My Gaming History (Part 2)

Last time, I told you my story from the day I first got in contact with games to the point when the PlayStation was released and later I got it as a Christmas present from my mother. (I made a mistake with the years, now that I remember more and more and look at the games I had.) What good days! Now let's take a look on what happened from that day on.

I told you last time, I only had one game and a demo. The demo had a few games already on it. There were two interactive models and some games. One was a manta ray that, when you pressed a button, could flap its wings, there were other animations too but I don't quite remember that anymore. The other one, which I really liked, was a T-Rex. You could let it run, open its mouth, and of course let it scream. The T-Rex was walking on a lit spot with black surroundings, the manta was in water as you might have guessed. These models looked so real for that time and I was really amazed. There was no gameplay but still I would look at those two creatures in awe. The games on the demo were a bit more action packed in a sense where you could actually play.

One I remember clearly was Kurushi (I.Q.: Intelligent Qube in North America), a puzzle game with big blocks coming your way as you mark the spots they get on and capture them. At the end of the game, it would show you your IQ based on how good you played. The guy in the video above has clearly no clue how to play this. But I tell you, you get better and you can't get enough of it. The sequel of the game, Kurushi Final: Mental Blocks, is currently in the PlayStation Store as a PS One Classic. I remember playing this and two other games off the demo disc a lot. The other two were Porsche Challange, a street racer with Porsche cars only, the other one was Hercules, the Disney liscensed movie game, a 2D side-scrolling action platformer. Good games!

The only game I owned though, a game probably no one knows. It's called Ray Tracers, a racing game in which you had to choose your driver/car, drive really fast, and crash your enemies off the road. All that you had to do in time, and I crushed all the missions with their bosses. However, I am not sure if I ever beat the last boss. It was hard, really, really hard. I mean, it's a Japanese game, so what do you expect, right? Watch some gameplay (not by me unfortunately) right here: 

I may connect my PS One (the same old bitch that I got almost 20 years ago) to my TV and start that game again. Just to relive the good ol' days.

In the following years, my PS One game library got bigger and bigger. There was one you all know by now for sure, I begged my mother to pick it up for me. I was in the store with her, looked at the games there and saw her. You know who I mean, Lara Croft! Man, she was looking good back then, and I knew it'd be something I would never forget playing because... come on, it's the Tomb Raider herself. But I tell you, I never beat the game, and this time I am so sure.
As a kid, I had no chance and all these animals, dinosaurs, and weird ass people hunting me, were creepy as hell. I didn't like the atmosphere too much and that's why I never got past the fourth level... Aw man, but I made a plan already to play all the Tomb Raider games in chronological order, that is the chronology of the story. That's why I started again with new Tomb Raider from 2013. But Tomb Raider wasn't the game that changed my life.

I was really into PlayStation games and went with my little spending money I had to a kiosk where I bought a magazine called Cheats & More, which was a German PlayStation magazine containing walkthroughs, cheats, and guess what, more. :D The first issue I bought had the walkthrough for Abe's Exoddus. It's weird I got this magazine of all the PlayStation magazines back then because not a long time before I bought Abe's Exoddus and now there I am with the walkthrough and the game. Perfect timing I guess. But in the magazine, there was a little contest where you could win a game and some swag. It was something like a crossword puzzle where you had to answer some questions. One question I remember was something like, what are you able to do in this game? My answer, sneak from behind and break the neck.
I thought, holy motherfucking shit!!! What kind of a game is that?! I want this! The prize was Metal Gear Solid! A friend in school was talking about the game but I didn't know you can do something like that. I've never seen anything like this before. So back to saving money again (nope, I didn't beg my mother again, that one time was enough :D), buying this game and boom... I fell in love already. I was sneaking from behind and breaking necks all over the place, shooting Revolver Ocelot and hearing him scream as his hand was cut off by Grey Fox, I was being fucked over again and again by Psycho Mantis when I finally got him to the ground telling me all his secrets. This was a life changer. I beat that game more than 20 times in a few weeks. Nowadays, you talk about replayability and such, this is the game you were looking for. The story never gets old, the gameplay is on point, and the character designs are classic. The day I played this game, I knew, Metal Gear Solid is going to be my favorite game of all time.

As I mentioned before, the library of my PS One games got bigger but there was no game compared to MGS. Solid Snake was my absolute hero.

But the PlayStation didn't end the era of Nintendo. Let's talk about my Nintendo experience and the following eras in the next posts of my gaming history. All this happened at the same time, 1997-2000, three to four years changing my life.

We'd love to hear your stories. Today is #TBT, so get to typing your story, make a video, or even record some music and tell us what you experienced over the years. Maybe you're still young and got into gaming only a few years, months, or even days ago? No problem, we're going to listen to that as well.

Peace and much love to ya!
JerriKoe aka Jay W. aka Jousef (that's my real name XD) - #GameOn