Oh man, those broken jukes! And the Broncos were pro bowl team status on this one and 99.


>lots of agreeable replies so far. I had to think about this
>quite a bit.
>
>Super Mario Bros. (NES) -- I still never beat it. but this is
>videogames to me.
>
>Sega Rally (Arcade/Saturn) - pretty much every racing game was
>an "arcade" racer at this point, so when I finally played this
>one, it was the first time it felt like you were actually
>driving a real vehicle. the physics were amazing, and you
>couldn't just power slide, Mario Kart style through entire
>races. but it was still arcade-y enough to be fun and not
>painfully challenging.
>
>Harvest Moon (SNES) - the first game for me where you could do
>nothing. there was no time clock (aside from the passing of
>days) or farm monster coming or any real crisis to attend to.
>it was pure side-quest fun, as a main game. I loved it.
>
>Ape Escape (PS1) - I couldn't tell you shit about this game, I
>think I only ever played it on a PlayStation magazine demo
>disc, but it still broke my mind because you had to use both
>analog controllers at the same time. I was an analog hold out
>(didn't like the N64 controller) and most 32-bit games were
>still clunky enough that it didn't matter (remember when 30
>FPS was amazing and 15-20 FPS was acceptable?). this game made
>me realize there is life after the d-pad.
>
>Myth: The Fallen Lords (PC/Mac) -- I was so hyped for this
>because there wasn't much interesting gaming happening on the
>old Apple computers. Bungie was only marquee gamedev for Macs
>(Marathon series) and this was going to be a huge cross-play
>title for them. the reason it makes the list, however, was
>this was the first game where I enjoyed online gaming. it
>wasn't an easy game to play, but you didn't just get bulldozed
>like FPS games (Doom, Quake) if your skill level wasn't elite.
>so many great memories, and the first and only time I was ever
>part of an online gaming community.
>
>NFL Gameday '98 (PS1) - if you were a gamer during the 8-bit,
>16-bit and 32-bit ages, you definitely have a ton of
>crystalized moments where you felt the technology taking you
>to new places. watching fully polygonal football players, with
>smooth motion capture, move around the field was one of those
>moments. it made Madden look like pure dogshit and sports
>games were never the same.
>
>Metal Gear Solid (PS1) - this was the first defining "game as
>a movie" for me. the playable beginning, where you get shot
>from a torpedo tube and sneak into the elevator, then the
>opening title rolls as you ascend…just the first of many
>amazing sequences that had never been experienced before. the
>next generation of gaming went too far with the cinematic
>concept (and we found out most game directors would be shitty
>movie directors), but this experience will forever be an
>unassailable landmark.
>
>Half-Life (PC) -- this came out right after MGS, but it took
>me a while to play it since I didn't have a gaming PC at the
>time. I know there are predecessors in the FPS genre that did
>a lot of the real-time story-building that Valve accomplished,
>but like MGS, this was the complete package for me and changed
>how I thought of FPS games. I still have a mental scar from
>the first time I got pulled towards the ceiling by a
>barnacle.
>
>Street Fighter IV (PC) - I played Street Fighter since II in
>the arcades, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo took away so many
>hours when it hit SNES, I would say that Alpha 3 is one of my
>favorite games of all-time, and I remember watching EVO Moment
>#37 not too long after it happened. that said. the coalescence
>of IV reviving the fighting game genre and later, live
>streaming through Twitch, made me realize I've been playing
>fighting games for 20 years but had no idea really how to play
>them. plus/minus, frame traps, mix-ups…the FGC became a
>whole new world to me and occupied most of my gaming hours for
>the next several years.
>
>Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - I can't really pinpoint which was
>the first great RPG I played, since I got into them all at
>once -- from 1993-1995 I remember renting Secret of Mana and
>Chrono Trigger from Blockbuster, while scanning FuncoLand ads
>for used Final Fantasy II/III (US) cartridges that were less
>than $70.
>
>but I do know that Final Fantasy VI was the RPG that made me a
>fan for life. the imagination, the art design, the ensemble
>cast that all had their own characterization, the gotdamn best
>villain ever, the 16-bit soundtrack that blows away most
>orchestrated attempts to rival it, the beautiful layers to the
>story -- fuck, how many games since then have had moments that
>come close to Setzer piloting Daryl's airship out of her tomb?
>which happens right after Celes on Solitary Island?
>
>videogames had always been fun, but this is the first one that
>made me "feel" something. a perfect gaming experience.