfect solution. I’ve got some great MSN contacts from my time on there (to this day, I speak to some of those guys daily and consider them as dear as any ‘real’ friends I have). Mir was this huge lord-of-the-rings-esque online world full of castles, caves and dungeons – with thousands of other people running around on there too. It completely captured my imagination, yet there’s been so many similar games since it (World of Warcraft, etc.) that I’ve not even looked at because it’ll never come close to recreating those great memories.
Zelda’s both old and new have always been great sources of entertainment for me. Me and my sister are two completely different people and never really converse in anything but small talk, and its been that way since we were knee high – yet each and every Zelda game brought us together. Its not an understatement to say that it’s the only thing in the world that’s ever done this. We’d sit for hours and try and work out the puzzles in Ocarina of Time together. That meant a lot to me, and is probably why I consider it my favourite game of all time. I’ve not played the Windwaker or any of the more recent versions because me and my sis have both grown up now and sitting together for hours on end to play this game isn’t practical or realistic at our age.
Of course, Grand Theft Auto has provided me with hours of entertainment. Every single installment. GTA3 and San Andreas more so than the rest. GTA3 blew my mind because it was in 3d. It really was like stealing cars and committing crime for real. Never have I found so much fun in wasting time on a game. I remember once spending the better part of an hour blocking a highway and watching the cars smash into each other, then killing anybody that survived. Sadistic? Maybe, but 100% fun. Turning GTA on, going on a random killing spree, then turning it off didn’t seem like a waste of time at all. Infact it was every bit as good as doing a mission. The scope of San Andreas was even more mind boggling than GTA3, and I expect GTA IV will be every bit as memorable for me.
Since coming to university the only game I’ve ever really had time for is Pro Evolution because it involves everybody in our flat. And all of our male friends/guests too. It’s crazy the amount of times that there’s been a stranger in our flat and I’ve just been like “fancy a game of pro?” and we’ve sat there for an hour or so with banter as if I’ve known them for years. Highlights include numerous thrashings of flat loud-mouth Mark, a 9-0 win over the second-best player in our flat (after me), Stato, and he was Man Utd at the time! There are too many goals to mention. Way too many. Well worked passing goals, thrikers from 30/40 yards, bizarre goals that have bounced in from no where, chipped goals, stupid mistakes – anger, laughter, joy – Pro Evo has it all. And it produces it on a daily basis.
Goldeneye and Mario Kart produced hours and hours of 4 player fun when I was a youngster. Me and three other mates could sit there for pretty much a whole day and have a marathon of these two games. Nothing else mattered in the world when you were going all-out to win on Yoshi’s Island or Toad’s Turnpike. I was always Wario. And I always left with a smile on my face. There was never a ‘bad’ game of Mario Kart.
Before the days of Playstations and N64s there were the old school Mega Drive/NES games. Super Mario Brothers, Sonic and Zelda all used to have me glued to the screen. They were so basic that today’s kids would probably laugh at them and label them “crap” but back in the day I loved them. When I was a kid I’d have been more than happy to spend my whole life playing those games. I’d be fat, but it wouldn’t matter because I’d never need to leave the room.
I had a lot of fun with Matt on his Dreamcast back when they were around. We used to play Virtua Tennis for hours – doubles or singles – yet we never got to beat Master/King. I’ll always remember how much we loved that game because it made up for how awful we were on the tennis courts in real life. Equally memorable is how much we laughed when he bought Virtua Striker. That was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen. We laughed so hard and for so long that I gave myself a serious head ache and had to go home. It hurt. Matt took the game back the next day.
Matt also gave me the memory of playing a Wii for the first time. That really took me back to being a kid. I only ever played a couple of games of golf and tennis, but the fact it involved all of your energy and body movements to work the thing rather than just being a handheld controller was thrilling. The brief time I spent on the Wii was as fun as any hour I’ve spent on any other game, although I’m sure that the novelty soon wears off. However, I am 100% convinced that Golf on the Wii is more fun than golf in real life. I didn’t think I could get that excited about games anymore but it made me realize that these new gen consoles are still every bit as entertaining and appealing as the first consoles were. Sure people will say they’re just better in appearance but as an experience they just keep getting better and better.
And with that being said I’m DEFINITELY going to get myself an Xbox 360 when I’ve a few hundred quid spare. The brief spells I’ve had on Xbox Live have convinced me that there’s many more golden memories to be had. All-in-all you just can’t beat video games. I don’t care who thinks they’re sad – they’ve entertained me so much and for so long that I firmly believe an extra hour should be allocated to every day where by law you have to play video games. That would fucking rule.
So… what are your favourite video game memories?
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