Ten Video Games That Shaped My Childhood

Ten Video Games That Shaped My Childhood

(Yes, I'm a girl and I play video games)

1. Pong-my dad bought my mom an Atari while they were dating. So Pong was the first game I played.

2. Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle-One great day my dad brought home a Nintendo. Something he didn't discuss with my mom beforehand. Something my mom ended up playing for hours while trying to beat the Bugs Bunny game.

3. Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop for the NES. My introduction to directing and cartoons. A precursor to my love of stop motion. See one here. To give you an idea of how ground breaking this software was skip to 3:15 on theYouTube video link below. Seriously amazing for its time, and you still don't see much like it today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbSQAzktaI

4. Barbie-The original Nintendo Barbie Game. Long before they watered down Barbie game play to "Barbie Super Model" (bleck) we had Barbie. She had a rocking, difficult, video game. One where Barbie's goal was getting a dress for a date with Ken, but it involved complicated puzzles, and well thought out levels of game play. I offered money to any guy that beat the game, and even with hours of play, no guy did.

p.s. In the image below, if you look by carefully, you see the clothes Barbie had to destroy before they attacked her.

5. Ducktales: Taking my much beloved cartoon and making it playable? Wonderful! Using Scrooge McDuck's cane as a pogo stick, fabulous! The exchange student from Japan beating it in less than fifteen minutes? Unforgettable! I also learned (what was then) a shocking truth from that guy: Nintendo games are released in Japan long before they are released in the States.

6. Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers- was epic, released two years before the first incarnation of Mario Kart, it was the first game I played that had a simultaneous multiplayer format. If I was Chip, I could pick up Dale and carry him through the game or throw him off a cliff whichever I felt like doing. My brother liked to throw extremely large apples at my Chip's head. Or you could work together and beat the game, which some siblings probably did.

7. Mario -for the Nintendo 64. At the tender age of 11 it was the first thing I saw with 3-D graphics. I first played it at Toys R. Us. It was a demo setup with a screen mounted high. A while later my parents disengaged me from the machine and though I had a crick in my neck I remember thinking, "this is just the beginning." The memory of it was sealed when I spent that spring break trying to beat the game at a friend's while she (living in WA) was at school during the day. She has a great blog here.

8. Smash Brothers-Loved it because it came easily to me, loved it because nothing gushed blood, and loved it because it was bright and happy on the screen. Plus, after church on a Sunday a whole bunch of us could play this game together.

9. 007 Golden Eye- a game I never got. A game where I spent most of the time dying. Still shaped my video game experience because my buddies and I, when I had nothing else to do, would spend hours playing. Or they would spend hours playing, I would spend hours trying to get that stupid golden gun, so I had a chance.

10. And lastly my gaming experience couldn't be complete without the NES Mario. That game is etched into my mind. A truth I realized in college when my friend's little sister had it on her Game Boy Color, and I picked up the console and proceeded to show her where the hidden “1up” mushrooms were and the warp zones. Something she found impressive at the time, and something I'm secretly proud of. Or maybe now that it's on the net, not so secretly.  

By the way I borrowed the images in this blog from the internet for display purposes only, they are not mine in anyway.