Along with many things I love games of all types so lets star by talking about those of a video persuasion. As with a lot of things I’m a fan of older systems partially due to cost (and yes some nostalgia, yes I used the N word) but also due to the physical media nature of older systems. This is just a brief roundup of my consoles. Just to clarify I don’t collect games or consoles for the sake of getting a complete set, I just collect and keep games I wish to play.
Atari VCS ( known as the 2600 after 1982) I was of the age that I had an original fake wood grained VCS when they were released I hassled my parents about this for months and I was lucky enough to get one for Christmas. My fondest memory of this system is playing games like Night driver and having Defender Marathons with my Best friend.
It was well before the recent popularity of Retro gaming in around 2004, long after my childhood VCS had gone to great arcade in the sky I decided I’d love to revisit the system. I managed to pick one up off ebay at a really cheap price (especially compared to what they go for now). Since then I have really enjoyed the system as does my wife. Yes the graphics don’t blow you away but the gameplay is still there. There are a few games I still want the above mentioned Night Rider and The Empire Strikes back Game specifically. It’s just finding these at a price I’m willing to pay.
x-Box (the original one) – This overall is my favourite system in 1998 I returned to University and when I finished in 2001 my first Job with my shiny new qualification was in a city I did not know. This was around the time of the x-Box launch. I was flush with new money from my new job so I bought an x-Box. It was and still is a very powerful console When the addition of a Hard drive was a huge step forward. I don’t have a huge amount of games and I am still discovering games for this console all this time later. My most played Games are the obvious ones like Halo and Project Gotham Racing, as for other games probably my favourites include Fable and Munch’s Oddysee.
x-Box 360 – 3 years ago with some birthday money I picked up a second-hand 360. I was very lucky it had hardly been used and was cheaper than they are going for now. Obviously it is a huge step forward graphics wise from the original x-box, even though the original is my favourite system, at present the 360 is my most played just because I have some really good games on it. My favourites at present are Fable 2, Skyrim and Enslaved Odyssey to the west. I have a lot of games backlogged to play at the moment, as the games are really cheap at present and keep appearing in charity shops.
Playsation 2 – I don’t have big memories of the PS2 we had one in my University bar so I remember playing Gran-Turismo and Tekken a bit but it was never a system that inspired me. Over the years I have seen a lot of interesting games exclusive to that system, last year on my Birthday (see a trend here?) I managed to pick one up. I’m not overrun with Games for this system and haven’t played it as much as I would like yet. My most played ones at present are Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Battlefront.
Nintendo Wii – We picked up a Wii quite a few years back for one main reason Yoga. As a runner I wanted to do some Yoga and as an anti-social person I did not want to go to some class with ‘people’. So like millions of others we bought one for the Wii fit. I have though realised there is a huge amount of underrated games that I have not had time to explore. I really can’t pinpoint any game as a favourite due to my lack of play time. My wife’s favourite though has been The Sims 2 Castaway. Our Wii is one of the first generation consoles so we also have a chance to explore some Gamecube games due to backward compatibility.
I hope that gives you a brief insight and I will at point do some more in depth articles on specific consoles or games.
