Close Topic Options

Pretty self-explanatory. What games for you growing up were your favorites and why?

Being a kid of the early to mid-90s, which makes me feel alittle old, games that still stick out to me the most were.

Sonic 2: Don't remember how many hours I spent playing this total or the frustration I felt trying to figure out Silver Sonics pattern. It's still one of the best of the 2-D Sonic games in my opinion. (Sonic CD is the only one that beats it out.) I had played the first Sonic also but the spin-dash move made this game so much more enjoyable. The speed and level sizes were improved, the soundtrack was really impressive and the game just felt really polished.

Mortal Kombat: I didn't have access to an SNES (unless I went to my cousins place) so the only fighting game I remember turning to was MK. I remember the big stir this game created when I first read about it. Parents complaining about the violence and such and I just wanted to try it out. Always gravitated towards Scorpion and Sub Zero, and would just harpoon/freeze ho attack the hell out of the CPU.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: This was the game I always ended going over to my friends place to play. This game was also worlds better than the first TMNT game on the NES which I had and never could beat. It also felt you were actually playing through the cartoon series. I think Leonardo was my usual choice of character.

I could probably list some more but I'll wait an see how this thread goes.

I grew up with a Sega Genesis in the house, and we rented a lot of games over the years. I played a lot more video games when I was a bit older and I got a Playstation.

As for Genesis titles...

Super Street Fighter II: I always played this against my brother, and I always played as Ryu. My dad would whip both our asses with Fei Long.

Mortal Kombat II: Sub Zero. The notoriously cheap CPU would destroy you if you didn't freeze it constantly.

Predator 2: A port of an arcade game, it's a really good isometric shooter that never got a lot of recognition. Probably because it's insanely hard. I could never beat it, but my dad got to the final level a few times.

Two titles stick out in my mind:

Carmageddon: Watched my older cousin play this. Eventually obtained a Russian version for PC. Had lots of fun doing crazy stunts, crashing, and using pedestrians as bowling pins. Glad there's a revival in the works.

Legend of Dragoon: Favorite game on the PS1. I liked the battle system and the graphics. Still stuck on the final boss. Difficulty seems to be exponential.

Then, I guess, Pokemon Yellow for GBC. TMNT for the original Gameboy would probably be on this list as well, but I lost that early on and never finished it.

I completely agreed with Legend of Dragoon. That game left a lasting impression on how a RPG should play. With story coming first. Now if only they'd make a damn sequel...


A weirder one for me would be Micro Machines on the Genesis/megadrive. I played that game for ages and never got tired of it

That game was hard

If I remember correctly the previous Dragoons you had to fight were wayyy harder than the final boss

Good game, Good game indeed

I'm a Nintendo kid at heart. I grew up with a SNES in the house so that was about the only thing I played. All of the classic stuff, you know:

Super Mario World: I have picture evidence of my as a 2 year old sitting in my dad's lap while he jumped on Goombas and powered through the levels with yoshi. He knew all the short cuts through the levels and I always thought it was amazing that my dad was able to beat the game effortlessly whenever he picked it up to play. This is the first game I remember playing and for that, it holds a special place in my heart.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island: Nothing like the first game. My dad also has pictures of me sitting in his lap while he played this. I think I got the biggest kick as a kid watching my dad play this game. I loved the art and story, I remember laughing so hard at the last boss, Bowser JR. The way he was jealous at Baby Mario... I find it priceless. I didn't beat this game until I was 12, it was so hard...

I can't think of anymore at the moment...

Castlevania, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, pretty much all the good games from back in the day.

Castlevania was pretty much the big one for me as a kid. The music got me hooked, same with Mega Man.

Pokemon [Gold, Blue, Stadium]
007 Goldeneye
Sonic 2 / 3
Wave Racer
Rush 1 / 2 / 2049
Gran Turismo 1
Road Rash [All Of EM!!]
Mario [I can't count... >_>; ]
Power Rangers
Rainbow Six Rogue Spear
Vigilante 8
Twisted Metal Series
Driver Series
Dynasty Warriors Series

Meh... this list will take forever, I will keep it short.

My first video game was Donkey Kong Country for SNES. I got it with a SNES at my sixth birthday from my grandpa.
One of the hardest level is the fear factory with all it's ravines and small platfoms and the part where the lights switches on and off. My favorite level is the crystal cave.

Another game I ever had is Super Mario World. In the past I never got it to defeat bowser. I never finished the game completly. A fear years ago I found a secret exit in a haunted house. At this point, I figured out that haunted houses always have two exits.

In the same year or 1997 I got The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the past. It was already used and had a completly finished profile. However, the cartridge have a defective contact or something. Someday the game doesn't started. After I removed the catridge and replugged it, all profiles were deleted. This happened between 2003 and 2006 again. After I got a Wii I downloaded the game for virtual console. Until 2009 or 2010 I never finished this game. Since 1997 I finally got the fourth level of the Master Sword.
This is one of my favorite games and I still play it sometimes.

1998 I got a N64 with Waverace 64 at my birthday. 1999 I got Blast Corps 64 and Super Mario 64. I never finished Blast Corps 64. Super Mario 64 is the most played game on my N64. But I got the last Power Star between 2005 and 2006 first. In the past the game was a challenge for me but unfortunately, it is too easy nowadays but I still have fun when I play it.

1999 I got Mario Party (the first ever). I played it a lot with my sister and it made a lot of fun.

2000 I got Lego Racers at christmas. I think this is one of the games with the best graphics for N64 and it makes a lot of fun.

Between 1998 and 2000 I also got Yoshi's Story. It's really funny game that makes a lot of fun and has a perfect severity.

2001 I got Donkey Kong 64 as a birthday gift. It has a long story and a lot of extras. But I never finished it. It's multiplayer games are awesome...

In February 2004 I got a Gamecube with Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and a special disc with The Legend of Zelda games from NES and N64. This Mario Kart is the best of it's series and is just plain awesome in multiplayer games.

In March or Apirl 2004 I got Super Mario Sunshine. It has good memories from my childhood. I haven't played it since 2006.

At my birthday 2004 I got The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I played it the rest of the summer and it was awesome.

At the end of 2004 I got Sonic Heroes. It's the last good Sonic game I played. It has many characters to play, huge levels and a long play duration.

In February 2007 I got a Wii. My favorite games for it are Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. They have such an amazing soundtrack and they make a lot of fun.
But there also is Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. It was my second game for Wii and makes a lot of fun, too.

These are my favorite games for Gameboy: Pokémon the red, yellow and gold editions, Tetris and Super Mario Land.


I hope I didn't forget something.

Damn I remember that so much. Especially the level in a cave where you need to hit the barrel to stop those reptiles that are running so damn fast.

Starfox 64
There are no words to explain my addiction with this game. I played it for 5 years nonstop...
Starwolf ftw!

Gran Turismo 1
I remember in arcade mode, there were some maps & cars to unlock and I could never get them. I remember my dad's friend gave me a memory card with them unlocked. But I lost it a month later. So I begged my dad to buy a new memory card so that I can get the locked cars and map but it was a brand new memory card. So there weren't anything in it and I'd cry because I couldn't use the MKIII or MKIV supra. I was in kindergarden when this happened.

This post has been edited by VileFCboy on Apr 20 2012, 09:21 PM

I grew up with a NES, so mine are: Super Mario series, punch out, Excite Bike, RC proam and, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.

Twisted Metal 3/4 - Both games had awesome soundtracks. Also number 4 had Tom Skold in it!!!

Goldeneye- Need I say more...

Megaman X4 - Still my favorite megaman game to date.

Twisted Metal 3/4 were shoddy compared to the brilliance that was Twisted Metal 2. I enjoyed them, but nowhere near as much.

I really awakened to videogames once I got a Playstation in early 1996. Grid Runner, Disruptor, Defcon 5, Tekken 2, Resident Evil 1+2, and Magic Carpet owned my life back then.

Some more games that I just thought of! More from the SNES

Super Mario Kart: I love this game so much. I always played as Luigi and my favorite course was Koopa Beach. I'd race against my dad and as a kid he would always beat the living crap out of me--always winning by a lap and a half at the least. I guess that's because I was really young and I didn't have the motor skills to proficiently play games... But everytime he would beat me, he would give me ruffle my hair and tell me I did a good job. That always inspired me to try harder and to practice as much as a could, and by the time I was in third grade, I was able to cut the gap between us to two or three seconds. There were times I even beat him; now we are pretty evenly matched. My win:lose ratio is about 50:50 with him. I guess Mario Kart taught me that working hard and practice is the only way to improve yourself.

Donkey Kong Country: I just remember Enguarde the swordfish. He was epic, and he made the underwater levels so easy. And the bonus stages were always so fun to play. I remember watching my dad beat King K. Rool for the first time, I cheered for my dad and Donkey Kong (remember, I was a toddler back in the day, so it was normal for me). I love the music that played during the boss fight and I'd always try to beat the stage for myself just to listen to the awesome music. I'd lose so many lives...

Tetris: Because it's a classic and I would always watch my dad play for hours on end. I still play it to this day. Enough said.

I also remember my DreamCast from back in the day too. Inherited from my uncle when he upgraded to a PlayStation2. My dad never played with it too often, but he would pick it up to play Crazy Taxi on a rainy day.

Sonic Adventure: Simply awesome, my favorite stage is City Escape. It was one the of the first games that I beat by myself, although I never got all the emblems because of the stupid Chao races.

Jet Grind Radio: Great game with amazing character designs and music. I remember struggling against the challenge from YoYo. And I always hated the guy because he would beat me EVERY SINGLE TIME when I was a kid. But I picked the game up back in 2007 and I was able to kick his but and beat the game with a completion level of 100%. So I have all the characters and the extras with the highest ranks on all the stages and time attacks. No easy feat and I'm really proud of that. But can you imagine getting beat by a guy like this and having him rub it in your face before you got the game over screen? Yeah, it get's really annoying. Strangely enough, he quickly became my favorite character to use on the time attack stages because of his amazing agility... Strange how the tables can turn so quickly...



Phantasy Star Online: I was scared of this game as a kid so I never played it often, but I watched my uncle play and I always thought it was so cool. I never played this game while the online servers were in use but from what I've heard it was an awesome experience. I just wish we had internet back in the day so I would have been able to play with other people across the world... I recently picked the game back up and I was able to beat the final boss on normal mode. Now all I have to do is level grind for 20+ more hours and I'll be barely ready to move onto hard mode!

Skies of Arcadia: Oh man was this game the bee's knees. I love the character designs, music and the plot. Everything about this game was perfect. The dungeon and enemy designs are simply amazing. It took me years to beat the game but since then I pick it up every year just to play from the beginning just to see how quickly I can power through the entire story. I challenge myself to different things just to spice it up; don't let any of the characters die, no healing items, low level runs, low equipment runs, and all that kind of stuff. I love it so much that I got the port of it for the GameCute--Skies of Arcadia: Legends--and it sits as the jewel of my game collection.

Crazy Taxi: The only DreamCast game my dad would play and one of the best arcade game ports that I've played so far. I love the character and level designs. The music is nothing to sneeze at either. I love Bad Religion and The Offspring and it was really awesome that the entire sound track was composed only of songs between those two bands. There were two different maps: Arcade and Original. My dad would always play with the Arcade map and because of that he always had the high score on that level. I played with the Original map and I would constantly get higher scores there. So when we trade off levels we would complain about how hard it was to beat the high score to even get on to the leader boards. It's hilarious... if you look at the records that we have all of them from the Arcade stage have the initials "DAD" while the records from Original have "ACE" (which was the three letter signature I used for games like this). I have yet to find a Crazy Taxi machine to play with so I guess that's the next thing I need to do. But I doubt I'll be able to get on the leader boards there, I don't have an endless amount of quarters to spend on arcade games like that.

I skipped the Nintendo64 generation so I have a feeling I missed out on a lot of games from that era. But I got a GameCube for Christmas back in 2000 and from there I've had every single major Nintendo system with the staple games to date. But the games I remember from way back in the day are just the games that we had for the SNES. I'm glad to say that it still works and I'm in the process of finding an Earthbound cartridge for it. I know they go for upwards of $130+ online and everything, but I think I can find something somewhere if I keep looking...

Final Fantasy VI (FF3 on SNES): While I never owned the game, playing Final Fantasy VI for the first time at my cousins left a lasting impression on me and introduced me to the franchise. It wasn't until I received a Playstation with FFVII for Christmas that I became hooked to the series.

Ecco the Dolphin: Hardest game I ever played on the Genesis. The music really set the atmosphere and actually made certain stages creepy. Also the needing to go up for air aspect of the game. Basically you had two life bars you had to keep track of. Made it tricky when you had to go explore a cave. Beat it by using a Game Genie.

Jurassic Park (Genesis): As odd as it is, this was a decent video game rendition of a big blockbuster movie. Both Grant and the Raptor had their perks.

Super Mario Bros 3: Best Mario game on the original NES.

This post has been edited by RalliKai on Apr 21 2012, 08:39 PM

Damn, kids on this board, I tell ya. My first game addiction was Demon Attack! And PacMan for the Atari 2600 home system, blew my mind, here on my own TV, holy sh*t!!

I started gaming at the age of 3, with Sub Hunter on my family's Atari.

Without a doubt, it's Motorhead. Sometimes things make me feel old, but when it comes to the topic of "first games" I feel so green, since I first started playing games with that one in 1998. I've posted about it a bit before, but it's always worth saying that it is probably largely what got me where I am now in many of my entertainment interests. My interest in cars likely stemmed from that game, and that interest coupled with a taste for anime led me naturally to Initial D, which helped me get into the music I am now so passionate about... I do owe a lot to the Gremlin team.

Being a 90's kid, I grew up first with the NES and Duck Hunter, Mario Bros., and Top Gun. After that we got an SNES, and with that, my favorite games of my childhood. Super Mario World had me hooked, as well as Donkey Kong Country. And of course, my favorite arcade game was Metal Slug and this addicting airplane game that WASN'T a side-scroller.

Just remembered a few other games which I played with my cousin in the past.

Super Mario All Stars for SNES! How I could forget this. It made so much fun. We played it from the morning until afternoon.

And Mario Kart for SNES which I also played with my cousin.

Aaand Power Rangers Mighty Morphin. Of course also played with my cousin.


And there was Rakuka Kids for N64. I played it at my friend. It has nice cartoon graphics.

THE_HONDA_CG2: Nintendo GameCub wasn't released in 2000 but rather 2001.

This post has been edited by Nerubian on Apr 23 2012, 07:20 PM

There were a lot of games that I'd consider favorites when I was a kid:

Raptor: Call of the Shadows - This was one of those top down, vertical airplane shooters, much like Raiden. The levels were huge, the weapons were awesome, and I just couldn't get enough of playing this game when I was a kid. The graphics were pretty sharp too considering this was an old DOS game.

Super Mario Kart for SNES - Definitely one of my favorites. My brother and I used to play battle mode every weekend when we were allowed to play video games. This resulted in many fights amongst the two of us, but it was still fun.

NBA Jam Tournament Edition for SNES - Another game my brother and I used to play on a frequent basis, but we usually played on the same side. NBA Jam definitely provided hours of fun for me.

Dragonball Z: Hyper Dimension - I think this was the first fighting game that I could beat my brother at, which instantly made it a favorite of mine.

Ninja Turtles for NES - I don't recall if I ever beat this game, but I do remember playing this game every time I fired up the NES when I was a kid. I think a family friend had a DOS version of this game too.

I'm pretty sure there were others, but these were the first few of my childhood favorites that popped up in my head.

Really? I remember getting it in 2000, I'm sure of it. It was a Christmas gift from my aunt to used to have connections in the field. So maybe it was a super secret preorder? Either way, the thing doesn't work anymore and we have since gotten a replacement for it.

This. Right here. My absolute favorite game as a kid. Hell I still play it. Back when Capcom was awesome, they actually made games like this. It's a challenging, wonderful fantasy game. I only beat it for the first time a few weeks ago. It's sort of like a street brawler, but with fantasy characters. There are multiple classes to choose from, the Fighter being my favorite. There was also an Elf archer, a Dwarf warrior, a Cleric, and a Mage. All of them played differently, and got unique upgrades to their character. If anyone has the time to emulate it or play it the way it was ment to be played, I say this is a gem to give a shot.

The GameCube was announced on the E3 in 2001. There is a article about it and it's release date:
http://www.digitalmediafx.com/E3/gamecuberelease.html

I only played the demo of this as part of a bundle on a free CD I got as a kid. Despite only playing one level, it was alot of fun. Don't know if anyone ever played this.



I'd also like to throw Doom II on my list. First CD game I got when my parents upgraded to a 486.