Clint's corner
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Hi all,
Firstly I would like to give you a little insight as to what I'm about before I rant my opinions about all things gaming related. I guess I first experienced the joys that gaming could offer at the ripe old age of Five. I can recall my Dad returning home with an Atari 2600 and the family crowding round the 16" TV (if somewhat very vaguely). The soothing sounds of the blips from pong or frantic "WAKA WAKA WAKA" of PAC-MAN was enough to hook me, and thus my love of gaming was born. I was also very lucky as I grew up in a seaside town (Clacton-on-sea) when arcades were a fantastic place to be full of gaming cabinets and not cranes and fruit machines as they are nowadays. I cant even begin to explain the feeling I would get walking into the arcades and hearing all the sounds hit you with a pocket full of 10ps knowing you were in another world. whether it was crowding round a machine watching someone play or playing myself, these will always be cherished memories sadly arcades nowadays tend to be full of cranes 2p machines and fruit machines. Going on from there I remember my friend getting a master system and we would play that together and had some great times especially playing Gauntlet together I also remember speedball was a big hit with us too, his Dad also had a PC which we would sometimes go on as well (once we had got past entering the long winded "type the seventh word of the 126th page" malarkey which was effectively a piracy deterrent on games back then. Id also go round to my uncles who had a NES and would love playing Zelda and Link , which I still believe to this day still stands as one of my favourite franchises ever! Although id obviously not yet experienced the amazing Link to the past on the SNES, but that will come later. |
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The master system released in 1987.
Many hours spent on this with my mate enjoying tiles such as, Gauntlet Outrun R type Rastan Speedball to name a few we regularly played at the time. |
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The classic Gauntlet on the Master system,
such a fun game to play with friends ultimately very addictive and also very challenging. My brother had a Commodore 64 and other friends and family did have Sinclair's but nothing really grabbed me until the good old Master system and NES. Ultimately here began Nintendo and Sega's battle for console supremacy. |
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I seem to recall games being very much harder back then, but still we persevered, heck if you paid £35 for Rastan on the Master System you'd better learn to get good and get the most out of it. It was my friend (still a best friend) who actually owned the Master system and I who's I would love going round for sleepovers to play on some truly quality games together. As was said before we loved our gauntlet and also enjoyed forgotten worlds and playing other two player games together. He would also Come to Clacton at weekends with me when I went to visit my Dad, and we would spend some great times down the seafront on the beach and in the arcades. I remember having to play "Side Pocket" in the arcades due to the fact that you got glimpse of booby when you scored big :-) this was a time of Baywatch being aired in the UK for the first time (1990) and we were impressionable teenage boys!
It truly was a fantastic time for gaming, the way you could now be playing Golden Axe or Shinobi in the arcades and then also enjoy them with amazing (at the time) graphics and superb gameplay in your own home.
It also seemed that consoles were being pushed to their limits with some truly top titles which seemed to go above and beyond what you expected the little cartridge could ever achieve, with titles such as the wonderboy series which truly were ground-breaking titles in terms of limitations to what they could achieve.
That briefly sums up my Sega Master System days.
Surely it was now my time to get a home console....what could I possibly have chosen?
It truly was a fantastic time for gaming, the way you could now be playing Golden Axe or Shinobi in the arcades and then also enjoy them with amazing (at the time) graphics and superb gameplay in your own home.
It also seemed that consoles were being pushed to their limits with some truly top titles which seemed to go above and beyond what you expected the little cartridge could ever achieve, with titles such as the wonderboy series which truly were ground-breaking titles in terms of limitations to what they could achieve.
That briefly sums up my Sega Master System days.
Surely it was now my time to get a home console....what could I possibly have chosen?
alien: isolation screens
I thought it was gonna be good....I thought right.