Topic: Specific gaming kiosk memories from your childhood?

For me...

Super Mario World: (at SEARS or Kmart, of the extended intro screen with Mario running around, throwing shells, getting the cape, etc…..my first kiosk memory, I must have been five or six, I don’t remember being particularly impressed by the detail in the graphics, but just how colorful everything was)

Star Fox: (Toys R Us, Corneria, one of my first introductions to 3D gaming, I was pretty floored by the graphics, and pissed that I still had a NES)

Super Metroid: (at Kmart, vividly remember the scene of Samus standing on top of the spaceship while it was raining, right after the intro sequence at the space station which I didn’t see until latter)

Donkey Kong Country: (at Kmart, I think it was the second level, rainfall in the nighttime jungle, with the armadillo’s rolling around and explosive barrels, I just remember being pretty impressed by the graphics, thinking that this looked better than most early 3d / or arcade games of that time)

Sonic and Knuckles: (at Kmart, first zone, just remember how colorful / crisp the game was to me at this time, and I remember the mini-boss fight at the end of zone 1, where Robotnik has that tree chopping machine or whatever)

Vectorman: (at Kmart, first level again, kinda had the same feeling as Donkey Kong Country, that this game looked better than most early 3d / or arcade games of that time)

Panzer Dragoon: (at KB Games, one of my very, very, few Saturn memories, which was always kind of that mystery system to me that nobody actually had,…….this one I remember actually playing, on the ocean level with the Roman type ruins in the water…….I remember being pretty impressed by the graphics, but I did make note of how messy (pixilated) it somewhat looked)

ESPN Xtreme Games: (at KB Games, nothing too amazing, good graphics for the time, but still a bit messy (pixelated), I think they were roller skating down a highway, on a mountain course or something, I was more impressed by Panzer Dragoon to be honest)

Virtual Boy: (at KB Games, some kind of space flight game that I played, I just remember being kinda curious about it and thinking that the actual gameplay experience was weird / unique, but nothing that I necessarily wanted to have – prob hence why the system failed)

Super Mario 64: (at SEARS or something, Bob-omb Battlefield, just thinking holy shit!, this is incredible!, how could they ever make something look better, or feel more right!..........I think Super Mario 64 is kinda the closest to an epiphany like experience most kids had at that time, it was such a big jump up from previous 16-bit games, or even the early 32-bit games on the Saturn or Playstation…….although Playstation was never far behind in detail during the later years, in just always seemed more pixelated, more messy)

Star Fox 64: (again, at SEARS or someplace like that, I just remember the Corneria level, specifically how awesome / beautiful it looked as the arwings skimmed across the water in the beginning sequence, when you lowered your altitude)

Goldeneye 007: (again, at SEARS / Kmart, or someplace like that, I remember watching a kid playing the Dam level for about 10 / 15 minutes, and again thinking, holy $%^&!, how could games ever look more real / lush than this…….)

In fact, I would say “lush”, “smooth”, “colorful”, are perfect ways to describe the first few N64 launch games (SM64, and Wave Race for sure), they were pretty mind blowing at that time……

Panzer Dragoon for the Saturn was definitely one for me.. pretty sure it was at a Babbages or Toys R Us. I ended up getting a Saturn that Christmas and it's truly an under-rated gem of a system. Has some of the best RPG/Strategys's I've ever played.

Mario 64, I remember seeing this for the first time at Toys R Us and having to have my parents peel me off of it. That was a true game changer.

Diddy Kong Racing: I distinctly remember racing against the triceratops boss and NEEDING that game. I don't know where I played this one, probably Toys R Us. I spent most of my time there looking for games, that and Babbages which is now Gamestop.

I remember playing Virtual Boy at Toys R Us and going "Wow.. what is this and why?"

I'm sure there are other ones, but those are the ones that really stood out to me.

lol, yeah, I think I had the same exact Virtual Boy experience, thinking,………..”I guess, its kinda cool?”, and then I went over to the other side of KB and bought two Game Gear games…….

The Saturn to me was a mystery system, I knew of no one that had it………….but I was always curiously looking at the box art at KB Games (or Toys) or the list of Saturn games in the Christmas magazines. If Sega did one thing well during that time period, it was the 3D art graphics on their Saturn cases, which always kinda caught my eye and made me curious. The box art of Daytona USA, Virtua Racing / Fighter / Cop, Bug!, etc., always caught my eye.

I remember playing Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door in Target when I was in third grade! ...the TV was mounted way up at the top of the shelves, so I had to crane my neck to look up at it, but I played it for quite a long time and had a lot of fun.

Playing Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. It was so awesome, and I wanted a Dreamcast badly after that. Then they just... Disappeared.

I don't think you can swear on this forum.
You might want to edit your post before you get banned. :/

Edited,........man, this really is a Nintendo forum........

I would like to hear the number of obscenities the nintendolife crew throws around as they force themselves to review all of that 3DS Eshop garbage for the 6 and under crowd.

@ Navy Spheal, I can’t recall any Dreamcast kiosk to be honest (would be cool to see one now), but yeah, the first Sonic Adventure left a pretty big impact on me as well, it was pretty solid system seller for their launch. Oddly enough, I think the music caught my attention as much as the graphics.

@sub12 It was pretty nice, but I haven't seen a pic of it since. Sonic Adventure is one of my favorite soundtracks in gaming (I even have the whole thing on my phone), and is really the reason I started liking and listening to gaming music in general. So much that it can change an opinion of a game that I had of it. The best part is when nostalgia slaps you in the face, and music does that for me, haha.

I never played those kiosks much, because you never know who touched them beforehand, but I do have one really nice memory.

I wasn't really even a kid either (I was a Junior in high school). We were in the middle of a 3 day power outage thanks to an ice storm, and since certain places around town were starting to get power back, we decided to go out just to do something.

At the time I was really wanting a Wii, and at Wal-Mart, tucked away in the gardening section (that they stock with hot Christmas items during the Christmas season) they had a Wii kiosk set up with Super Mario Galaxy. I ran over and played it for about 20-30 minutes, and was astounded with the fun, revolutionary platforming, the smooth crisp visuals (at this point I hadn't experienced the 360 or PS3 yet), and the interesting motion based gestures.

Sure enough, I did get a Wii that Christmas (and a 360 interestingly enough, that my dad won in a contest at work), and the next day when I went to Wal-Mart I was disappointed to hear the cashiers telling people they were out of SMG copies, but I got lucky. While looking at the game cases, I noticed ONE copy of SMG, that had happened to fall behind some other games, and I quietly attracted the attention of a cashier, and was able to snag the last copy.