John “Dubya” Whitehouse
My earliest memories of gaming came when my dad got me a Commodore 64 for my birthday. It was so long ago, but at the time I felt as if I was on the cutting edge of gaming! The dodgy joystick, the terrible graphics and the unbearable 5 minute wait for a game to load, only to find out there was an error and you had to start again! Those days are long behind us, but I remember them fondly.
Back in those days, games were almost unbeatable; games like Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy we often impossible to beat as they were full of bugs and often crashed, but that didn’t stop me from playing them. Then there was my favourite, Dizzy. Back when Codemasters were bedroom programmers they created one of the greatest platforming heroes of all time… A boiled egg!
I often feel sorry for people who are a generation younger than I am. Sure, they got into gaming when the PS2 was king and had gaming put on a plate for them, but they missed its roots and never really had to suffer as we did. I appreciate those early days of home gaming, as now I can be thankful for all that we have now.
Michael “PaladinXII” Futter
Like John, my earliest gaming memories came from a system you can only find in museums now. The Texas Instruments 99-4/A was my very first gaming apparatus. With it, I climbed the highest mountains in the world, avoiding skunks and bigfoot (Alpine), flew through treacherous space caverns while managing my heat and fuel (Parsec) and stepped lightly in slime-filled caverns while tracking a dangerous beast (Hunt the Wumpus).
The TI 99-4/A was a computer, rather than a game console and, as such, it gave me access to new forms of storage. We had a tape cassette drive for the machine, along with the first floppy drive I ever laid hands on. I learned how to program in Basic at a very young age with it. My love of gaming was born, and I never looked back.
From there, I tracked Carmen Sandiego across the world and time and died of dysentery on the Oregon Trail in the school computer labs filled with Apple ][ e computers. When I got my first real console, a Nintendo Entertainment System, it was all over. From the best games on the system like Wizards and Warriors (and its sequel, Ironsword) to the worst (Gumshoe!), and everything in between, I absorbed it all. My parents never really understood my love of gaming, especially when I got older and “should have outgrown it.” Thankfully, they’ve watched the times change and, even if they don’t get it, they accept that I love gaming and it will forever be part of my life.
That’s all for this edition of the ZTGD Reviewer Rodeo. Join us next week as we grab onto another bucking bronco of controversy and beat it into submission.
Got questions or comments? Drop ’em in the comment section below or hit us up via email. Suggestions for Reviewer Rodeo topics that you want our opinions on? Hit Mike up at michaelfutter@ztgamedomain.com.
