There’s not much to mention about my video gaming life in University. Now in Halifax, I couldn’t very well bring up all my systems (especially in my little dorm room). I had a PS2 that fulfilled my needs throughout my Bachelor of Commerce and it did the trick. A lot of my first year could easily be divided into the 3 games played after dinner. The Star Wars: Battlefront months, the Super Smash Bros. Melee months, and the DotA months. By 4th year (having moved into an apartment after 1st year), I had managed to slowly bring my TG 16 and (what was now my) Atari 2600 from Toronto. I now had a multi-tap and 3 controllers for the TG 16 and played Bomberman just about any time there were more than 3 people in the apartment. There was a time Keith and I logged about 5 hours of consecutive Bomberman time during the Summer of 3rd year. With the advent of Rock Band, it was not long before Bomberman was replaced as the de facto multiplayer game of the household.

Having realized that my dream (and as far as I’m concerned, the dream of anyone who played video games as a child) of being a video game guy (read: designer) wasn’t going to happen, I figured I needed to prepare for a career in something else. Not sure what to do, I decided to go into my next interest, Commerce, and bank on the fact that everything has a business aspect to it. The theory being that I could find my way into the company I wanted to work for by entering through the business side. Progressing through academics, extra curriculars, and internships, I learned more about what I didn’t want to do, than what I wanted to do. My favourite business-related activities at the time were brainstorming entrepreneurial and business ideas with friends, but without any solid and respectable experience to back it up, I’d have a tough time being a new-grad consultant.

Upon graduation, I headed back to Toronto with the hopes of finding work. As a graduation gift for myself, I purchased an Xbox360 (which I also have no attachment to), After a few possible prospects drying up, a standing offer from an Investment and Insurance firm to work as an adviser (read: salesman), a standing offer to work as an equity day trader, I came across a job posting for a Nova Scotian game company, HB-Studios. Realizing that this was once my dream, I applied to the position of Game Designer. I was incredibly impressed with the company’s portfolio, what was being said about them, their facilities, and was eager to remain in Nova Scotia. After completing the company Game Designer test and going through a phone interview (I was still in Toronto), I was lucky enough to be invited back for an in person interview at the studio. It’s now been 4 months and I love having the opportunity to brainstorm, problem solve, and create. There’s still lots to learn, but I’m up to the task. And my TurboGrafX-16? It’s still close by, hooked up to the TV at my desk.

It was around this time our family upgraded from our old DOS PC to a system capable of running a Windows OS. Not just any Windows OS…Windows 95. I was ballin’ now. Playing Demo CDs pilfered from my uncle’s library, being introduced to the wonders of the Maxis Sim games, making shortcuts of everything so I could change the icons, I was in heaven. I could now properly play LucasArts and the Dune adventure games on my home computer and not have to exercise extreme amounts of patience in playing bit by bit whenever I was at my uncle’s. I must’ve played (at least the demo) of nearly everything that was out around that time. Fond memories of that first video card upgrade my dad got for it that allowed me to run my newly purchased Spycraft (by Activision).

It was also around this time that Andrew and I used to go over to my place after school and watch It’s Alive! every day and check to see if the entries we sent in for their daily Panasonic 3DO drawing had any success. We never won…but hey…the shows were good. Maybe it was for the better too as looking back on it, I don’t know why we were so enthralled. Maybe it was the cut scenes or Road Rash…but I’m glad we avoided that pitfall.

After saving up enough money, I scoured every week’s Buy and Sell magazine after my dad finished with them. Eventually, I found a guy selling the Nintendo 64, 4 controllers, a memory card, a rumble pack, and 5 games (Mario 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64) for $350. Being in love with Fighting Force for the Playstation, it was a tough choice to go to the N64, but one I do not regret at all. Goldeneye soon became my game of choice and I spent a lot of time totally owning my friends. After that, I decided to give World Tour a try, only to have it totally rope me into following wrestling until about Grade 10. By the end of the N64′s life span, I owned every WCW wrestling game (unfortunately including Mayhem…so bad) and WWF: No Mercy. My verdict? Every wrestling game AKI/THQ made for the 64 was pure gold. I can probably trace my religious following of pro wrestling to the beginning and ending of the span of AKI/THQ wrestling games.

After having played the N64 for quite some time past its “death”, I was lucky enough to have my entire family pitch together to get me a PS2. Honestly, it was a great system, and I had a lot of great times with it, but it really didn’t give me the warm fuzzies and amazing memories of my other systems. I was in high school now and it seemed like there were way more important things going on than video games. It’s not that I didn’t play the system very often (believe me I did…being able to play Time Crisis from my bed was amazing), but reflecting upon my time with the system doesn’t evoke the same nostalgia that I get from my other video game memories. The PS2 (and every system after that) just seemed like a machine that played games. As such, I don’t really have any special memories of the system other than I’ve gotten a LOT of play time out of it, still playing to this day. The only real emotion I think I can get out of it is that it followed me through high school, university, and as a recent graduate, always reliable for a good time.

Part 1: The Early Years

Introduced to video games by my uncle at a very early age, I’d spend countless hours punching LOAD “*”,8,1 into his Commodore and playing endless hours of Choplifter, Donald Duck’s Playground, Beach-Head, and Summer Games. Soon it was off to his Mattel Intellivision and playing The Dreadnought Factor, Shark! Shark! (God what an amazing game), and Baseball. When it got too cold to play games in the basement, it was off upstairs to play some Atari 2600 (a system now sitting next to my TV as I write this). Just as back then, I still play Keystone Kapers, Jungle Hunt (I maintain the cannibal is quite possibly the hardest boss ever), Boxing, Pole Position (An Epic commercial for its time), and Pete Rose Baseball (Easily my best baseball game experience until the mid to late 90s).

It wasn’t long (actually it took a really long time) before I realized I was playing systems and games manufactured before I was even born. PC gaming with nearly all early Apogee titles, as well as other titles like Fairy Godmother, Navy SEAL, and Ninja Gaiden II (I won’t even mention the Tetris knockoff, NYET), on the family 286 wasn’t cutting it either. Though I can’t put my finger on the exact date, sometime in the early 90s I came into possession of a TurboGrafX-16. I remember my dad came home out of the blue and there it was along with Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and Bomberman (I stand firm the TG16 version is the greatest incarnation).

With my first proper console to call my own, I spent every birthday and Christmas hoping to get more games. Though my collection never expanded beyond about 10 games, Darkwing Duck on the TG16 was the first proper game I can remember actually completing. Complete with memories of trips to Toys R Us to buy more games, that was my first true warm fuzzy moment with video games. To this day, buying a video game just doesn’t seem right without having to take a slip from a sleeve below a video game box cover and giving it to a CSR in a cage at the front of the store and waiting for them to get your game.

Unfortunately, within a short time of my receiving the system (or possibly before I even received the system), NEC discontinued support and the games dried up. I speculate it was picked up second hand, but I still love it just the same. With that, my parents came through in the year of what I want to say was 1993 one Christmas morning with gifts of a generic 35mm camera (which lasted many years before breaking) and a Sega Game Gear. This marked the first time I had a system that was fairly current. I took that thing everywhere, going as far to own about 4 sets of battery packs, that magnifying attachment to make the screen ‘bigger’, the suitcase, the tote bag, a link cable I never used, and more games than I can name. I got countless amounts of game play out of that thing and at times crave to play it again (if only I knew where it was). My one regret? I never got the Lion King game…damn that game looked cool.

I also picked up a Game Boy along the way. Honestly, I prefered the Game Gear. That’s not to say I didn’t get play with the GB but I never had many games for it. When Pokemon Blue and Red came out though, things changed. I was a total Pokemaniac and I maintain that my lineup could (and did) take down anyone. On my birthday, I managed to get a Color edition later (my original got weird lines on the screen after one too many drops) with Pokemon Silver, but by then the system was dying off (as far as I was concerned) and I was content with some knock-off game cart that had about 100 games and wouldn’t let you save.

While everyone else was sitting at home playing their Genesis or SNES, I only got to play when at a friend’s place or we went to the mall and I was dropped off at a Toys R Us or Sears where I could play Super Mario World, Kid Chameleon, NBA Live 95, or that horrible split-screen casino level from Sonic 2 until the 5 minute limit expired and I had to give up my spot to the kid waiting behind me. While I’d begged for a SNES, my pleas went unheard. I was content to go over to my friend, Andrew’s, place after school and play with him and whatever game he was able to get on rental from Blockbuster. Highlights include perfecting every finishing and special move in Mortal Kombat I and II, beating Donkey Kong Country co-operatively, getting my first taste of Super Punch Out, being introduced to the pure awesomeness of Metal Warriors, and being ridiculously disappointed with Rise of the Robots (especially when I was FINALLY allowed to be Player 1 only to discover I could only play as that crappy humanoid robot while Andrew got to be big-ass crane robots with crushing power).

Soon I was totally engrossed the growing mech that was the Genesis system. Continuously adding peripherals like the 32X and Sega CD like Lego Blocks were my type of thing! It was around that time that my parents got a Price Club (now Costco) membership and I was often left in the video game section while they went off and bought bulk Biscotti. Every time I was dropped off, I recall hoping that the systems were running Sewer Shark or Tomcat Alley and not that damn Ecco the Dolphin. Sure I guess Ecco was a good game, but I was a kid at the time and playing as a dolphin doing seemingly nothing was boring.

Having logged more time playing SNES and the Franken-Genesis in stores, than many friends at their home, I was hopeful for my next birthday. As I unwrapped the last present, to my initial dismay, I saw that I didn’t get one of the big two consoles, but a GeoSafari and 2 expansion card packs instead. I’d played the game many times before when my parents took me to the local Mastermind and thought it was awesome. My parents had thought that the Genesis would be too violent a system for me (thanks Mortal Kombat) and decided this would be better. In hindsight, I’m grateful. That GeoSafari taught me so much random information about previous world leaders, famous historical events, countless geographic locations, and various biological wonders. Loved the system and to this day have fond memories of it.

Part 2: The Later Earlier Years