Video Games

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My Early History Of Playing Games

I used to get into a lot of trouble as a child, "wasting" my pocket money on playing arcade games. When I was about 12 years old in the late 80's, it cost 20c per game here in South Africa. I only got about R2 pocket money that equaled to 10 games a month that I could play. I measured everything I bought in how many games it cost me! Needless to say, I got pretty good at playing these games and, back in the day, when you finished the game you got one free. Some of my favourites include: Yie-ar-kung-fu, Legendary Wings, Exiting hour, Ghost 'n Goblins, Shinobi and Double Dragon. All of these were soon to be replaced by Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Those were the days! Now I am at the tender age of 33, but still enjoy my games. I just lack the time for all of them. Despite playing games these days like: Age of Conan, WOW, Battefield 2, Need For Speed Pro Street and many more - I still like to relive those years as a child. I have bought all the dvd's from MAME and got their emulator. Now I have all the arcade games I ever played right on my computer. The emulator is free as is many of the games. So what is MAME? It is software that makes your computer think it is an arcade game system. The games themselves are called ROMS. Here is a few screenshots of my MAME emulator and ROMS:some screeshots of my favourites only!

I totally love Dungeons & Dragons!

However; my childhood fun doesn't end there. What about all the DOS games I adored so much? That is why I got myself a DOS emulator, called DOSBOX. I have got loads of games on there as well. For those of you that share my interest, I have posted some links to the right of this page.

Some Free Online Games

I didn't always have the money to buy games for playing online. Not to mention paying a monthly fee. So started the hunt for something decent , but free online. I have found a couple of online games that are really good and totally free. One game I can definitely recommend is "9 Dragons" from Acclaim. You start of choosing your character and school of fighting. This game is all about martial arts! Apart from the vast world and countless quests, you can enter in a duel to fight other characters. Another game I considered to be fun was "Dance", also from Acclaim. Here you can create your own room and invite friends to dance with you, choosing your favourite songs. Spend points, you earn for performing well, to buy clothes and jewellery. There is a lovers mode, battle mode, superstar and boys vs girls mode.

Some Prized Possessions

A game I consider my best buy ever is "Severance - Blade Of Darkness" Till now, there is nothing that comes close to this game's combat system. It really takes skill defeating your opponents. Shields gets damaged and breaks after a while. You control when to block, dodge and do combo moves. Combination moves are done with a sequence of key presses and you learn more moves, for a certain type of weapon, as you progress in level. It puts you right there in the fight. I found my heart pounding with beads of sweat running from my brow as I was going face to face with a Stone Golem. Man it is exciting! You can interact with most of the environment like, picking up stuff and throw it at different strength levels. Planting a devastating blow to the enemy's limbs, will chop it off. Better still, you can pick his arm up and bash him with his own arm. There are only two games that remotely came close to that for me: One is Heretic II, that I still play online sometimes, and Dark Messiah - Might and Magic. They're still far from Severance's thrilling combat system. If we talk Massive Multilayer Online games, Age of Conan is perhaps thee closest combat system to Severance. Then I've got the whole series of Battlefield, ranging from Battlefield 1942 to Battlefield 2. This was my first real game online. Also in my possession, is the whole series of Neverwinter Nights, with all the expansions, from the first one to Neverwinter Nights 2. Last of my prized possessions is the whole series of Need for Speed, ranging from the DOS era till today. I consider Need for Speed High Stakes as the best one of the lot, when considering the time it was made in. You could basically download any car you could think of, it had a good damage system, dashboard view and it included Hot Pursuit. Carbon was good, but I was a bit dissapointed that it did not include drag racing. The best sense of speed for me was NFS Underground I. It was also the most difficult one from the bunch. I do like Pro Street a lot and I think it gives way to the next generation of car racing games. That concludes the multi player games. When it comes to single player games, these got my attention: Fable (brilliant), Gun, Fahrenheit and Assassins Creed.

All in all, I consider myself to be a true gamer. I am not brilliant at any particular game, but I enjoy them all, whether it is DOS, arcade or pc games. I never get upset and take things serious, because it takes away from the fun. I do not have to be the best, but to have fun. Not to long ago, I have been to a LAN party but did not have fun at all. For me, it is all about testing your skill against a live human opponent. It just gives a different feel than playing against bots. These days they play stuff like Warcraft III Dota where you play co-op in defeating the computer. How dull and boring. I could do that at home!!

I am certain that I have left out some great titles, but these are just some that came to mind.
Anyway, before I get carried away and spend the whole day blogging on this topic, there are some neat sites I would like to share with you:

Would you like to pursue making a living from playing games? This kind of job does not just fall into your lap and you still need to get out there and look for it. But for those that really want to take on this venture, this might be a good place to start: Game testing ground

Do you want to download some games? Here are some quality sites: Games