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I didn't like video games when I was still a young child. I wanted to play outside most of the times, but my two younger cousin who lived just a short street away from me, liked 'playing Nintendo'. My aunt was an avid gamer at the time and she was really into the NES and SNES, dragging my cousin into the same interest. Her second child was still too young, but he would suffer the same fate soon enough, around the release of the N64. Whenever I came over asked for him to come play outside, they were playing Super Mario Bros, and I left with disappoint.
One day though, my cousin asked me to come and 'play Nintendo' with him instead. I didn't know the difference, I was 5, but my aunt actually had two; the NES, and the just released SNES. She wouldn't let us play on that shiny new console, and she set up the NES for us in a room upstairs. My one year younger cousin picked an orange gun from a box and popped in a game. It was Duck Hunt. This game was easy to play, and I liked the dog who laughs at you for failing to shoot any ducks. The game proved to be extremely addicting. And over time when I came around asked for him to come play outside changed into asking for me to come up, and play Duck Hunt. As a kid though, time feels slow, and things seem like a long time, but change in my behavior probably wasn't longer that mere days.
One fateful day, I'd come down the stairs into the living room and my aunt was playing something on the SNES that caught my eye. A game where she was fighting enemies in bright fields, tall mountains and dark dungeons. Her character was a boy clad in green holding a sword and shield, and the enemies were monsters, one bigger than the next. She said I'd like this game, and reset the SNES to start a new file. She handed me the controller, and the game started with the most awesome thing I'd ever seen. As I stepped outside the house to unexpectedly witness the pouring rain and hear the ominous music my mind was blown and since that moment Zelda has remained my favorite series in all of gaming.
As we grew older we were allowed to play my aunt's SNES more and more often, and the NES fell into disuse. It was moved to my grandmother's house where it served many more years with us playing more Duck Hunt, but also Super Mario Bros. 3 and the blackbox Soccer game whenever we were there. My own mother took notice of my growing interest and dug up her own old console from the 1970's, a Videopac G7000 (Odyssey2 in the US), and dusted it off for me to play at home. This opened my mind to fact that there were other manufacturers than Nintendo who made video games. The one game I loved to play was a shooting game, the first shooting game I ever played, where two players are cowboys in a duel. Such an old game even then felt extremely simplistic, and I understood it was far less advanced than something like Zelda, but it still very fun to play.
My new stepfather was interested in technology, and halfway through the '90's, he bought us our first home computer. A Macintosh Performa, and the keyboard and mouse brought with it whole new possibilities. He bought a single game along with it; Star Wars Rebel Assault II. It was my first game on a computer and my introduction to Star Wars. I loved it, I loved the live-action cutscenes, loved the gameplay, loved the action and loved the fact that it came on a disc which was very interesting to someone who was used to the fact that games were large plastic cartridges. More games would follow, SimCity, SimTower, an obscure but great puzzle-platforming game called Step-On-It! and slew of educational games and my interest in PC gaming began to grow. My parents had a bunch of more mature games for themselves which I wasn't allowed to play. Among them Dark Forces, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior and Wolfenstein 3D. I wanted to watch them play Wolfenstein though, and at some point they allowed me to play it and Dark Forces.
When on vacation though, I had nothing to play, and I didn't really feel like making friends just for a vacation of a week or two, so at some point my parents bought me a GameBoy with a stack of games. Gaming on the go, that was amazing. The games were simple however; the Mario game wasn't much like Super Mario Bros. 3, and the rest were basically break-out clones (though fun ones like Alleyway) and of course Tetris. There was also a game starring a pair of apes collecting bananas and fighting crocodiles which was good, but it was too hard for me. Meanwhile, the SNES generation came to a close and my aunt talked about how she pre-ordered the new advanced gaming system where you could play games in 3D, as if it were real life. Pre-ordering was a new new thing at the time, and as it turned out it was a better idea to wait and just go to the store. One day, my stepfather came home with the N64, which he managed to snag up on release while my aunt who pre-ordered had to wait a week more because supply couldn't fulfill demand.
We had two games; Super Mario 64 and Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, obviously catering to my liking of Nintendo and my newfound love for Star Wars. Both were great, and Mario 64 felt like revelation. The game was so sharp and bright, you had unparalleled freedom and each level was unique and lively. Everyone in my family played it to no end. The N64 would grow into the most popular console in my family, and the collection of games I have for it is still the biggest of all my consoles. GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Kart, they all added to it's greatness. Mario Kart 64 in particular was a popular game to play together. At this point this was probably the happiest time of my family, when everyone was together. The game has a high feeling of nostalgia for me, and it's irreplaceable as the game we all played together the very last time everyone in my family was together, although this was already well into the GameCube era.
One series though, even though I hadn't played it in a while, was still on my mind and news came that it was finally about to get a new game. I was never and have never been as hyped for anything in my entire life. As the internet was still in it's baby-shoes, I had to rely on hearsay and the occasional glimpse in magazines I was unable to have. I needed this game, and after learned the title I drew pictures of it's logo showing it to everyone in the hope someone would buy it for me. I didn't know what an 'Ocarina' was when someone asked me, but I didn't care. Finally the game released, and I begged my mother. She had already gotten the hint, and a month later when it was Sinterklaas (a Dutch holiday like Christmas for children), I unpacked a present that was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The game did not disappoint. On the contrary, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. It still is, perfect. And that same box with it's perfect contents is on a shelf in my bedroom right now.
We started branching out. Because the Mac didn't get many new games we got a Windows PC, and more or less simultaneously a PlayStation. On PC I started trying every game could get my hands on and found a whole bunch of new favorites like Anno 1602 and Theme Hospital. On loved the games where you could build stuff, any stuff. On PlayStation we got more adventure games like MediEvil and puzzle-games like Kula World where you're a beachball navigating floating platforms looking for a key to the exit. This was the Golden Age of Gaming. Everything was good, everything was inspired, everything was a new experience and aimed for new frontiers in technology. There has never been such a time before, and never been such a time after. Those of my generation and older will understand.
Yet everything comes to an end, after the N64 got a bunch more excellent games, it became apparent that PlayStation became the go-to console. My playtime on GameBoy was revived though with the release of Pokémon, which I got addicted to for quite some time. For the purpose, I got a GameBoy Pocket and not long after a GameBoy Color when it got a Zelda game (I didn't know it was actually a rerelease of a Zelda game that already existed on GameBoy itself). A generation dawned once more, and the first screens of the SEGA Dreamcast were unlike anything on N64 or PlayStation yet. It was the first SEGA console I had, though I did know of the company's existence because a friend from school had a Mega Drive. For a brief time, a handful of classics were released on it, and the greatness of SoulCalibur made it so nobody in my family was really interested in getting a PlayStation 2, because it didn't seem like it could do anything better than Dreamcast could. Nintendo revealed their next console, the GameCube, but something was off.
The Golden Age was over.
I waited with the GameCube, I didn't ask for it to my parents, and I didn't want to spend my saved money on it. The reveal of the Zelda game for it also disappointed me a bit. The Wind Waker didn't look like it would be as great as Ocarina of Time was, or Majora's Mask for that matter. When it released, my aunt, who interest in gaming had greatly diminished as well by now, bought it and a GameCube for my youngest cousin. My oldest, who I had played so many hours of Duck Hunt with, didn't care anymore, his gaming days were done. My aunt also bought the new Mario Kart, but it wasn't Mario Kart 64, and the nostalgic family-time wouldn't return with this game. The Wind Waker was still fun enough though, and when the GameCube was slashed in price mere weeks later I bought one from the money I saved up, with The Wind Waker, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Kart. Super Mario Sunshine didn't live up to Super Mario 64 like Mario Kart and Zelda didn't to their predecessors either. This generation it seemed like the drive for new experiences and innovation was gone and my interest faded.
Attention turned to PC, which got bigger and bigger games at the start of the new millennium. New SimCity games, Call of Duty, which was the best representation of World War II, a new interest of mine, I had yet seen, personal evergreen Rollercoaster Tycoon and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. That game turned me off consoles for some years, it was so great, I couldn't imagine anything so epic being possible on console. It was also perfect, but Ocarina of Time would still remain at the top in my head, and hope hadn't been lost yet for something that was as great as it. Late into the game I got a GameBoy Advance for the SNES remasters it got like Yoshi's Island (which I had briefly played with my aunt years earlier) and A Link to the Past. I used to think Ganon in that game was impossible to beat, but on GameBoy Advance I could finally do it. Because I missed out on much on the system though, I did go down in history as a disappointing offering by Nintendo, like the GameCube.
Just when started to forget all about console gaming for good, news came of new systems. the Wii by Nintendo which would feature motion control and the PlayStation 3 which would be in HD. My stepfather was intrigued by the latter, while I was by the former. Nonetheless, it's reveal also revealed the next Zelda game, looking like a real successor to Ocarina of Time. Soon after release my stepfather bought the PS3, while the Wii was nowhere to be found. I dusted off my GameCube however, and got Twilight Princess. The game was great, and rekindled a part of my love for console gaming. The games on PS3 looked awesome and were almost like movies. A new gem we found was Uncharted, with lighthearted humor and fun action sequences. The real new addiction though came in the form of a bunch of plastic peripherals and yearly releases of Guitar Hero. I could play those games game every day. Finally Wii was readily available and I got it, Twilight Princess again and Mario Party 8 along with the packaged Wii Sports. Wii Sports was fun to play and seduced people who wouldn't normally play video games to play something with me. Mario Party 8 would briefly become a new game I played with my cousin and a new Golden Age seemed imminent, but it wasn't meant to be. Not everyone was there.
My interest shifted back from PC to consoles, and interest in the handhelds was restored with the DS, which had a good Mario Kart, interesting Zelda games and Professor Layton, which was surprisingly challenging in a fun way. I started trying out new things again, and widened my gaming interests. I started looking back to past systems and tried to rebuy games and systems I used to play, like the NES, of which my aunt's original had been lost to time and try out older systems I never had such as the Atari 2600 and the Mega Drive. Following the Wii, DS and PS3 it was natural to proceed to WiiU, PS4 and 3DS and I did when time felt right. WiiU was a disappointment, but the quality of the 3DS kept my faith this time, and PS4 is a natural evolution of PS3. Today there's plenty of games to play, and a lot I like, though the current generation has become a bit stale like the 6th generation did after innovations in the 5th. The WiiU and 3DS have since been upgraded to the Switch with the greatest launch-title since Super Mario 64 in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in anticipation of what the future brings.
