Favorite Games as a Child

I’ve been gaming since my Dad brought home our first Commodore 64. I was probably about 4 or 5, and really it was one of the best times I’d had in a long time. My dad was a tech geek kind of guy, who loved fiddling with the thing to make it play games, and other fun programs.

One he had bought was called SAM. I couldn’t tell you what SAM stood for (something audio module I bet), but it was the coolest thing ever to me. It’d say whatever you typed through the tinny speakers we had attached to the TV. (There were no monitors back then!) I loved having it say words from all over the house, but I hated it when it said my name. Apparently to SAM I was JohD EYE.

My parents, being the mean spirited people they were (I love them so much), told me that in actuality that WAS how many name should be pronounced. I think I cried for a week.

In any case, I’m feeling rather nostalgic today, and want to remember some of the games I played when I was younger.

For the Commodore, I liked RUN-MAN, but I never could get very far. I always jumped off things when I shouldn’t have.

For the Atari (oh I miss my Atari!) I liked Pong quite a bit, but Breakout and Super Breakout were just the best games ever. I still get absorbed in Breakout like games on Yahoo and have to get hit over the head by my husband before I’ll stop.

Nintendo had some rather awesome titles. I always wanted Mike Tyson’s Super Punch-Out, but I had to go to a friend’s house to play it. I guess my parents thought it had too much violence or something. Pfft. Maybe it would have taught me to fight the bullys in school better. I can still sing the theme song to Super Mario Bros, and often do. (That Wii Commercial is my favorite!)

Super NES had the newer Super Mario Bros, Zelda and Metroid. I knew of Castlevania, but it wasn’t my thing as much. I also kicked around a Mega Man once in awhile. Of course, I’ll never ever forget Final Fantasy 3. I still get misty when I think about it.

Funny when I think about it. I’m now almost exclusively a PC gamer. I don’t have any of the newer systems (and can’t really justify the expense), but when I was young, I never played PC games. Until SimCity 2000, I didn’t play anything at all on the computer. Weird how life works like that.

So, for any of you who may be out there, what were your favorite games? Did you have a favorite genre? Do you have a particular memory that revolves around gaming you want to share?