My Computing History - Part 4

Next up, we have one of the most popular game consoles from the 16-bit era. My brother got the SNES for Christmas 1992 and be both played this extensively, and it was awesome.

So which pack did you get?

We got the Street Fighter II bundle - at the time, this was a really big deals, as Nintendo had a 1 year exclusivity deal with Capcom, and this was the only way you could play the game at home (unless you had the arcade machine)

However, much to our mild annoyance, the early versions of the bundle only came with one controller, and it was many months before we got a second controller, and when we did, it was one of those third-party things. Either way, lots of fun was had, and I discovered what I could only say was my new all time favourite game ever.

Street Fighter II - The World Warrior

First impressions were that this was the BEST game ever - to my young eyes, ears, fingers and thumbs, this was arcade perfect. Obviously that's not a true statement now, but it was as close as damn-it to recreating the arcade machine experience of this game.

Of course, we're in the UK, we had the PAL version, complete with slow ass 50hz gameplay and huge letter-boxing, but that didn't deter us from the enjoyment that was SF2.

On Boxing Day, I studied that manual cover to cover to work out what the moves were, and could only image the awesomeness of pulling off a spinning pile-driver (news flash: I didn't manage to for another 8 years)

We also got hold of the "Street Fighter II Players Guide" video that came with NMS (Nintendo Magazine System) one month, and I watched that several times over and over, studying game play and listening to the tips and tricks.

What other games did you have?

Games on the SNES were super expensive, so we didn't have too many of them, but we often borrowed or got some in the odd swap here and there, and here's the 4 that stood out the most to me

Alien 3

I was a huge fan of the Alien films and loved this game, although, it was darn difficult for me at the time. I proper enjoyed crawling through the tunnels and blasting them alien xenomorphs to bits. Yeah, this was what the SNES was about

Bart's Nightmare

Now, being young and being a big Simpsons fan at the time, I loved this game back then, but darn has it aged badly. I was never great at it and don't think I ever progressed past a D grade, but it had some fun little puzzles and bits and pieces in it. Revisiting it recently, I'm not a fan now

The Lawnmower Man

Now, the 3D sections in this game are epic - they still hold up now if you ask me,. but that's only my opinion. The game has an epic soundtrack, is of just the right difficulty level and was properly engaging. It helped that I liked the film too at the time, even though it's not held in that high regard these days.

Sim City

This is an interesting one, it had no right being as good as it is, but I got super obsessed with this game, almost as much as Street Fighter II. Whilst one would think this game might be quite boring, it's anything but, and in usual Nintendo style, it's had a few tweaks to make it fit the Nintendo "family friendly model" - now, I'm not a fan of Nintendo 1st Party properties, but, here, it's very welcome as it adds to the game, and give a little humour here and there. After a lot of play I was able to build my city and take it from the village status up to metropolis is such a short time, I'd worked out a formula, wish I could remember what that was now.

Some other games that we played

My brother was more in to sports games than me, so there was a couple that weren't my bag, but mostly they still entertaining. But also, we had Mario Kart on a short term borrow at one point too.

Now, not being a fan of either NFL or NHLPA hockey, I don't really remember which year or season they were, but I did play these with my brother and had some enjoyment out of them, even though I had no clue what I was doing with NFL.

Mario Kart on the other hand, for the short time we had that on a borrow, I thought it was fantastic, it's a favourite of mine even now, and it's also the only Nintendo/Mario game that I actually like. There, I said it.

How does the SNES compare against the MegaDrive in your opinion?

Well, the SNES is definitely more capable in the graphics and sound department, but it's let down by a much slower CPU, so some games are a bit hit or miss on the SNES, but, Nintendo had a habit of supplementing the games with extra chips in the cartridge to bump the specs and capabilities of the SNES, making it considerably better. Then there's that cool "Mode 7" stuff from back in the day, an effect that looked cool at the time, but I don't think has aged too well now.

The MegaDrive though, well, it's game library was more "bringing the arcade home" focused, and as such, there was more games on the Sega MegaDrive that interested me, even if they may not have been as good as their SNES counterparts.

Saying all this, I only ever played the MegaDrive at a few friend's houses, so didn't own one until much later in my journey of retro computers & consoles.

I still have a huge soft spot for the SNES though, and a lot of the 3rd Party games were still huge contenders, the SNES was from Nintendo's hey day, their peak in my opinion, as the it was all downhill from the N64 onwards in my opinion.

Do you have a SNES now?

Oh you bet I do, and once supplemented with an Everdrive cart, this becomes such an awesome system. It's a lot closer call for me as to which system I prefer, this or the MegaDrive, as they're both decent in their own way.

What's next?

For Part 5, I'll be looking at the PC, specifically the Pentium 1, with Windows 95, the first PC we owned.