As a kid the idea of Santa Claus disturbed me a bit. Even though I knew the guy was leaving me free toys he was still coming down the chimney, invading our home and eating our food. For all we knew he might have come upstairs with an elf crafted shiv and killed us all while we slept. Of course in the news it’d read as a simple murder but that’s the point, that’s how he’d get away with it! And if they did suspect him of murder who would arrest him? Back then I was convinced he was some kind of magical being so surely you couldn’t technically keep locked up? Even if you did would his worldwide child supporters spring him loose? GAH! As a kid my mind raced through all these possibilities during Christmas Eve night. But all that didn’t matter really. As a kid what mattered to me is what the chump would leave under the tree for me. And one Christmas was particularly pleasing.

So I’m laying there, I can’t get asleep and I’m looking at the curtain getting brighter and brighter. The rule was as soon as it hits around 6 we could get up and check out our presents downstairs. So being the good boy I just counted the seconds until I could slink down like the filthy snake I was. It was time! I got up and my brother sat up and said “What time is it?”. “6, it’s 6”, I said trying to act cool as if I wasn’t counting every second until that moment. And just like that my three brothers and I would be rushing downstairs in a tight line formation. In fact, such a close line formation it was miracle that we didn’t fall down the stairs itself. Outside the sitting room door we didn’t say a word. It was almost as if it was a professional bank heist where every action was planned and didn’t need to be said in words. I’d get the door and swing it open. My three brothers would scurry in as the first person in the formation would break off and turn on the lights. At that point it was every man for himself.

We looked around and there were clearly less presents than the years previously. Then, there, there beyond the armchair and the tree lay a box, quite a big box. As if it were the only food source on the planet we all jumped for it and made quick work of the wrapping paper. And behind the wrapping paper? A Sega Megadrive! “OH MY GOOOOOOD!” Actually no. That’s a different kid. I was more like, “FUCK YES!”. I know, as a kid I had a filthy mouth. I admit it but that’s what a movie diet consisting of Robocop and Predator will do to a young mind. After sometime of going head to head with the instructions on how to plug in all the cables we had a choice of two games. Well, a choice of six games really as we got both Sega “Mega packs” bundled along with the machine. I didn’t have a clue what the games were but on one box it showed aliens and robots. I had to play it. So we jammed it into the system and booted it up. That beautiful SEGA logo popped up and we were in business. It was called “Alien Storm”. Eventually to be a favourite of mine Alien Storm on it’s first play was great. I naturally of course chose the robot in this side scrolling alien ass kicker but soon grew tired of the run, roll, jump controls even though the after-level first person shooting parts were huge fun. Then we chucked in Streets of Rage to give it a whirl. Even during the opening sequence I knew what I wanted to do for a living when I grew up was to make stuff like this. Everything in Streets of Rage hit the mark for me. From the opening sequence that lists Alex’s hobbies as videogames, the shout he lets out when you do a jump kick, the animation he plays out when left idle, the enemies designs, the end of level bosses, the near perfect music and all topped off by the complete badass end game boss called Mr.X. For me it has that perfect balance of early 90’s cheesy action and straightforward badassery. Playing it that Christmas morning opened my eyes immensely. It was the first time in gaming where I noticed that everything from story, animation, gameplay to music could exist with each other in harmony in gaming. There’s nothing in Streets of Rage that doesn’t feel like it shouldn’t be there or that the devs all weren’t on the same page. It’s a labour of love, dammit. The same goes for the next game I tried, Revenge of Shinobi. Sure it’s more low key than Streets of Rage and plays at a slower pace but it offered me a gaming experience that I never tasted in games until that day. It wasn’t attention grabbing but once I stuck with it I started to appreciate how subtle it’s greatness was. Oh and for those of you who can relate to this gaming experience so far wasn’t it extremely satisfying doing the infinite shurikens cheat by leaving them at “00” in the options for about 30 seconds? Then you hear the noise that goes something like “Buwuwuwuwuh”. Oh, a nostalgiagasm indeed. However, for those of you who can’t relate to any of this I’ll move onto the Playstation next. Maybe you younger sprogs can relate to some of this loveliness.

While the Megadrive wasn’t my first main console (we got an original Pong system back in the day) it was my first console that showed me what gaming could be. It opened my eyes in many ways but at that point I wasn’t a “gamer”. That is to say I wasn’t very fanatical about all things gaming. The Playstation changed that however in so many ways. This beautiful grey box brings back so many memories, feelings and experiences of when, for me at least, gaming hit it’s peek and everything seemed new and possible.

Between the Megadrive and Playstation the only console we got was the Master System. My father won it by doing a Kit Kat competition and came up with their new slogan they used for awhile here in Ireland- “The bar with the bite that tastes just right”. We were over the moon about the Master System but that soon came to a crashing halt when the realisation of it being less powerful than our year old Megadrive became apparent. Plus, the fact that we only had a built-in Sonic 1 game and the the Jurassic Park game to keep us entertained didn’t help. Yes, even a digitized Sam Neil couldn’t save this ship. Time passed, we got a few more Megadrive games, I didn’t really follow gaming beyond the Megadrive mag and news started to trickle in about a new CD-ROM based system called the “Playstation”.

When we opened the Playstation on a Christmas morning some years later after the Mega Drive it had much more anticipation of it being something special. It didn’t disappoint. I remember the sense of wonder and confusion when we started taking turns opening the lid and closely inspecting the CD laser. We must have looked like the Neanderthals at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey as we treated it with incredible care somehow assuming that it was so fragile that It’d break in our hands. We looked up the instructions and quickly got it set up. Now while we only had the Demo 1 CD bundled along with it the demo had a load of games,each more different from the last, a few FMV trailers and two tech demos that still give me goosebumps to this day because of their nostalgia factor. The first tech demo showed of a walk cycle for a 3d T-Rex as each button on the control pad controlled a secondary movement. For instance, hitting L2 would open its mouth while R2 would grit it’s teeth. Doing them together would combine both actions. The second tech demo let you merely control a manta ray as it swam through an ocean. The effects for it’s time were amazing and even to this day the music from both tech demos bring me all the way back to that day we first cracked open the box. For me the Playstation brought forward a new era of gaming both historically and personally. To me the Playstation represented the idea of endless possibles, a new era of my life and equally a new era of gaming. From what was on offer on the demo disc that morning I couldn’t fault the system whatsoever. Each game for the most part was hugely entertaining, fun and nothing like anything I played before. I mean, until I played Descent in all it’s 360 movement wonder my gaming diet was that Zool and Sonic 2. That jump from 2D to 3D was magnificent. I was expecting more of the same but instead in 3D but what I got shook the very foundation of my beliefs on what gaming could produce.

Demo 1 actually lasted us quite awhile. We played it to death and did everything possible in each demo. For instance, in the demo for Monster Trucks they gave the player a huge level to play through but restricted them with a timer. Well, my brother and I played the shit out of it and he eventually found an area that, for some unknown reason, had a number of other Monster trucks just driving around in a circle. Back then that level of detail blew our little minds. A lot of this sounds so trivial now but for us back then that’s what it was like. It felt like that even in a demo that there was something out there, secret or hidden just waiting to be discovered. However, the demo that has us the most entertained was Die Hard Trilogy. The mission available was from Die Hard 2 where you have to take out the bad guys at Dulles airport. The level pretty much involved McClane gunning down everything in sight – bad guys, civilians, blowing up cars and even getting the opportunity to blow up police helicopters. You know, just like in the movie, right? Also, was I the only person whose sole reason of getting the M-16 was to pump all the bullets into a single bad guy? You know where they start bouncing around on the ground as a ridiculous amount of blood pours from them. Anyone? Oh well, good times, good times. And I love how when you fire a rocket you hear Bruce Willis saying “It’s not my day”. Fucking lovely.

Now I’m sure they’ll be three kinds of reactions to this article- The people who grew up with these systems like myself and know how I feel, the people who are a little newer to the game and are currently living out what will become their nostalgic period and the ones who long ago felt this way about gaming about some older system. Either way we’ve all felt this way about gaming at one point. Since then I don’t play games as much as I used to. I just find that as I grow older there’s not too many games that interest me. I also find myself catching up on old PS2 games that alluded me not so long ago. At this point in my gaming life that’s what I enjoy the most, looking back while glancing forward with keen interest. And who knows, when the the PS4 and Xbox720 come out maybe I’ll catch up on this generation a little more. Either way there’s always a reason to get back in retro gaming whether it be purely based on nostalgia or searching for a gem or two that went unnoticed. And if you don’t feel like looking for those gems yourself, well, that’s what I’m here for right?

Oh and happy Christmas! Next week won’t be as joyful as this. Tune in next time as we look at Gaming Horrors #1…

The views and opinions expressed by “Retroplayer” do not necessarily express or reflect the views and / or opinions of The Gaming Liberty.