Gaming in the 90s was awesome...

[hashiriya1]

Being in an arcade in the early to mid 90s was heaven. Those were the times.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Virtual Reality FTW!

[aaron]

i really wish i cold find a video of the sonic & knuckles Rock the Rock show that was on MTV.

[J T]

Virtual Reality FTW!

Oh yeah, how could I forget! Virtual Reality felt so full of promise back then. There was a place near where I lived called Cyber Space that had a VR machine that had a head tracking helmet and hand tracking joystick. When you put the helmet on, you were in a multi-platform arena with Pteradactyls flying around. It was such a trip to be able to look down and see your VR body or even just to be able to look around with head movements. I was totally convinced that VR would be the future of gaming at the time, but I guess it was largely lost due to the inability to create an inexpensive tracking helmet. Or a comfortable one-- the one at Cyber Space weighed a ton and was heavier in the front, so your neck would cramp if you played it for more than an hour.

I still think that VR provides the ultimate immersion experience though. I know a researcher at my university that uses VR to help people cope with pain because it is so immersive. He works with burn victims. As part of their treatment, they have to routinely go through a debriding process which is basically like rubbing off skin with sandpaper. It is immensely painful. He has created a VR game called Snow World. It is a first person on rails shooter where you travel through snowy canyons and throw snowballs at snow men. The VR goggles cover all of your peripheral vision and you also wear noise-cancelling headphones that play a relaxing soundtrack provided by Paul Simon.

He demonstrated the equipment to me and let me play Snow World for a bit. It was surprisingly easy to get into the game. They have conducted studies where they compared VR against analgesics against control and they found that the VR was as good and sometimes better than the best known pain medications. If you want to read a bit more about their work, you can go here: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain/

He also uses VR in the treatment of PTSD by exposing people to virtual reality scenarios of the situations they fear to help them confront and conquer their fears.

[SpaceBooger]

Gaming in the 90's doomed me. In 1993 I started college and got my first credit card. The first purchase on my credit card was Prince of Persia 2 and Space Quest 5 from Babages. After that purchase everything went down hill.
Babages had a one week return policy for any console game, even open ones. So pretty much any Genesis, SNES, and later Saturn and PS1 game that came out that I wanted I bought with my "free money" piece of plastic. If I beat the game in seven days I returned it. This was a good system for playing games, until I got greedy. Buying one game at a time worked for returning in seven days, but whey I started buying 2-3 I started to keep many of them... needless to say I maxed out my card.

In about 2002 I finally got out of credit card debt, the debt who's avalanche was started by buying too many games in the 90s.

[CHOCOBO77]

Hey all. Just a rant I thought I'd post for fun. I remember gaming back in the 90s was the best. Everything was so new. The game companies tearing at each others throats with they're commercials, the special promos, the "Genesis Does" advertising campaign, and so on. Damn, I miss those days. Anyone who was born in 1988, or a bit before that must remember all that. To be honest, there are times when I wish it was still the 90s. I would just love to experience it all again. These kids today (10 and under) have no idea what real gaming is if you ask me, but that's just my opinion. Anyway, what brought on this rant? Well, I was browsing a site I recently discovered called Retro Junk, and found the following commercial on it:

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/7934/

Seeing it really made me happy, knowing that someone is preserving this stuff. It wasn't until I found the next commercial that I went totally crazy with happiness...

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/486/

Who DOESN'T like to see Yoshi hit DK on the head with a giant hammer? Come on! XD

But seriously, that brings me to my two points:

1. I loved the 90s, and I wish they could happen all over again.

2. I love this site, because everyone, in one sense or another, thinks like this.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Have a nice day.

97,98 kicked major @$$, the best years ever, in my opinion.

[EvilRyu2099]

Being in an arcade in the early to mid 90s was heaven. Those were the times.

Yeah I remember when Sega came out with the graphical powerhouse games.. Namco had Tekken and Time Crisis.. And Capcom had Street Fighter II, Alpha series, Darkstalkers, III and the Vs series.. Not to mention the plethora of Neo Geo games like KOf, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury and Metal Slug games.. Good times..

[Bradtemple87]

Being in an arcade in the early to mid 90s was heaven. Those were the times.

Yeah I remember when Sega came out with the graphical powerhouse games.. Namco had Tekken and Time Crisis.. And Capcom had Street Fighter II, Alpha series, Darkstalkers, III and the Vs series.. Not to mention the plethora of Neo Geo games like KOf, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury and Metal Slug games.. Good times..

yes they absolutely were

[Gunstar Green]

The 90's were certainly a ride. I'm happy to have grown up in them. The NES still held on in the beginning, the 16-bit wars raged on before giving way to 3D and it ended with the Dreamcast, one of my favorite consoles ever.

And lets not forget the strides that PC gaming made and the evolution of online multiplayer.

I felt like as I was growing up that video games were growing up with me.

[ReddMcKnight]

I felt like as I was growing up that video games were growing up with me.

Well said.