My Gaming History: Kris Pt1

So Christmas is nearly here, and the gaming world is slowing down a little. With some time to reflect and some space to breath we thought it would be nice to take a look back at our pasts, how we got from our gaming origins to TSA. Over the coming days you’ll see posts from Peter (colossalblue), Alex (nofi) and myself talking about our fondest memories, our biggest influences and pretty much anything that takes our fancy. So if you want to know why we’re the grumpy old people we are, or why we cling to old games so tightly now is your chance to find out.

The Spectrum Years

This is the most honest thing I’ve ever written. In fact by a pretty huge margin, a margin the size of the grand canyon, this is the most honest I’ve ever been with anyone. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t actually been inside my head knows everything in here, people I’ve been close to for almost a decade don’t know some of these things. Why am I writing this then? I have absolutely no idea, possibly because I have a memory that regularly fails or plays tricks on me, and I don’t want to forget the things in here.

What is this? Well this is the story of why I play games, how I came to them and the things that surrounded me at the time. There’s very little self editing here, everything (with exactly one exception) is how it happened to the best of my memory.

As I sit and write this, I have very little idea what’s going to happen. I don’t know how long this will be, how many stories I’ll write or even if anyone apart from my editor, Peter (better known as colossalblue), will read this. If it’s rambly I apologise, and if you couldn’t care less about my history of gaming, how I got from the Spectrum to the Xbox 360 then I’d stop reading right now. Why bother even taking the time to write a dismissive comment, just leave and read something else you’ll enjoy; TSA alone has another 10,000 options for you.

Every single game I’ve ever played can be simply traced back to one man, my dad. I don’t know how many other people share the experience, although I suspect people who kicked off their habit with Pong are less likely than those who started with Halo. For me though it’s always been my dad, even though he doesn’t really play games he’s always shown an interest. Even now he has opinions on Move and Kinect beyond what he could have gathered purely from advertising (he sees the benefits of Move, but thinks Kinect is more interesting).

He was the one who introduced me the magic of the Spectrum, although after I’d displayed an interest in my Grandfather’s PC and managed to delete the Minesweeper shortcut from my Dad’s machine on the day he purchased it. The Spectrum was probably just a way to keep me thinking I was important and away from newer computers that contained work documents.

Now, I’ve always been a bit behind the curve. When I was getting my hands on that Spectrum the SNES had been out for at least a year and the Master System II that I would eventually move on to had been out for three or four years. I’m not certain on the exact date the tape driven behemoth became mine.

The date isn’t the only thing that escape me, I don’t actually remember much at all from my first gaming machine. I have some vague memories of playing Booty – a pirate based platformer – and apparently we had Football Manager and Valhalla although I don’t think I ever touched them. The only other memory I have from way back when was of a special tape my dad had that had been made by someone at the hotel he used to work at. It was called Gumsgo (a pretty terrible play on Lipscombe) and featured stick-men send ups of his colleagues just wandering about, although it wasn’t a game.

Sadly that’s pretty much all I remember of the Spectrum, but it’s where I got my start and it will always be dear to my heart. I sold it for about £5 quite some time ago and regret the decision. Hopefully I’ll own one again soon, even if it’s just for decoration. Next up was the Master System, and that’s a system I’ve got a lot more to say about.

23 Comments

  1. I’d of payed £10 for a spectrum. :) My dad got me a PS1 and I’d never really been interested in gaming before then. I’ve been hooked ever since, even if everybody knew it was really for him.

  2. Amazingly it was my mum who got me into gaming. She bought an original NES with Mario after drinking way too much at my Auntie and Uncle’s and playing theirs for hours. She then bought the SNES but it wasn’t until I got a Playstation for my birthday one year that I really got into gaming :)

    • Almost exactly the same story as me. Though my mum never plays games nowadays apart from a bit of Wii, she was the one who got me into gaming with Mario on the NES.

      • :) Given how much I play games these days I think she curses the day she bought that NES. LOL.

  3. I got given my cousins old NES when I was like 3. Played the hell out of it until I got a playstation about 5 years later, but I also dabbled in PC gaming with Myst and Heretic, Doom and Quake etc. Then obviously PS2 and PS3. Playing on my friends Megadrives, Dreamcasts, N64’s, Gamecubes, Wiis, Xbox, 360’s along the way.

    Will be reading these articles with interest ;)

  4. My first console was the PS1 when I was 8, I just got GT1 as my first console game ever and I loved it.

  5. Good read and looking forward to the rest.

    My kick start into the gaming world was the good old comodore 64 a x-mass prezzy back in the 80’s, followed by amigas, master sytems, megadrives then onto the glory that is the Play Stations!

  6. I am one of the few who started with pong.
    Console/Computer history – Binatone B&W TV Game, Atari 2600, 48k ZX Spectrum, 512k Atari STFM, NES, SNES, PS1, N64, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, PSP, Xbox360, Wii, PS3.
    I still currently own a NES, Gamecube, Wii, PS2 and PS3.

    • Well,i’m one of those few mate..Binatone (orange and black casing) obviously had tennis A.K.A Pong, as well as (audacity here) American football (4 paddles on screen), squash (1 or 2 player), er…and…er…fuck knows, summat else..ZX80/ZX81,VIC20 (my all time fave).speccy 48 (rubber keys) speccy 48+ (hard casing with inverted keys- cool!) commodore +4 (yeah i had to get sidled with C64’s bastard son, who’s programming language was totally different so uncompatable with C64’s software) fuck dust! then i guess the usual run of hardware…the twilight years are the best though ;-)
      P.s ST was the boy :P

      • Bloody buggering twat (will this get censored too?) i meant the formative years..or the dawn of gaming.

  7. My parents bought an MSX Toshiba when all my mates had spectrums or the commodore 64. Wasnt too pleased as it was a bitch to get games, although games that came on cartridge where miles better than anything else at the time. Still have it wrapped in newspaper in the garage. Good times…

    • Hey the MSX had metal gear solid mate! My mate had one, and someone had a dragon32, then someone with an Acorn Electron (Chucky egg, still class…swear it was an exclusive as well?)

  8. megadrive>master system>snes>playstation>N64>playstation 2>playstation3.

    gameboy>gameboy colour>gameboy advance>psp>ZTE san francisco (android)

    i know ive went back and forth a bit console wise but thats due to inheriting oolder consoles from cousins, uncles etc.

  9. I started on the ZX Spectrum, then the Master System, SNES, then onto the Sony Systems.

    Like yourself, I think my dad has really influenced my gaming. We spent hours playing street fighter, tomb raider & sonic together, and they still remain amongst my favorite games of all time.
    His love of pinball (traditional tables) has really rubbed off too.

    I suppose it’s akin to the father who pushes his son into sports, or even academia. Games are just far more fun.

    • I also had “pong” at home, but I was a little too young to have realised at the time just how amazing a couple of white lines could be.

  10. Anyone here ever owned a SEGA MultiMega? Loved that lil machine.

    • my aunty had a sega saturn…

      if that indeed bears any relation.

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