Topic: Old school gamers over 35?

What a bunch of youngsters here. I'm well into my 50s. And I still play regularly, everything from Atari 2600 games up to the latest Assassin's Creed.

Not quite but almost, I’m 34. The first game I played was Super Mario Bros on a friend’s NES... I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that impressed. It was only when he showed me Sonic 1 a few years later I got into gaming, mainly due to the vibrant colours of Green Hill.

But more retro than that, I ended up with an Atari in my early teens. Not sure of the model, it used floppy disks. I spent most of my time on it playing Theme Park or making basic animations. My little sister ruined it by stuffing my mum’s credit cards into it.

Edit: Making a sentence make sense.

I qualify. Fascinated by video games ever since I can remember. Not sure what my first arcade game was, but I do recall Pac-Man cabinets. Used to go over to my mate’s house to play Dare Devil Dennis on his BBC Micro. Then we got an Amstrad CPC 464 at home. Later got a Game Gear, then an Amiga - for which I did tend to get legitimate games. (Mostly.) Was a Sega fan, but played on my housemate’s N64 at uni, so I got a good chunk of the way through OoT, Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie - but finished none of them. (Got further than he did on the last one, though.) Then got a PS2, a PSP, then PS3, then children... and gaming fell away for a half-decade or so.

I had friends with NES, SNES and Game Boys growing up, and I’ve played a fair bit of them, but the Switch is my first Nintendo console. And the first one I’ve bought at launch (though I got my PSP as an import very early on). I’ve since picked up a DS and 3DS. And got my kids their own handhelds too. I’m one of those who is enjoying the back catalogue as much as the new stuff - I’m as delighted with the 3DS as I am the Switch.

@judaspete the 80s Sierra games were great! One of the first games I ever really got into was King's Quest III for the Apple IIe.

@Krull {[( all that gaming and switch was your first nintendo console ,my god )]} ( whats running uk/swe/ire)

@AlGator Grandpa

Also glad to have you back after a supposed 4 year hiatus in the forums. Never knew ya, but still.

@Losermagnet I'm around your age 😁 and also Super Mario World was the first game that was given to me with a SNES and the first game I beat. I loved it but I thought it was difficult after the first world. That game still touches me in a way I can't describe, same for other SNES games, Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country and its sequels...

I will be 36 years next month.
Started playing video games from NES game on 90's.
Now i played 12 different video games from both Nintendo and Sony machines.

Nintendo:
1. GBA
2. NDS
3. 3DS
4. Gamecube
5. Wii
6. Wii U
7. Switch

Sony:
1. PS1
2. PS2
3. PS3
4. PS4
5. PSP

@BlueOcean Same for me. I loved the little skits of Mario destroying the Koopaling's castles after finishing those stages. I kept playing those stages just for that. My other favorites would be the DKC trio. Love those games! Donkey Kong 64 was one of the other N64 games I was thinking about getting, but I bet it probably would be more trouble than it's worth.

@Losermagnet Yep, Super Mario World is so good and Donkey Kong Country trilogy, absolutely impressive. SMW, the different ways of destroying the castles is cool and the music of the castles is brilliant, all the secrets, the mysteries, the perfect physics and controls... DKC trilogy, the music, graphics, dialogue, gameplay, buddies... We feel something special for those games but they are objectively timeless masterpieces as well.

Donkey Kong 64 is only available on N64 and Wii U but it's not that great. I wouldn't buy a console just for that but if you have a Wii U it's $10. If you don't have a Wii U then... PC emulator if you really want to play it.

@BlueOcean I think I have DK64 on my Wii U come to think of it. I know it was either it or the Wii, and after starting it I always quit shortly after. As a kid somehow I beat it 100% (or 104% or whatever it was in game), but I don't think I could do it again. Ditto about the original trio though. I playthrough those games almost annually.

@Losermagnet Me too, the music and graphics make them very enjoyable but the gameplay is rock-solid. The buddies and the enemies are all nicely designed. They are perfect games.

I got 101% too (the maximum) on DKC64 but it's something you don't feel like doing again, never.

@Losermagnet I remember the first time finding out that if you pressed L&R together on a ruined castle you can play it again. I felt so awesome finding that out and couldn't wait to tell my friends about it the next day at school.

@Glitchling78
I was actually surprised at your age. Your profile ID for some reason made me think you were born in 1978.

@Tasuki i forgot that's how you do it! It really did feel like you tricked the game into letting you play it again.

@BlueOcean Just curious - what are your thoughts in modern DK? Specifically Returns and Tropical Freeze. I like em, but there's just something that stops me from accepting them as actual DKC games.

I'm 41 and have been a gamer since i was around 6. I became facinated with it pretty early on when i got my Nes. Something about pressing those buttons to make stuff happen on the screen seemed like magic to me! I had an atari 2600 first and it was more of a casual thing. I'd play a few rounds of pong or another favorite of mine called missle command. Once i played the original super mario bros that was pretty much the beginning of my fandom for Nintendo. I was there for the big bang of videogames you might call it!

Nintendo's unique brand of fun whimsical, and just plain nonsensical games is what made me the gamer i am today so they will always be first in my book but as a fan of all things gaming I'll play anything that looks cool! Doesn't matter to me who's system it's on. I don't do the console wars thing. To me games are games and they are all part of the same hobby. I'm old school, new school and everything in between!

@Ninfan I know! I was a sucker for the Sega advertising moguls, and always saw Nintendo consoles as being for kids (despite being a kid myself). Then Sony pulled me in with Final Fantasy VII as Sega slowly self-destructed. I wanted to play real games for adults, not games for babies, on Nintendo. I think we all know, especially when you’re young, gaming can be quite tribal. Those days are long behind me now, but I kind of felt happy with Sony stuff for a long while.

38 and counting.

My kids actually revitalized my interest in gaming. The last console I bought before the Switch was the Wii (and a second hand PS3 which I hardly used) and the last console I had actually enjoyed was the PS2.

So safe to say I wasn't that invested in gaming anymore. Sure, I played some games here and there, primarily on laptop, but not really.

Now, when my kids started expressing a real interest in gaming, I caved and got a Switch and honestly, I am probably on it more than they are.

I do feel the current landscape of Indies being able to release stuff alongside AAA studios does help my interest, as I am still not interested in most AAA titles. Gameplay over graphics any time anyways.

@Glitchling78 Sounds like an Atari ST, which was a decent 16-bit home computer. Definitely more advanced than the NES!

@Ogo79 and @Zeldafan79 - 1979 rules, obviously. A year so good, Smashing Pumpkins wrote maybe their best song about it.

@Krull
LOL indeed! The late 70's through the 80's was an awesome time to grow up! Gamings birth, Back to the future, Knight rider, Transformers, He-man, breakdancing etc!