Topic: Favorite Childhood Gaming Memories?

I thought it would be fun to share some fun and positive gaming memories from when we were kids. I have lots of them, but this one always comes to mind:

Before my family owned an NES, and they were new, during the summer we would rent one on occasion and different games from the local grocery store. Those summer weekends were incredible.

I was introduced to Metroid, Kid Icarus, Excitebike, Ikari Warriors, Castlevania, Mega Man...

Even once we owned an NES (like all of the other kids on my block), game rentals were like this cool gateway to the most amazing experiences ever!! My best friend and I rented Trojan for like 4 weekends straight trying to beat that game..

What are your memories?

I remember playing a bootleg PC copy of Super Mario 64 when I was 6 or 7. It was terrible looking back but it was so cool as a kid. This was my first game ever BTW.

This is an awesome story! What a cool first game.

I have so many gaming memories , often when I write reviews for games I try to put like gaming memory/stories in as well its the one thing I can give no one else can..... for example anyone can review Fzero for the SNES but not everyone can tell you that there first experience of the game was it being in a SNES promotional kiosk in CO-OP and how they'd sneak in after school every day and basically play it till they got kicked out lol ......it was that and then playing Mario World around my friends that made me decide I needed a SNES.

So many memories. From going down to the local video store every Saturday morning after chowing down on large amounts of sugary bits of breakfast cereal and veging out on Saturday morning cartoons, to the time my friend and I spent an entire summer playing and beating Super Mario Bros 2. I couldn't possibly list them all I would probably be typing for awhile lol.

I had so much fun playing Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow with friends in my old neighborhood on a deep purple Game Boy Color.
I still don't know how, but one guy had the game in spanish and he could play mostly only with us to understand what to do and where to go. We were children of a rural area just out a minor town, there was nothing (not even a playground or a single shop), but I still feel that we had everything. The lack of information resulted in "legends" that someone would learn from school, other friends or relatives and that led to the craziest things.
I remember when we made it to "clone" the Pokémon unplugging the cable in a specific moment during an exchange, we were so happy!
We never found Mew, all the attempts failed, but we did incredible things like reaching the "isle of numbers", fighiting Missingno, reaching the truck at the port to check what's behind it (nothing!), etc.

Just a few that spring to mind.

Playing a console (Atari 2600) for the first time at a friends house and thinking this was awesome and how could this tech get any better.

Me and my friends skipping school and going to a friends to play a Sensible Soccer Tourney on the Amiga.

Seeing and hearing Super Mario World on the SNES that my uncle imported from the US. A while before the console was released in Europe.

Growing up in Australia was good. Good weather, much less people (before 2000s) and overall great place to be back then. I have many memories associated with renting games from the local store and playing all weekend. Most days we were outside but always came back later afternoon or evening to game.

My best memories were probably with the SNES, but PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were equally awesome consoles for the time.

2 games I really liked were Rick dangerous on zx spectrum, I must have loaded it up 5000 times but I have never finished it. And I liked RARE'S battletoads on gameboy, it's a rock hard game but I did finish it. I thought the picture quality of this game was really good in some levels. I think gameboy is better than anything handheld you get today. Even switch. 😷👍

Playing an NES with my cousin and trying to understand how to use an NES controller.

My brother and I had an Amstrad CPC and I remember sitting waiting for minutes for cassettes to load (our mum usually found the right volume for us and marked it on the inlay or case). I wish I had that patience today - it was a good way of staying relaxed. I loved a lot of the Codemasters games, multiplayer like BMX, Grand Prix, and Professional Ski Simulator, as well as the Dizzy games.

A friend used to loan his and his brother's SNES to me and my brother when they went on holiday, and playing Super Mario World for the first time was great. Secret of Mana, as it was multiplayer with my brother, was probably my favourite overall gaming experience.

It was also fun playing on my cousin's Megadrive. I liked Streets of Rage 2 best.

I remember occasional visits to a rental store too, Pushover on SNES (a domino puzzle game) and ReVolt (an N64 racing gaming) come to mind.

First time on Mario 64 was my biggest wow moment in gaming, but I bought Terranigma for SNES around the same time, and that's ended up as my favourite all-time game. Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64) was my first cinematic experience in gaming. Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time was incredible at the time, just riding Epona with the sun rising and setting.

I could probably go on, but that's what came to mind.

My first introduction to gaming was when me and my brother was on holiday in Blackpool around 1978 with our Mum and Dad and the hotel had a brand new Space Invaders cabinet delivered. I was the first to put my 10p into the machine and that's where it all started. Amusement Arcades began popping up everywhere in Blackpool around that time too and it was like sensory overload when-ever I walked into one. Sounds, lights, smells, it was an amazing time.

Around 1980, Pac-Man was released and was super popular in the arcades. This was my second introduction to a video game and it was even more addictive than Space Invaders. Of course, these games weren't available to play at home so I only got to play them when our holidays or days out came around. I used to save up 10p from my pocket money especially for these moments.

I could go on for-ever... ahhhh the nostalgia.

On SNES launch day (which as I remember it for our small town was a Friday), a friend and I convinced our parents to let us skip school and rent the system and all the launch games.

We had the best 3 day weekend ever!

And then we went to school on Sunday and told all our friends about our great weekend. Annnnd being jealous little ******, they promptly ratted us out to our teacher and we got some heavy detention.

Worth it!