RetroSpective: Top 5 Retro Gaming Memories

A child of the 80s, coming of age in the 90s, I grew up in small town UK and so my earliest gaming memories include playing on friends' C64s and Spectrums, and my Uncle's Amstrad CPC464. As for our home - we had a Commodore 16 handed down by a different Uncle and I naturally had a nice selection of Systema LCD games that I still find occasionally fun.

As my friends and I entered double digits things changed, and we found ourselves in the 16-bit era. Several friends owned Mega Drives. I was later to the game with an Amiga 500+ coming in late 1991 (Cartoon Classics pack which included Bart Vs The Space Mutants, Captain Planet, and a game I only recently replayed - Lemmings). Later still I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which helped cement my future as a gamer.

So, with no further ado, I share with you my five top retro gaming moments. Those moments that shaped my gaming life in its formative years. In no particular order.

1. Pinball At The Artichoke
In exercising the deepest recesses of forgotten memory I stumbled upon something very sweet. Way back when we still lived in Croxley Green, we would frequent a pub on The Green called The Artichoke. It's still there - it's more of a gastropub these days and I still go there when I'm visiting locally. Back in the 80s they had a pinball table tucked in a corner outside the ladies toilet, and we would spend hours on it while our parents got drunk. Their friends, also drunk, would make sure we never ran out of credits or those small bottles of Coke they have in pubs.

2. St. Osyth
On the Essex coast, just up from Clacton-on-Sea, St. Osyth was home to my grandparents' caravan, used for holidays when my mum and her siblings were young. It was history before I came along, but it meant that the town had a place in my Uncle's heart (the same one who owned the CPC464) and so he'd take me and my cousins there for a day of french cricket and arcade games. Four of us? Well that's the perfect number for Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, The Simpsons, Gauntlet, or Wrestlemania. At 10p a go, even in those days we could enjoy a good few games before it was time to head home.

3. Left 4 Dead
I absolutely hate online gaming. Seriously, it stresses me out. From my first internet connection in 2002, playing Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast for 15p a minute, through 2009's slightly improved and slightly less expensive in the long run 512kbps ADSL, to today's 300Mbps low latency network, I draw no enjoyment from online interaction with dickheads. In 2009 though, something magical happened - I was invited to join a "mature gaming community" called The Art of Warfare (TAW). I'd dabbled a little with Left 4 Dead and found it tremendous fun, so agreed to give it a go with an organised group. Well, to cut a long story short, I quickly moved up the ranks and ended up running the L4D division of said community which did wonders for my self-confidence and, over a few hundred hours of gaming gave me such enjoyment that I doubt I will ever match. I also have crippling RSI in my right hand from the intense use of a mouse, and a handful of lifelong friends that I owe to that time.

4. My Amiga 500+
I remember my dad bringing this home for me. I wasn't expecting it, but my word was it exciting. I remember him helping me to set it up, plugging in the RF converter so it would work with the TV (he may have bought me that at the same time), powering it on, and encouraging me to work out that the animated graphic was directing me to insert a disk. I recently rediscovered my old Amiga library (much of it at the time courtesy of X-Copy2) with the help of an emulator, and the sound of the disk drive took me right back to my old bedroom, the tiny desk and the red metal chair with plastic seat that collapsed one day, cheekily telling me I'd become too big for it. It's a rare positive memory of my father, and I cherish it.

5. Super Mario All Stars
This is a key game (collection) for me. Despite what you've heard a hundred thousand bazillion times on YouTube about the massive importance of the Nintendo Entertainment System, it simply wasn't that important in the UK. I knew three people who had one, and they all had rich dads. However, Super Mario Bros had attained something of a legendary status in my mind, at least in part thanks to playing the games with those three people - and in no small part due to the fantastic Super Mario Land games on Game Boy that were far more readily available. When I was able to finally own a SNES, I spent days and days deciding between the Super Mario All Stars or the Street Fighter II Turbo pack-in. If you understand that at this time I was incredibly lucky to get the console at all, and in several years of ownership I only ever had four games, then you'll see how important this choice was at the time. So I chose Mario, and set in place the pieces that would ultimately begin a (so far) lifelong love affair with Nintendo. Easily the most important video gaming item I ever owned.

So what about you? Did any of these points align with your experience or trigger your memories? Do you have any of your own to add? Go write something in the comments. If nothing else it makes me feel good.

What Would I Tell 21-Year-Old Me?

I recently saw this question posed in an Instagram post and naturally it got me thinking.

I'm 36. 21 seems so long ago, and yet as if it were yesterday. A lot has happened in the interim years, a lot has changed - in myself, in the world, in the people I know. I'm married, happily, and have a beautiful baby boy and I am blessed to be a stay at home dad who cares for him 4 days of the week while his mummy works to bring the money in.

I'm in a band, which is fun and has some potential to become something in the local scene (well I would say that). I want for nothing, besides material things that I can save for.

You could say my life is as close to perfect as anyone has a right to expect. So - what would I tell 21-year-old me?

To borrow from Nike's advertising slogan - "Just do it", or words to that effect.

My whole life only one person has truly held me back - me. Sure, I can point to various authority figures and ascribe an amount of blame to them for failing to help me believe in myself, for putting me down when I needed lifting up, for telling me "music is a hobby". But ultimately I must accept responsibility for myself and my actions and decisions along the way. Every time I took the easy way out, or let depression and anxiety of the potential negative outcomes keep me from even trying, I let myself down.

Once upon a time I was a promising musician. I had a very small following locally who would ask when is the next gig, thrilled to be part of what I was doing. But I had to "get a proper job" which only increased my anxiety and lowered my energy levels such that I eventually stopped pursuing the dream altogether. Use it or lose it as they say.

Now, a married father, my capacity for taking any kind of risk is limited by the need to support my family. I am in a band now, my third in two years of living in Netherlands, and the first that truly feels right. Like most of the other guys in the band, family commitment prevents it from being much more than a hobby at this time. Sure, we have the opportunity to find our place in the local scene, to become a part of something comfortable and exciting, but I can hardly run off on tour and shirk my responsibilities at home.

So, 21-year-old me. Just do it. Get out there, make a name for yourself, find your place, before it's too late and your place is at home. Before you wake up, look in the mirror and see a fat, balding man approaching middle age.

Just do it.