Misc. Writings

With advents for high-definition console gaming being the constant feature of our big-screen TVs, it becomes quite obvious that video games have evolved a long way since the days of Pong. As graphics, sound, and gameplay complexity continues to improve, the world’s population must surely be made up of more gamers than ever before.

Now, is it just my age speaking, or are games really not as much fun to play as they used to be? It seems that with two-thirds of the current trend of gaming consoles in my possession (Xbox 360 and Wii) the only time I really get the urge to use them is to play new games in franchises that have been long running since my youth (i.e. Mario, Zelda, Street Fighter).

You could argue that time is an obvious factor to why I don’t play as much video games as I used to. But the main point I’m making here is the desire to play new video games for hours and hours, without eating or sleeping, like I used to, just isn’t there anymore.

My pinnacle gaming era began in 1992 when my parents introduced me to the Commodore Amiga 600 at Christmas time. The 600 variant of the home computer was the first to be manufactured in the UK, and was the smallest of its kind. I soon discovered games such as Sensible Soccer and Lemmings that were so rich in their simple playability that it became somewhat an addiction basing my entire life around video games at that time.

It’s hard to believe now that the chunky, dirty-white hardware was the centre of entertainment in our household, and that the games actually came on floppy disks! It might just be nostalgia speaking, but the Commodore Amiga inspired such a classic era that it should always be mentioned in the soon-to-be-huge history book of video gaming.

The purpose of this article is to remember some of the most entertaining games from my most active -- and fun -- era of video gaming, for the sake of combining my love for writing with my love for video games. The following list includes titles from a range of genres released on the platform (some are well-known, and some are not-so well-known) that provided me with some of my fondest memories.

Perhaps, too, my thoughts on these will inspire others to check the back catalogue of gaming, if they haven’t done so already, and give the selected a try.

Enjoy.

[Note: This is not necessarily a list of the best games; rather, the games I spent a large majority of my time fixated with].