MY HANDHELD BLOG

What got me into Gaming.

Did it ruined my life?

Not literal of course, but it did make my life as it is now. I can remember we had a computer since I was really young. One of the first memories I have about gaming is playing Jill of the jungle. I believe we had a yellow floppy disk with 4 games on it and one of them was Jill of the jungle. For me it feels like the game before Tomb Raider, but I am not sure. It is just how it feels for me.

I can remember that we had a computer with Window 93 on it. I do feel so old when I think about that windows version. The games that stayed with me until now are actually Duke Nukem, Redneck Rampage and Doom. Even today I love those games and frequently play them. Also, I still hope that one day they will remake Redneck Rampage. I know that his will never happen but I can dream about that right. Of course, they are not the only games I played when I was a kid, but I did play them a lot, and I still do. I bought Doom and Duke Nukem on the xbox360, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and on the PlayStation 5.

When I was young me and my father played those games together, I was such a scaredy-cat when I was a kid. That is why we also played those games I was way to afraid for those bad looking monsters then. Nowadays a horror game can’t be creepy enough for me. Such a change with when I was a kid. Sometimes me and my dad still play those games together. One of the games we played back then and still do now is Tomb Raider. My mom and I mostly played on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 back then. I can remember the cartridge of Mario Party hated us so many times we played it.

I was lucky enough to always have have access to a computer and that I was allowed to explore to my hearts content with games. My parents always told me if you have a nightmare of a game then you probably shouldn’t have played it. I respect my parents for that because of that I can now play whatever I want and always see it as a simple game.

Even more lucky I was that we were able to get our hands of those “Crazybytes” and “Twilight” cd’s. I can remember we also had something like “O no More” games cd’s, but I think there not long as famous here in Europe as the first 2. For the ones that are not familiar with these cd’s, they were cd’s that have multiple games and software on it, and back in the 90s that was quite a thing. I learned tons of good titles from those cd’s. I still have the cd’s in the back of my closet and I don’t have the heart to throw them out. Sometimes I look at the back of those cd’s seeing if there is a game I missed and want to play again.

I also was lucky enough to had a super Nintendo when I was a kid and after that it went downwards fast. We always had some kind of console at home besides the computer. Our PlayStation One was hard modified, thou I had no clue about those things back then. I was able to play so many different games. Do you know a game called Little Big Adventure? Or Dink Smallwood? From the last one I learned that games that are somehow weird also can be fun too.

I learned about emulating games when I was a teen, I can remember I wanted to buy SNES games but they were too expensive back then already. I wanted to know if there was another way to play them without spending around 80 euro on a game. Back then some emulators were already there and roms were not that hard to find either. Some of these roms I still use today.

I think my most favorite console was my Xbox360 I had way too many games for it, mostly horror ones. Condemned is one that is still close to my heart, maybe when I have a high-end device, I will be able to play it on a handheld. That would be nice. I played less games for a few years, but getting the Xbox360 turned that around. I also collected lots of gaming stuff for a while.

I love seeing all those games progressing from the 90s till now. There has changed so much. This is also why I love handheld devices like the Anbernic ones. When I feel like it, I can always play some of the games from the past again and I even can play games that I missed when I was young. I also love to learn about the different kind of firmware there is available today for those handhelds. For me it’s an interesting journey. This doesn’t mean I don’t love normal handhelds anymore. I still enjoy gaming on both my Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. Recently I decided I wanted to play on the Gameboy I have again. This turned out a little different then expected but that is a story for a different blog, since I want to share that journey with you.

Till the next blog everyone

Alexia Kuros