When I think of retro gaming, I think of all the different kinds of systems and how almost everyone on my street had a different one. Yes some people did have the same system as others (or more than one system) but that is what made going to your friends house much more fun. Each system had its own style and selection of games, some systems were obviously more powerful than others but that was part of the experience. I kind of liked playing three different versions of the same game.
It really felt like the people on the street could be identified by the system they had, or the games they liked to play. I myself had the Intellivision (my favourite) and the mighty Commodore 64, probably the most popular computer of the time. My friend across the street had a vic-20 that he had hooked up to an old black & white TV, probably my first experience with asteroids. My friend and neighbour to the right had a Commodore 64 so we were always swapping games. There was also the Colecovision owner a few houses down, another Intellivision owner that I used to bug for games and even a friend down the street who owned a Colleco Adam (and no joke, his name is also Adam).
I still remember the excitement when I borrowed a friends Atari 2600 for a few days, the games were very different then what I was used to and made me what to own one. Unfortunately at the time there were so many systems and they were not cheap, you really wouldn’t complain that you didn’t have one or the other. Its not like today where choices are limited and the games are almost the same no mater which one you buy. I think that is why as far as today’s systems I chose the Nintendo Wii as it still gives that old time feel!
It is probably these memories that made me want to start collecting classic systems in the first place. Each system I pick up reminds me of a friend from the past, some I still keep in contact with today. I am not sure if this will be the case today with the systems we have now, especially when there is still that divide among the Xbox and playstation crowd. The other thing is that a lot of gamers today will mostly play games on their tablet or phones, that’s great and all but where is the love?. I have tried playing some of the classic Atari on my iPhone and as much as its nostalgic, its also complicated playing with the touch screen. I want my joystick and paddle back… I want that feeling of cramming the cartridge into the system only to have to pull it out and blow on it and ram it back in, ok maybe not that part as much.
Brian Pudden