My Computing History - Part 7

Part 7 - Sony's grey box of wonder - the original PlayStation

So, in the very late 90s, me and my brother decided we were going to team up and buy a PlayStation - whilst we had a PC, it wasn't a gaming powerhouse, and we wanted something that kicked ass, so we got Sony's wonderful box of tricks, and here's what we got.

The games we bought with the machine

So, when we bought the machine, we bought some games with it so we had something to play - these weren't all that we had, but these were the stand out titles for me to begin with

Need For Speed: Road Challenge (aka Need For Speed: High Stakes)

I think this was probably the one we invested most time in to, it was definitely the game we played the most

Where to start with this one? So, pick you car, pick your colour, race on several tracks in lots of different locations, trade it in or own cash to buy a better car. Some races are just you and the others, some are "open road" (so you've got traffic) - there's even "hot pursuit" mode.

But, in two-player, you can race each other and the winner take the other person's car - this works by having two memory cards and the game updates the data on both cards at the end of the race, so it's definitely not for the feint heart - I suggest keeping a backup memory card so you don't lose your cars.

Also, the hot-pursuit mode works in two-player, so one of you an be the rozzers and the other one the is the getaway, it's definitely a lot of fun.

Later on, I managed to get the Windows PC version of this game too, which is considerably better graphically, but I prefer it on the PlayStation, especially due to the control method.

Crash Bandicoot

Another stone cold classic, something that got played a lot over the years, and I still love revisiting this one now

I'm sure everyone has heard of Crash Bandicoot, and if you've not, what rock have you been hiding under?

One of the first 3D style platformers I'd ever played, pick up stuff, smash boxes, take out enemies and avoid the obstacles and drops. It looks easy but it's far from it. This was the first game in the series, and we had both the 1st and 2nd game, but I think the 1st one is the one I played the most, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Duke Nukem: Time To Kill

Not the most favoured instalment in the franchise by make, but an enjoyable game nonetheless - I had a lot of fun with this one.

So, due to the nature of the game, I've had to be quite selective about the screenshots I've included, as, well, the game is quite NSFW

So, this was always a fun blast-a-fon, and I loved walking around blowing stuff up, working my way through the game. The one liners from Duke ware still funny as F, and it was my first introduction to the Duke Nukem franchise (yes, I know it'd been going for years, but this was my first) .................. revisiting this game now? Yeah, it's fun still, but I think I'd rather player Duke Nukem 3: Atomic Edition on the PC instead.

The controls is what I think lets it down here ............ it's an FPS games, they're meant to be played on Keyboard & Mouse, it's WSAD and click click click, anything else is wrong.

Either way, still a fund game.

Other games that you bought?

So, I'm not going to go in to massive detail about these, as a lot of these are well know games and are compilations with updated versions of old games, and there's definitely a "type" of game I went for, but, I'll drop some game covers, so you can see what I flashed my gaming money on.

So yeah, I'm quite the fighting game fan, especially Street Fighter, and this lot gave me pretty much the entire original set of games from the entire CPS-1 and CPS-2 era of SF.

What's next?

Well, this is my original journey completed - after this it was all over the place with me getting stuff as and when I wanted with not real plan and no actual sense or chronological order to my machine acquisitions - at one point I was buying a new computer or console each month, mostly old retro stuff.

So, what I'll do next, is an "honorary mentions" - those machines that I never owned as a kid (child or teen) but did have access to, either via school or via friends/family, so will document them there. These will be less detailed and not necessarily retro focused either, but it'll be a fun look at the machines I remember playing on.