What got you in to retro gaming?

[Space-Ace-13]

As a kid I grew up on the NES and my favorite games were Mega Man 2 and 4. I always kept up with the newest systems (NES - Sega - N64 - X-Box/PS2 - PS3) but always had a place in my heart for the old games. About 4 years ago now i think, my friend showed me the angry video game nerd videos and I thought they were hilarious and decided to pick up an old nintendo and start playing again... and I just started collecting. I have about 180 NES games now and about 60 more games between SNES, gameboy, GBA, DS, PS1, PS3.

[handfulofbits]

My story is fairly similar to yours, I grew up playing SNES and Mega Drive. I kept up with the next gen consoles throughout the years. When I was younger, every time a new console came out most of my other consoles became redundant. For me the graphics made the game. Now though, I find my Xbox 360 collecting dust and all the older console's being used just as much as they did when they were new! I truly believe they just don't make them like they used to...

[Shadowman]

I started out with a Spectrum and then moved onto an Amiga a few years later - my favourites games being Switchblade II and Turrican 2. I picked up an NES for Megaman 2 and Mario 3 and then kept up with home console releases from there on out. I got back into retro gaming a few years back as I wanted to play my old NES, Amiga and Snes etc. titles again and just started collected from there onwards (mainly focusing on Megaman as its the one series I've followed from generation to generation).

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Retro gaming got me in to retro gaming, or as we used to call it- gaming

Started off with the NES and Mega Drive, got myself a yellow Original Game Boy at 6 years old, and even when I was younger I looked after my things, and I still have those consoles working and kept in pristine condition today. For me, gaming was a past time where you could immerse yourself in the weird reality of games. Games were wacky, had little basis in real life and were surreal and exciting. It's like reading a book. I used to sit in bed and emmerse myself in Super Mario Land 2, or Sonic The Hedgehog.

For one, pixel art in gaming is fantastic and I firmly believe that it's part of what draws me in to the older games. I just look at them and see all the wonderful shapes and colours and techniques used to create the graphics and everything is lovely and detailed and is so personal and has so much charm. Of course games today are also fantastic but I just love the thought that one or two people back in the old days drew up and created level layouts and pixel by pixel created the graphics for those games.

The sound for the old games is also awesome. I love the way they had to be creative back in the day. There weren't real instruments and things, it was all done based on the specs of the sound card or whatever for that particular console. Games now can have ambient sountracks whereas everything back then had to be recognisable and funky, especially the Mega Drive tunes. It was part of the level you were playing. Who plays 3D games nowadays and goes "Oh yeah, this level has an awesome theme". More often than not it's a variety of themes based on emtions and events and changes, whereas this was a rarity back in the day.

Lastly, games were so awesome, but still a lot simplier to grasp back then. Everything had a manual you never read, and you just jumped in, pressed a few buttons and BAM, you could play the entire game if you got good enough with those skills you learned in the first minute of play.

Just everything about old games is great, though I'm not saying every retro game is good of course

Don't even get me started on the consoles. They were just industrial looking powerhouses full of character. The consoles each had their own personas and styles. My favourite- the Mega Drive- for example was more of an arcade style machine, with less games which required save functions and they marketed a lot of different control sticks and extra add ons to upgrade it and they often gave games funky sound tracks, even ports like The Terminator. Everything was so damn pumped.

Here's a selection of my favourites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u1BFU8 ... p_play_all

[Liamh1982]

I was retro-gaming before I even knew it!

Back in 1988, my six-year-old self and my older brother (then eight) were given a present by our uncle. He had just bought a NES and so decided to give us his Philips Videopac with Armoured Encounter.

Being young and stupid, I wasn't aware that this particular piece of hardware was already a decade old, I was just amazed you could play games on a TV! (My first tastes of arcade machines and personal computers would not come until the following year)

When I did finally get my hands on a NES about six weeks ago it ended a 24 year quest to own one! Just got to get another Videopac and I'll have come full circle - although I'm more likely to get a 360 for my 30th!

[Collz69]

I started with a Commodore 16 when I was 4, I had seen it on a TV advert, I had a game called punchy (a side scrolling platformer) a fruit machine game & a BMX Racer game, back in those days around 1981, I played it on a black & white portable TV, which I had in my room
I missed all the Amstrad, Atari, Spectrum stuff & didn't get another games machine until around 1989/90 that's when I got my master system & game boy, (cant remember which one I got first) followed by my NES a few years later (I think I swapped my SMS for the NES), then I was hooked, I got the SNES streetfighter pack for Christmas, around the same time my brother got the Megadrive, then we got a game gear, followed by a Commodore 64 (I swapped my BMX for it) & then an Amiga 500, my brother got the PS1 when it was first released & then I got the N64 on release day (that was an awesome day) & later the GBA.

That's what got me into retro gaming, actually living through it when it wasn't retro.
I've had PS2, Xbox original, GameCube, PSP, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox 360, (ive gone thru 4 of theses) & Wii, since then, but they aren't the same & don't mean as much to me, I've sold most of them now & only have the Wii & Vita now.

Over the past few years I've bought a NES, SNES, Amiga 1200, Game Gear & scratched my retro itch, sold them all now & I've currently got a SFC, some original Gameboys & a GBA SP.
These are keeping me occupied at the minute

I still wish I had kept all my original consoles though

[Joe Boy 1986]

I've only really got into retro gaming over the past month. Being born in 86, I remember when my dad got me my first NES in 89 with duck hunt, hogans alley, kung fu and super mario bros. along with my red ferguson tv. It lit up my whole world. But I've always moved from one console to the next. NES to SNES to PS1 to PS2 to 360. I've never kept my old consoles, be it moving, sellin or just generally growing up.
I started watching all of the AVGN episodes and a wave of nostalgia just washed over me. So I just went out and astated buying up a NES, a PS1 and a GameBoy. I think it's the thrill of finding a diamond in the rough. All I know is my 360 and PS3 are sitting covered in dust under the TV. But I think I've learnt my lesson this time around; they'll be retro one day to, so I'll keep this lot for another 20 years.

[Lord Innit]

I never got into retro gaming. The whole thing has just evolved for me over the years. I've been gaming for well over 30 years now, and I just never abandoned my older systems for newer ones. I still go back to my older games quite a lot.

[maD_mAN1983]

grew up with the NES, but as most others i sold it away for money and new stuff, between the NES and the Gamecube i never realy owned a console, i had a N64 for about a week when that was the newest, but i sold it again for some profit, my sister had a SNES so i played tons of fun games for that, and about 4-5 years ago i decided that i wanted to play NES again, so i started collecting some for that, and i have most of the games i realy want for that, but are always looking for those i don't have, but are mainly collecting for the Gamecube, figured it would be best to start collecting for that sooner rather then later, since the prices tend to rise when the generation that grew up with the console starts to feel nostalgic and want back some memories, but i do collect for NES, SNES and N64 also, but just carts unless i get a boxed copy for cheap, and that don't happen to often, only games i realy want to have boxed are those NES games i had as a kid, luckly for me i did not have that many, so shouldnt be to expensive i think

[sp1nzoK]

To quote what I wrote in my profile's About me -section: "Once upon a time a 4 year old boy sneaked into his big brother's room to play Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive - he was hooked ever since." That's how I got started with playing, I'm pretty sure I saw some Amiga (or whichever computer it was) gameplay when I was even younger though. I also played Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge and Tetris (mostly) on my big sister's original grey Game Boy. Never owned a NES but I had a couple of friends that owned one - played Mega Man 4 with one of them, The Jetsons with one and so forth. I remember when I was 8 years old and playing Doom II on MS-DOS and beating it on the second hardest difficulty. Once I borrowed Shining Force II from a friend for my Mega Drive and it became my favorite game to this date, I must have had it for a couple of years before I returned the game. Then came the time when my family got a PlayStation. I was excited beyond belief and the first game we had for it was Tomb Raider. I had a friend over every time when playing the game - we beat the whole game together and it was great. One time I borrowed a Final Fantasy VII from a friend's friend and I didn't even know much English but boy did I learn. He wanted the game back when I was about halfway done with the game, so I bought the game myself as a teenager and had my nephew with me through the whole experience. Then it was PC gaming with the odd console on the side, most notably PS2, Nintendo handhelds and GameCube.

So what got me into retro gaming was growing up with it. Regretfully I only had a few PC games left from my youth when I started collecting, so I have been busy with reacquiring all kinds of nostalgic games. I naturally started collecting things I had missed too, like many a Nintendo console/game and I'm on that path for the rest of my life now.

Thanks for taking me down a memory lane.

---

On a side note, the story's timeline might be bit wrong.

[chocklo]

For me, I never got in to retro gaming as such. I started playing on the family Atari 2600 when it was current gen and never grew out of it. I then got a beeb, speccy, c64, nes, master system, pc engine, master system, mega drive, snes......Xbox 360 and never stopped buying for or playing on them.

interesting question... I genuinely can't remember a distinct point where I'd gotten in to retro.

[Pondis]

It was a friend of mine who got big into collecting N64, and playing games from my high skool daze (see what i did there?) took me way back to me C64, Amstrad CPC464, ZX Spectrum, on to my Master system, Mega drive, NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox, PS1, 360, PS2, PS3 and all the others inbetween.

I chose to start collecting Sega because some of my favourite gaming memories come from the Mega Drive and Master system, and ontop of that I figured it would be loads easier to find Segas amazing Never-Rot technology boxes. Seriously, after a nuclear war, cockroaches will live in houses made of Sega plastic boxes.

[Tyron]

Collecting is in my blood. My family have always collected stuff. If I have two of an item it's a collection.

I think pure greed got me into collecting retro games. When I was younger I would want to play as many games as possible. Now I've grown up and people are selling older games for pennies - it makes sense to collect.

Now I appreciate the artwork and effort put into each game, and the fact that there are games out there I've never heard of. I blame youtube, if I see something that gets my attention I want to buy it.

[gameboymanmatt]

Since I was roughly 6yrs old, I had a game boy of some description, and I still have the two original GBCs that I owned since childhood. My sister had a green original GB that I got rid off when I was about 12. Foolish I know!!!

[Cauterize]

Collecting is in my blood. My family have always collected stuff. If I have two of an item it's a collection.

Ha, that's a good way of putting it. Pogs, Football Stickers, Mighty Max, Micro Machines... I blame my Dad, an ex-comic collector.

[Lord_Santa]

my story is similar to some others - I never "got into retro-gaming", I've just been playing/collecting for almost 30 years now
my family could never afford the latest-gen consoles/computers, so I always lacked behind (had Atari 2600, when friends had NES, Sega Master System when they had SNES, etc.) - the one point I've been "keeping up with current-gen" is today's PC's (or rather, since the Pentium 1 era) - apart from that, I don't really see it as "retro", per se. since the games themselves (those that I enjoy) can easily keep up with "today's standards"

whenever I buy a retro-game/console these days, it's not so much about "I want retro-stuff", as rather "what consoles/games are out there on the market, which would bring me the most value for my money?"

[mainvein]

i've been gaming since we got a vic-20 when i was 3 and i've just never stopped playing/collecting/acquiring etc.

Just have a great love of games and a hoarder

[tux]

i blame sites like this....and all of you, pure and simple
i had most/all of the "retro" stuf when it was current. from the family power house of the time-the zx81, to Amigas, gameboys, snes bundles, and some obscure stuff like CDTV's etc. i was in to computers/consoles in a big way. then i hit my 20s, started looking at buying a house. scaled down my consoles and only realised when putting them the last load on ebay that id given away 1000s of pounds worth for next to nothing!

keeping in mind i hadnt played some of consoles for the best part of a decade, the money was the only important thing to me. so, i started buying and selling from friends and at car boots etc. i was making a pretty healthy amount and had no intention of keeping anything again ever...i was in it for the cash.

However, sites like this have ruined my evil plan! i was happy and greedy until i started using sites like this to reasearch some of my "stock". ive become intrested in keeping stuff again, much at the irritation of my otherhalf! my house is now once again full of retro consoles and and try to keep as much of the truly interesting stuff as i can. my misses is very annoyed at the fact we found a Hagane in a bundle of stuff cost next to nothing. in the old days that would have been sraight on ebay, 1 week later id be counting by 120quid(or whatever its worth at the moe). now it sits in a protective plastic case, in bubble wrap in a box!

youve all ruined me and my "business!!!!"

[Squarewave]

I also was retro gaming before I realised.
Early nineties when all my friends had either a NES/SNES or a MD I was using a Videopac at my Grandparents and paid £60 for a C64 which come with about 50 games and I only really played Kikstart 2...

My 1st "modern" console was the PS1 and that was one of the last ones...

[Tepid Snake]

I'd say there were two things that got me into playing old games:

First, a visit to Majorca around 2000- the arcades there were fairly outdated, so they had a lot of older games, like The Punisher, Super Pang, Track & Field, and most importantly, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs. At the time I was heavily into 3D games on the N64 and Playstation, but I'd never heard of any of these games and was amazed by them. There was also Metal Slug 2 which completely blew me away- it was only 2 years old at the time but it looked incredible, so from there I started looking into old arcade games and the like... (To this day MS2 and C&D are some of my favourite games)

The other thing was getting introduced to emulation by my brother, in particular when he found Gunstar Heroes. I'll admit I couldn't believe it was running on a Mega Drive, and since we'd sold all our old consoles, I set about getting them all back to properly play these games I'd missed out on the first time around.

Really, it's about finding out about games I've never heard of and giving them a try- retro or modern, I'll play anything if it's interesting!