What consoles did you have growing up and what games did you pine for on consoles you didn't have?

[Dcubed]

Title pretty much says it all.  What game consoles did you have growing up and what games for "enemy" systems did you secretly pine for?

 

Might as well start the thread with my own I suppose, it is the done thing after all!

 

1: SNES

 

My first crush 

Our household got a SNES more or less on day 1 along with Super Mario World, I was about 3 years old and I was instantly hooked on the plumbers! Naturally, from that point on I was a Nintendroid 4 lyfe and wouldn't be caught DEAD with a smelly old SEGA!!

 

Though in the background... I harboured a secret lust... That lust was for the Sonic The Hedgehog trilogy.  I had a friend growing up who had the Mega Drive, while I had the SNES.  Naturally I'd always say that the SNES was wayyyyy better! But I did secretly love the Sonic games (I was also partial to Alex the Kid and Moonwalker but shhhh, don't tell anyone that  )

 

Next up?

 

2: Super Game Boy

Shut up! It IS a console!

I actually never had a brick Game Boy (or a Game Boy Pocket for that matter!) when growing up.  Instead, my first foray into portable gaming was actually not portable at all! I got this for Xmas in 1994 along with Link's Awakening and DK94 and absolutely fell in love all over again! Here though, I always did pine for a brick Game Boy of my own; as I saw my friends with their own ones (along with Wario Land, which I wanted so bad!), but ultimately I was very happy playing these games on my telly! My library would steadily increase over time, naturally, but I wouldn't actually end up taking them portable... yet...

 

Next comes the big one!

 

3: Nintendo 64

 

Pretty accurate depiction of me circa age 9

 

Never had I wanted something so bad! I was that kid, feverishly combing every single magazine he could find, about information regarding the upcoming Ultra 64.  I NEEDED this thing and I needed it now!!!

 

I was not disapointed!

 

Super Mario 64 was all I needed that year and it was everything I could've wished for! Absolutely blew my tiny little kiddy brain to tiny pieces! Turok was kinda fun too, @Glen-i had that one.  From there, the wait for new games was absolute torture... I eventually got Pilotwing 64, Wave Race 64, Starfox 64... you know, the big name Nintendo and Rare games that literally everyone bought; but the wait in-between each title was utterly agonising (and this was also a period where the Game Boy was drying up... well... until 1998 that is...).  It was around this time that I looked to the PS1 in envy of games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Dancing Stage and Metal Gear Solid (though oddly enough, the RPGs never really appealed to me; though I did love Secret of Mana and Mystic Quest on the SNES, the PS1 RPGs never really grabbed me as a kid.  Of course, my opinions on the PS1's RPG lineup has changed since, but back then? I actually wasn't really enthralled by the Final Fantasy games at all).

 

It was never really the big name PS1 titles that grabbed my attention (Crash has always been, and still is, an utterly mediocre platforming series), but rather the smaller and more oddball titles like Intelligent Qube and the Point Blank games that always interested me.  I also never really went through that "tude" phase that teenagers back then were basically prescribed either, so perhaps that helps explain why I was never really enthralled by the most popular PS1 games back then?

 

Either that, or the sheer dearth of N64 releases that was absolutely killing me  

 

Anyway! Let's see what's next...

 

4: Game Boy Color

 

The best mis-spelt console of all time!

1998 came along and I FINALLY won my childhood lust! At last! I could take all my Game Boy games on the go! And in COLOUR! Wahey!  

Of course, naturally, Pokemon Red/Blue was the big name game (though ironically, it wasn't actually a GBC game), but I was more enthralled by the GB/GBC library as a whole.  It was here that I really started plumbing the depths of the library and started developing a more eclectic taste in games (it also helps that it was at this point where I could finally start affording to buy games on my own, instead of just getting them on birthdays and at Xmas).  The Wario Land series, Mario Land 2, Wave Race GB, DK Land, Mario Golf and so many more! It was here that I really developed an appreciation for Nintendo as a developer, and not just a love for specific series of games.  Sadly, there still weren't really all that many good 3rd party games for the system, being far and few inbetween.  But luckily it wasn't long until I sought to rectify that wrong and make the biggest jump in taste possible for a 12 year old kid...

 

5: SEGA Dreamcast

 

To be this good takes ages...

TRAITOR!!!!!!! A traitor most foul!!! Yes, I fulfilled my other childhood lust and became a SEGA turncoat.  I regretted nothing! I went nuts and developed an all new love for arcade hits like Crazy Taxi, Power Stone and Virtua Tennis, a love for oddball games like Chu Chu Rocket and Mr Driller and at last a chance to finally have my own Sonic game! I loved this system to pieces; and I still do.  I didn't get all of its big hitters on the actual system itself though... as my Dreamcast ended up getting stolen by burglers during its prime  It wasn't until years later that I ended up buying another one, but I still enjoyed games like Sonic Adventure 2, Crazy Taxi (again!) and Skies of Arcadia on the Gamecube in the interim.

 

Having a Dreamcast really made me wish that I had a Mega Drive and a Saturn back in the day, but ahh well. You can't have it all (well... until you're an adult of course  ).  I bet you guys can't guess what console came next...

 

6: Game Boy Advance

 

Was always annoyed that we didn't get that colourful bootup screen... Still am...

This was the first console that I bought with my own money... and I went ALL in! No regrets! This thing was my life as a teen! So many first loves! And it was the first time that I really bought a full library along the way.  It was also the first time that I started buying imports (there was no way I was waiting a full year for Golden Sun: The Lost Age to come out in Europe!) and the first time I really went out of my way to buy 3rd party titles on a Nintendo system (THPS2 was mindblowing!).  GBA really left me wanting for nothing, for the first time... well except for one other machine...

 

7: Nintendo Gamecube

 

Still the biggest marketing lie in all of gaming history... IT'S A CUBOID DAMMIT!!

No surprise whatsoever, I loved this thing! And I bought every major title that came its way (mostly during its life cycle, but some came afterwards).  While I was mostly happy with my cuboid love box, I did end up looking elsewhere in envy towards the end of the generation; especially as the Gamecube's lineup dried up and started reminding me of the dark days of N64 droughts... Most notably at the PS2 (for games like Katamari Demacy, Okami, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and Devil May Cry), but also at the Xbox for its SEGA games (not much else though).  So come towards the end of the generation... what did I buy next?

 

8: Playstation 1

 

Hey! It was new to me!

Instead of going with the PS2, I instead went back to the past! Finally, I could play Metal Gear Solid (which I thankfully played before its terrible GCN remake!), Final Fantasy 7-9 (After I developed a love for the series by playing Final Fantasy 1&2 and Final Fantasy 4 Advance) and Chrono Cross (after going on a retro import binge with the SNES and playing games like Crono Trigger for the first time).  But it would only be about a year or so before I took the plunge and bought...

 

9: Playstation 2

 

No way was I buying that stupidly ugly fat version!

 

Just in time for the tail end of the generation, I bought a PS2 slim and caught up on all of the games I mentioned before.  This was a US import console, meaning that I could also get my hands on US only games like Tales of the Abyss (which I was gagging for after playing and loving Tales of Symphonia! It wasn't as good as that game though.).  This definitely sustained me in those last 2 years or so, when the Gamecube lineup dried up and when the Nintendo DS lineup hadn't really gotten going yet...

 

10: Every subsequent console released since then (Except for Xbox One)

 

From this point onwards, I became totally platform agnostic and bought pretty much everything that came out from that point onwards (except for the Xbox One... partially because of the always-online DRM and partially because PC basically made it totally redundant).  I also went back and bought a Saturn and many other retro systems (including the NES, Virtual Boy and Commodore 64). 

Here ends my odyssey.  How about your own? What games and consoles did you envy as a kid? Tell us your journey! 

[Happenstance]

NES
Mega Drive
We went from NES to Mega Drive in our house and despite being interested enough to buy gaming magazines etc, I don't really ever remember having a sense of the competition for either until years later. I had a NES like my friends and I had a Mega Drive like my friends.

All of them somehow
After those two generations I just seemed to drift from console to console. There were a few like the Saturn that I didn't own until later but for the most part I had all the consoles. Never at the same time though until I could afford to buy my own. I think it was just a lot of swapping consoles when I and other friends got bored of them as I know my parents never bought me more than one console per gen. It was also the time that I got into PC gaming a lot more after the Mega Drive.

 

[Grazza]

In the 1980s we had various computers such as the Acorn Electron and the Amstrad CPC 464.  I was extremely jealous of the NES and Master System, although in the back of my mind what I really wanted was exact ports of the arcade games I loved so much, such as Double Dragon and Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja (got both of those on my Switch now :)).  I was most jealous, however, of the Amiga 500.  Many of my neighbours had them and we just couldn't afford one.  I could see how the 16-bit graphics were a massive step up from both my Amstrad CPC 464 and even my friends' 8-bit consoles.  Every time I went into computer games shops to buy £2.99 cassettes, the Amiga 500's line-up sat there on the shelf giving off a massive sense of superiority.  I don't even know what games I wanted to play, although my neighbours seemed particularly proud of owning OutRun.

 

With this is mind, you can imagine how excited I was when I went into Comet and saw the Mega Drive.  One play of Altered Beast and I was absolutely desperate for one of these machines.  Luckily, I received one for Christmas, and I have never felt so grateful for a present.  Almost immediately though, even before, perhaps, I had become jealous of the Super Famicom.  My school friends told me it was a lot better and showed me magazines with screenshots of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts.  Looking back, I don't really feel it was that much better than the Mega Drive, but it's funny how you can have a strong feeling at the time.

 

I suppose I became a bit spoilt after that, because I was allowed a SNES the year after and, when the next generation came, I bought both a Saturn and N64.  Now this is where "enemy" consoles come in.  Whilst I had been envious of Nintendo and the Amiga, it was nothing personal.  I absolutely bloomin' hated the PlayStation though!  It frustrated my immature mind how people could just abandon the franchises they had claimed to love before and jump ship to a newcomer.  Although I had dalliances with Ridge Racer in the arcade and had fantasies about buying a PlayStation, I could never actually do it.

 

The generation after, I'm afraid I was totally bored by the Dreamcast (something I still don't fully understand) and was gripped by the GameCube.  My anti-Sony feelings disappeared when Nintendo revealed the Wii.  I was so angry with how poor it seemed, I bought a PS2 with Dragon Quest VIII, Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy XII and have never felt any console loyalty since.  Mind you, it took me a while to grow out of it as I well into 20s at the time!  Nowadays, I can't imagine being jealous of any technology or strongly disliking a company.  The only things I lust for are time, concentration and my lost youth.

[Glen-i]

Oh man, I'm definitely coming back to this come Thursday when I'm not restricted to phone posting.

[bob]

I didn't have any consoles growing up really as they weren't really a thing.

However, when i moved to this country, it was around the time of the N64, which i played at a friend's house and was transfixed. I knew i had to have one! So i saved up my pocket money and bought one with Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. I don't ever really remember being jealous of anything the ps1 had to offer, especially since I only read Nintendo magazines and so didn't really know of any ps exclusive games. It wasn't until the internet that i started to take notice of games on other systems.

By that point I'd had both the GameCube and Wii, and eventually i bought an Xbox 360 to play multiformat games as well as halo and gears of war.

None of the ps exclusives around that time really interested me though, so i was happy with my Wii plus 360.

When the Next Gen rolled around, i weighed up getting either the PS4 or the XBone, and went with the ps4 i think just because so many others on here had it. Again, none of the exclusives on the XBone really turned my head, while I'm pretty happy with all the games i have on ps4 that i couldn't get anywhere else.

[Jimbob]

I'm showing my age here, but the first console i "technically" had was a GrandStand

I say technically, it was something my Dad owned from his days in the Army.  It was my first experience of gaming, and it was a good little machine.  Took (i think) those big round batteries (D i think).

I can't remember which way around my first proper console arrived, but i did have both a Gameboy and an NES within a year of each other.  The NES i had for Christmas and the Gameboy for my Birthday.  Mostly had these because my Dad wanted to play, and the deal between him and my Mum was that he had to share.   The Gameboy came with Tetris, and the NES came with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt (complete with light gun).  I did get a few more games on both machines over the years, most notably Super Mario Land and Dr Mario on the Gameboy.

Somewhere in the 90's, i asked for a SNES for Christmas.  However, i ended up with a Mega Drive II instead along with a copy of Columns 2, Super Hang On and World Cup Italia.  Went to a local market a few weeks later and picked up Sonic the Hedgehog (complete with the cheat code written on the cover).  No complaints with this machine, was the first games console that got me into gaming.  Before this, the Gameboy and NES were mostly shared machines for the family.  However, the Mega Drive was the first console exclusively for me. 

I had other games for the Mega Drive, including Alien Soldier, TazMania, Toy Story and Aladdin.  I had borrowed Sonic 2 along with Sonic and Knuckles from my cousin around the time he got a PlayStation with Tomb Raider.  Can't say i missed not owning a SNES at the time, i was having a lot of fun with the Mega Drive.  However, because i had the Mega Drive, the Gameboy and NES became my sisters.  And she was not happy with sharing, and the urge to play Nintendo creeped up.  I was around the age of getting pocket money, and around the time of my birthday, i had saved some of it up and along with some birthday money, i nabbed myself a Gameboy Color

Because of my sisters selfishness, my parents took her copy of Pokemon Red and gave it to me to go along with it (she kept Blue), i had also picked up a copy of Link's Awakening and re-acquired Tetris from a box in the attic (i did eventually get all the Gameboy games back when she threw them in the bin one day).  This was my own Gameboy, and i got my urge filled for Nintendo.  Because of this, i asked for an N64 for Christmas of 1999.

I got one, along with Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64.  Both these games alone was more than enough to last.  It was around this time i had a paper round, so was able to buy the odd game here and there (wasn't a regular round, more cover for someone as and when).  It was also around this time i discovered that N64 games were expensive, so quite a few of my games came from Gamestation's pre-owned area.  The likes of Mario Kart 64, F-Zero X and Turok 2 were fine examples which cost me a couple of pounds instead of mega bucks.  The first N64 game i got new was Banjo Kazooie, which i got from my wages on the odd round.  Only a players choice copy, which wasn't expensive (that range of games was a godsend at times).  Majora's Mask followed in 2000, and so did Donkey Kong 64. 

Ended up with a copy of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark down the line (Perfect Dark was from a friend, he got bored of gaming.  GoldeneEye i got at a carboot sale)

The N64 was the era where i got into my gaming magazines, of course it was N64 magazine i purchased.  It was here i learned about E3 and the gaming world itself, so i knew when things were coming out.  More so, the GBA and GameCube, both machines i had a keen interest in getting.

When i did get a GameCube and GameBoy Advance, these 2 machines were the last ones i got from my parents (well, they contributed to the GameCube, i got the GBA).  They nearly got me a Dreamcast, but went to the Nintendo route (and i guess i was lucky as the Dreamcast ended Sega's console business soon after).

The rest as you say, is history.  I did get an Xbox 360 (the first non-Nintendo machine since the Mega Drive) over a Wii as i wasn't happy with the route Nintendo were going after the GameCube.  The 360 introduced me to the world of Online gaming (and the price tag).  I did get a Wii though a year or so later, but this era was the first era of owning 2 home consoles over just the 1 and a handheld.   Have owned a DS, 3DS and WiiU for Nintendo (can't say no to the Big N).

I would have got a Xbox One, but the last straw was E3 2013 (i was growing tired of the 360 in the last 2 years leading to this, with their focus on media and Kinect coming through).  So for the first time, i got a PS4 and have loved it.  Unlike the 360, where i had 3 consoles in it's lifetime (Premium, Elite and Slim), the PS4 i have is the launch model i got nearly 6 years ago and it's still going strong.  And over a year ago, got a Nintendo Switch which rekindled my Nintendo love again.

[Ronnie]

NES was my first console, I think it was technically my brother's but I played a ton on it. Mostly SMB, as well as Wrecking Crew, Ice Climber, Bubble Bobble () and TMNT (that overhead truck level ffs). 

I got the SNES at Xmas and remember falling in love with Street Fighter II, and obviously Super Mario World. Felt mind blowing seeing those two and things like F-Zero and Stafox on demo units in shops at the time. 

I never had a SEGA console till the Dreamcast but I didn't really care if they did well or not, I went to a friend's house and played Echo the Dolphin, Sonic and some weird point and click adventure game that had Greensleeves as a background track at one point, wish I could remember what that game was. 

Funnily enough, just as strong as my nostalgia for the consoles themselves, I've also got massively fond memories of the tv series Games World. That was a big deal at that age, I loved every night of the week was a different theme/programme. Used to love Madame Pixel's Peep Parlour especially, think that was on Wednesdays. 

[Jimbob]

17 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Funnily enough, just as strong as my nostalgia for the consoles themselves, I've also got massively fond memories of the tv series Games World. That was a big deal at that age, I loved every night of the week was a different theme/programme. Used to love Madame Pixel's Peep Parlour especially, think that was on Wednesdays. 

Just on this part, you reminded of some TV series i used to watch.  Mostly Gamesmaster (as i reckon many of us watched here).  I also watched Gamesville (all i remember about this was that Guru they had) and one other i can't remember.

Most of my gaming info came from the likes of N64 magazine, NGC Magazine and the Official Xbox Magazine.  Didn't bother with the likes of Edge or Gamesmaster, being a mostly Nintendo-only gamer in the 90's/00's they didn't have a lot on this.

[Aperson]

1. Game Boy Color

 

I was something of a late starter to video games as a whole though I'd played a few simple DOS games on PC before then but the first console I owned was a Game Boy Color as, like many people at the time, I was big into Pokemon. This was mainly through the anime and TCG but after playing Pokemon Red on someone else's GBC (they let me start a file on condition that I didn't save over their already existing one) I became totally enamoured and gained a huge desire to be able to play the game myself. So after getting a GBC I got Pokemon Red around the same time and spent the evening meal out reading the "Trainers Guide" as it were. After that, I wasn't really interested in playing anything other than Pokemon games and had to be persuaded to diversify and try other games, so I ended up getting Star Wars Episode I Racer, but it wasn't too long after that that I got Pokemon Pinball and was brought right back to it. Pokemon basically not only introduced me to video games, but it gave me a liking towards the RPG genre, especially when Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on GBC game out the following year and clued me in to the fact that Pokemon's gameplay style was in fact part of a wider genre of games. Actually, did anyone own this game?

 

 

My game tastes would remain extremely limited for the next few years as I wasn't really interested in anything that wasn't Pokemon, Harry Potter or... Crash Bandicoot which I played at a friend's house on the Playstation (OK, I was also interested in LEGO and Mario but I didn't really buy those games). As a result I skipped out on both Link's Awakening and Metroid II though after developing retrospective interests in those series I would eventually get around to playing them. Sometimes you don't know what you'll end up getting interested in in the future. After getting Gold and TCG on Game Boy however it became apparent that the Game Boy Color was on the way out and if I wanted to further my game collection I needed to switch to the Game Boy Advance. 

 

2. Game Boy Advance

 

So yeah, this is exactly what I did. My first GBA game, wanting to have my own Crash game, was Crash Bandicoot XS. By this point I was trying to move away from Pokemon as I was approaching teenage years and I still thought Pokemon had a kiddy reputation. I gave away Pokemon Gold and was prepared to focus on other games... but a leaflet for Ruby/Sapphire on holiday changed my mind and at that moment I came to the realisation that even if Pokemon wasn't massively popular anymore it didn't mean I didn't have to like the games anymore. I see this as the point where I changed from going out of the series to buying every single mainline game. It wasn't too long after getting Ruby that I ended up getting Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire, which isn't really surprising considering I loved the original Pokemon Pinball. I think this one was a bit easier because I got near completion on Pokedex apart from Latios. My narrow minded gaming interests then saw me buy Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup, Crash Nitro Kart (because I wanted Crash Team Racing but didn't have the console to play it on) and Crash Fusion and while I finished all these games, So I was effectively buying gimped sequels to the games I actually wanted to play because I was sticking to Nintendo consoles. Then, I gave away Pokemon Red because FireRed and LeafGreen came out. I was not originally going to get these games on the grounds of them being remakes of a game I already have (I still follow this rule today for the most part) but after seeing other people play the remakes I suddenly gained the desire to play them. It cost me the very first game I owned but in hindsight LeafGreen is a better game overall. After starting to read gaming magazines and learn about reviews (yes, somehow the notion that video games could be bad was a foreign concept to me for three years) I sought after some new gaming franchises to play after realising that the Crash Bandicoot franchise was not as good as it used to be and Harry Potter was not really going anywhere good. At that time, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap was coming out for GBA and a friend recommended the Zelda series to me. I didn't really understand this series for a while but in view for something to play I went and got the Minish Cap... and it all made sense after that. Minish Cap was the perfect "first Zelda" since it didn't really connect to any other games in obvious ways and it had by far the best story in a video game I'd experienced up to that point. Funny then, that this would be the last GBA game I would get before moving onto the next console... but the quality of GBA games purchased after that would improve as I sought some of my newer gaming interests. I got the "other" Zelda game on GBA, Link to the Past, long after I was in the next phase of gaming and eventually acquired what would become my favourite game of all time, Final Fantasy VI Advance. The last GBA game I ever bought was Metroid: Zero Mission as a bi-product of another developed franchise interest.

 

3. Nintendo GameCube

 

This was my first plunge into home consoles. I had played Super Circuit on GBA so naturally the deal with the Mario Kart Double Dash bundle seemed like the best way to acquire a Gamecube at the time. This was in the era of a price drop and you could get a GameCube and Mario Kart for just £80. And while I did play Mario Kart a lot on there, there were two other games I got with it, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Spider-Man 2. Reviews noted to me that these games were actually quite decent but I wasn't really expecting masterpieces from either of them... I wound up loving SA2 way more than I was expecting to and it was the first real single player game I played. Spider-Man 2 was a game I already had on PC but the Gamecube version was way better and unsurprisingly that was the game that held my attention... until I got stuck (I wouldn't end up finishing Spider-Man 2 for another 13 years!). Still loved Double Dash though, racing games were a genre that I was definitely into by this point, both kart and realistic through playing some PC games. This lead to me acquiring Burnout, a great game with a great soundtrack and one of the best realistic racing games ever made. It's sequel is even better but... I wouldn't get around to that game for another few years and it wouldn't even be on Gamecube.

 

Unfortunately me liking SA2 so much lead me down the Sonic game trap. I bought Sonic Heroes which was still enjoyable even if it wasn't quite the same quality as SA2 (and today I can see the flaws in that game that I couldn't before) and eventually bought Shadow the Hedgehog. That wasn't even the end of it all, but by this point Sonic was a series I definitely enjoyed a lot, for better or for worse. In between these two games I would acquire my next console but I will wait on that. After getting The Legend of Zelda: Collectors Edition I was finally able to play a game I'd seen hyped up in magazines as one of the greatest games ever made, Ocarina of Time. This was a bit of a double whammy as I had already played Super Mario 64 earlier in the year and via ports had got to experience the N64's two most defining first party games. But in terms of actual new Gamecube games I got Wind Waker. By this point my developing game interests are concurrent with the console I got after and now as a teenager I naturally had friends more interested in teenage type games including my first exposure to the FPS genre with Timesplitters 2. FPS' seemed like the natural next genre to get into... but that inadvertently introduced me to the Metroid franchise. I picked up Metroid Prime 2 after seeing it in a gamestore and proceeded to play it from there. In hindsight it would have been better to play Metroid Prime 1 first but I would get around to that game eventually and it would become one of my favourite games of all time. The Gamecube library grew from there and I had managed to gain enough of a general interest in video games that the days of relying on Pokemon for gaming seemed a long way off. Super Mario Sunshine, Donkey Konga, Super Monkey Ball and Soulcalibur II would follow as part of the Gamecube collection and genuine hype for the Wii was building now. By the time the Wii came out, the Gamecube had amassed by far the largest game collection for any individual console I'd owned up to that point and it would only grow after the Wii came out with Smash Bros. Melee, Viewtiful Joe, Metroid Prime Timesplitters 2 and years later F-Zero GX.

 

4 Nintendo DS

 

So circa the Zelda collection and after Sonic Heroes I got my second handheld upgrade in three years, the DS came out and with it I obtained Super Mario 64 DS, Need for Speed Underground 2 and Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt. No surprises here, Super Mario 64 DS was the game I played the most out of the three. Though, Prime Hunters First Hunt did give me interest on the full game coming out... DS collection would grow thanks to Nintendogs and Mario Kart DS (it honestly felt weird because it was just exactly a year earlier that I'd been playing Double Dash and it felt a bit too soon to be playing the next major entry, the "retro" courses from Double Dash were still very fresh in my mind. Unsurprisingly I went and bought the full game of Prime Hunters which is where my interest in Metroid really started. 2006-2008 was a crazy period for the amount of games I was acquiring amidst a massive video game obsession and trying to catch up on being a latecomer to the home console scene as well as keep up with new releases coming out, coinciding with increasing responsibility for my own money as adulthood was fast approaching. But 2006 was a bit light for the DS as the only other game I got was Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. In 2007 I bought Pokemon Pearl at a point in time where I was only now buying the main series and this marked the point where I re-evaluted how I went about playing these games, committing to a full team of 6 for the first time. I also borrowed New Super Mario Bros. and by the end of the year as part of the Nintendo game rush of 2007 acquired Phantom Hourglass, one of three games I was most looking forward to during that time. Metroid was still a massive interest though and I picked up Metroid Prime Pinball during the turn of year, while also experiencing games like Sonic Rush. Now that I look at this, the DS definitely had a long lifespan as a console as I would pick up Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, Yoshi's Island DS, Final Fantasy IV and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood before the year was out. 2009 was just Bowser's Inside Story and Spirit Tracks and the DS collection would be rounded out by Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon White, Pokemon White 2,Pokemon SoulSilver and Chrono Trigger.

 

5. Nintendo Wii

 

Fun story, Twilight Princess, not Wii Sports, was my first Wii game... I got it before the Wii.The Wii was so popular that it was easier to get Twilight Princess than it was to get the actual console to play it on. It would be a few months until I was able to play it alongside Wii Sports. Twilight Princess was the first game I'd ever been really hyped for and I definitely enjoyed my time with it... though I realised Wind Waker was my favourite long after. Warioware Smooth Moves, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy (the last two were along with Phantom Hourglass my anticipated 2007 games), Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, Super Paper Mario, Okami (fantastic game which remains in my top 3 to this day), Guitar Hero World Tour and Sonic Unleashed all came into the household through someone in the family buying them before a new avenue opened in the form of online play and broadband connection. Finally, access to the Wii Shop Channel and the chance to experience the Donkey Kong Country games, played 1 and 2 but passed on 3 and went and bought Super Metroid instead. When Sonic & the Black Knight came out I had finally suffered from Sonic burnout and decided to stop playing the series, after all I had so many other games I was interested in now that Sonic felt mediocre in comparison. This in turn lead to an interesting console acquisition but before I was done with the Wii I was still getting games for the console in what was the console's post-casual period as I call it. I think from 2009 onwards the release of smartphones meant that the casual interest wasn't there anymore so the Wii reverted to being a more hardcore system in spite of Nintendo's efforts. It's funny because in the latter period of the Wii's life our household had games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M, Donkey Kong Country Returns, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Xenoblade Chronicles. The Wii game collection I think ended up being pretty high in the end, one of the biggest, but I can't claim to be the actual owner of much of these games.

 

6. Playstation 2

 

!

 

Such an out of the blue pick, but yeah, since gaming is an expensive hobby it reached a point where I needed a budget console and PS2s only costed about £30 back then. While I had played the likes of SSX Tricky, LEGO Star Wars and Timesplitters 2 on PS2 before my own collection took a radically different direction. I had bought the PS2 due to access to a wider back catalogue even though the game I was interested on playing on it was a PS1 game, it was finally time to experience Final Fantasy VII for myself! As it happens the PS2 came with 15 games so the collection already had quite the boost. The headline game was Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance but the collection also included LEGO Star Wars II (definite keep), Burnout 2: Point of Impact (finally get to play the Burnout sequel) and the game that probably got played the most in the PS2, Pro Evolution Soccer 4. This would not have been expected when I bought the console but I was going through an interesting phase when it comes to interests and started to become interested in football. The console came with two football games in FIFA 2003 and Pro Evo 4 and while I fired FIFA up first I then put on Pro Evo and became addicted to the game's edit mode. Filling out the rest of the games were racing games like WRC Extreme II, Moto GP 2 and Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, Global Defence Force, Worms 3D, Stuntman, TRANSFORMERS: The Movie and a few other games which I have since traded in. The collection started big but I found being thrown too many games at once made it difficult to stick with one and so despite having some good games on the PS2 they became unfinished for years, indeed it could be said that spending hours on the Edit mode on Pro Evo 4 stoped any significant progress on games on the PS2 I'd actually been interested in, funny how things work out. I had initially been big into F1 around the time I got a PS2 so picked up an F1 game for myself, Formula One 2003. Yeah.... not really the wisest choice of F1 game for PS2 there, F1 06 was probably the best one and it would be another few years until I got around to picking that one up. But from there the PS2 collection evolved into more of my own picks and a good chunk of inherited games were traded in. I acquired Prince of Persia The Two Thrones off someone else and finally got to experience that series, but i would leave Two Thrones unfinished for many years after picking up Sands of Time. I became stuck for ideas on what games to get for PS2 for a while as my tastes were still very much that of Nintendo and I didn't really have much of a consideration for the PS1 and PS2 back catalogue apart from Final Fantasy VII. After all, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M and Donkey Kong Country Returns were all games I was still interested in. The PS2 collection remained on hold for much of 2011 in terms of game acquisitions (though I finally got to borrow the OG Crash Bandicoot trilogy) until the very end that is because I realised what I'd been missing on the console, a proper local multiplayer game for it. Once again though, I missed the mark on the game I really wanted and bought Jak X Combat Racing. That's OK though, because around the same time I got Shadow of the Colossus which turned out to be one of the greatest games I've ever played. That settles it, at last the PS2 had earned it's place in my gaming collection. Jak X turned out to be a pretty good game too but not the multiplayer game I'd really wanted since it only supported two players. It did help me to figure out exactly the type of games I wanted to get for the PS2 from that point onwards because for most of the next few years PS2 game purchases were strictly from three companies, I had realised exactly whose games I really enjoyed so bought Jak & Daxter Precursor's Legacy. Eventually I would get into the Ratchet & Clank series and played all three of those games, I would also get into Kingdom Hearts and acquire the original game on PS2 with the second game coming out a few years later. Kingdom Hearts was a game I'd always wanted to play but until that point never had the means to play it and by 2014 that was finally rectified. As was getting Final Fantasy X, another game I'd been interested in for years. The PS2 collection was finished up when I finally started to properly play the games I had yet to finish over wanting to clean out my backlog after years of neglect and I bought Prince of Persia Warrior Within to complete the PoP trilogy. I kind of feel sorry for the PS2, it came into my life at a time where gaming had no longer become my primary interest and was meant as a cheap gaming option but did not really find the actual gaming library I wanted for it until years later, which did include the better PS2 F1 game in F1 06. The PS2 collection finished with 19 games but there had been a significant shift in what those games actually were. Plus there was also a PS1 game collection for it with FFVII, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2 and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos for it. I went from not knowing exactly what I wanted to play on a PS2 to knowing exactly what I wanted to play and in the end it would help due to the intervening years being a bit lean on what games I actually acquired.

 

7. Nintendo 3DS

 

This marks the exact point gaming collections took a shift for me. Until this point I was getting upwards of about 20 games on a console but starting from the 3DS and over the course of that console's time I maxed out at 12. That was on physical games though as the downloads bolstered out that collection. I did not jump on the 3DS bandwagon on launch as unlike the Wii which I was super hyped for, the 3DS didn't have a particularly interesting launch lineup. So I waited until a new game came out on the console that I was interested in getting before getting a 3DS and what do you know, Mario Kart proves to be a console instigator again. It's funny, Mario Kart and Zelda have constantly managed to be the first games I own for a new Nintendo system. Mario Kart 7 was followed up by a delve into the Virtual Console library to get Link's Awakening and Metroid II. Physical games like Star Fox 64 and Theathyrthm: Final Fantasy followed the following year and Link's Awakening naturally lead into the other Zelda games I hadn't played until that point, the Oracle games. I also picked up Paper Mario Sticker Star *shudders*. But from 2013 onwards things began to grow on the physical front. Luigi's Mansion 2 and Mario & Luigi Dream Team were major purchases in the "Year of Luigi" before the inevitable Pokemon game came out for the system (I had already been playing White 2 on 3DS) and the 3DS had reached a point where it had completed reversed it's bad start and actually had a great gaming library. A new Zelda in Link Between Worlds was also a nice addition to a console I'd been playing retro Zeldas on. While this was going on my interest in indie games began to increase and I bought VVVVVV on 3DS, with Shovel Knight coming in the following year for the console. Smash Bros. for 3DS was the only major physical game I ended up getting the other year while 3DS Virtual Console was added to with Donkey Kong. The 3DS took a backseat to other consoles for much of the following year but then Pokemon came back as a major interest big time and in the run up to Sun & Moon I got Yellow on the 3DS eShop. My next physical 3DS game however was Metroid Prime Federation Force, a game I was still willing to give a chance to. Sun and Moon came out and Moon wound up being one of my favourites in the series in spite of Gen 7's general reputation, the 3DS collection was then rounded out by a remake of a game I had already downloaded on the console (how ironic) in Metroid Samus Returns, the new Metroid game I'd been seeking for years of no Metroid.

 

8. Nintendo Wii U

 

Same story with the 3DS, I saw no major desire to get a Wii U. In the end there is a large parallel with the Gamecube as I picked it up halfway through it's life cycle in a bundle with a Mario Kart game and it came alongside some other games, this time those were FIFA 13 and Mass Effect 3. However, I had already planned for more than that on this occasion and knew exactly what games I wanted to pick up so picked up Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. Wii U became the primary console of focus during 2015 as a result with Batman: Arkham City, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker and Xenoblade Chronicles X being picked up for the system before the inevitable happened and the game supply started slowing down. The digital collection was filled out with the likes of NES Remix, Metroid Prime Trilogy (despite already having the three Prime games on disc already :/) Freedom Planet and virtual console games Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Earthbound. Pokken Tournament would round out the Wii U game collection.

 

9. Nintendo Switch

 

Jumping into modern day now with a Switch collection that's still very much a work in progress. But in just under 3 years of owning a Switch the overall library size is quite large. In terms of physical games there's Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, FIFA 18, Super Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Pokken Tournament DX, Torna: The Golden Country, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age and pretty soon Pokemon Sword. Digitally there's Fast RMX, Sonic Mania, Rocket League, Hollow Knight and Untitled Goose Game.

 

10. Playstation 3/4

 

Lumping these together because they aren't technically mine but a member of the family came to own a PS3 and PS4 so I started getting games for that. I got Soul Calibur IV for PS3 and a few months later got F1 2017 on PS4. I would acquire Dark Souls on PS3 before the year was out. The following year I found a bunch of PS4 games that interested me, namely Marvel's Spider-Man, Soul Calibur Vi, Spyro Reignited Trilogy and perhaps the one game I really wanted to play on PS4, Kingdom Hearts III. I also ended up acquiring NieR: Automata in the process. PS3 library got expanded with South Park: The Stick of Truth and the very recent addition of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

 

So yeah, that's my very long and detailed history about every console I've owned or played on and what I played.

[Grazza]

4 hours ago, Jimbob said:

Just on this part, you reminded of some TV series i used to watch.  Mostly Gamesmaster (as i reckon many of us watched here).  I also watched Gamesville (all i remember about this was that Guru they had) and one other i can't remember.

 

Bad Influence?

[Jimbob]

15 minutes ago, Grazza said:

 

Bad Influence?

I remember that vaguely, didn't that have Voilet Berlin.  Which reminds me, she also did Gamepad.

[Goafer]

My list (may elaborate and add anecdotes later)

ZX Spectrum

Mega Drive

Game Gear

Game Boy Pocket

Game Boy Colour

Sega Saturn

Sega Dreamcast

Game Boy Advance

XBox

PS2

XBox 360 (Three of the fucking things, one of which had to be repaired under warranty. Utter shitshow of a console)

PS3

Nintendo DS

PSP

PS4

Nintendo 3DS

PSTV

 

I'm not including my retro purchases in there, as I now own almost every console and handheld from Sega/Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft from the 8bit era to the PS3 era.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Goafer