CFFJR wrote:I didn't really become a retro gamer so much as I never quit playing my old games.
I got an nes right around the time Super Mario Bros. 3 came out, and I've been active in every game generation since. The thing is that I didn't stop playing my older systems when new ones came out.
As I see it, I'm just a gamer (and collector).
This. I got rid of my NES midway through the N64's lifetime (the equivalent of flood damage and we purged a ton of personal items) but got a new one in college so I could play NES games again on hardware, rather than emulation. I think it's fair to say that once I graduated college I started to investigate older games I didn't experience their first time around, like the non-Nintendo systems and old PC games.
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My gaming habits as a kid were usually that I had one system that I would play all the time, and have the other hooked up but not play as much once I got a new system. This happened initially with my SNES in 1991. That was my main system, and my NES was my secondary system. Once I got my N64 in 1997, that became my main system, and my SNES was now my secondary system (meanwhile the NES got put away). Once I got a Gamecube, both my SNES and NES got put away in a box, and in fact I think it got put up in the rafters in my garage by this time (around 2001). My N64 I think went into the living room because my brothers were watching me play video games and wanted to play as well so the N64 got hooked up to the living room. By fall of 2002 I went off to college, and the only system I took was my Gamecube. I wasn't a retro gamer by this time.
I had to post all of that for perspective on where I was as a gamer throughout that time and I hadn't really gone back to play the older retro systems. I did a little bit of gaming on the Gamecube in college but most of my gaming at this time was actually on my PC. But what jump started me into so-called retro gaming? It was when one of my hall mates in my dorm invited me over to show me something on his computer. He was playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past.
On his computer
It played just like it did on my old SNES. I was stunned. I had never seen anything like that before. It was called emulation and....it was awesome. So eventually my friend sent me via AOL Instant Messenger emulators and roms for certain systems, namely for the NES and SNES. I did play some SNES on my computer, but most of the time I played emulators I played good ol' Nester. It was great. Well, except for not being able to play Castlevania III but that's another story. Anyway, it was awesome. I got to play some of my old classics I was familiar with, but I also got to play NES games I never played as a kid. Like Tetris, Contra, the first Castlevania (I only grew up with 2 and I didn't like it then), and a few others. Oddly enough, we were playing some then current video games in my dorm room and I believe that a couple of friends of mine wanted to play Street Fighter II, and so I said I have an SNES back at home. They wanted me to bring it. So I think that winter break I brought my SNES (that meant I got the box down from the rafters with the systems) and some games back to the dorms and we ended up playing a bunch of SNES games in my dorm by then. It was awesome.
Unfortunately, THAT honeymoon didn't last very long and I ended up starting a very weird period where I didn't play much of any video games at all in my life (except for a few times on my computer via emulation). This period started from the middle of my college career up until about 2007-2008, when a couple of things happened. In early 2007 I became good friends with a guy named Mike Mandich and although we bonded over a bunch of things (mostly drinking and talking shit), he ended up introducing me to the Angry Video Game Nerd, and I LOOOVED it. Seriously. At that time, I hadn't touched my NES in probably nearly a decade and I somehow related to everything he said about the games, mostly because I had a few of them he mentioned. The next year we ended up having a NYE party at my house where we ended up playing SNES games for most of the night. It was fun and it reminded me of how much I loved my SNES.
By 2009, was when I finally came back to retro gaming when I bought a couple of games I had lost, and eventually with Contra III: The Alien Wars, I was back into retro gaming.
So yeah, that's my story. Sorry mine was really long, but once I started, I couldn't stop.
I think I was 16 when I started playing PC game classics from the late 1990s. A year later I got into playing NES, SNES and a few N64 games on an emulator. I also started playing PS1 games I never had the chance to play as a kid on an emulator. I systematically went through recommended classic games one by one from start to finish. When I actually started collecting games I stopped doing that for the most part (playing from start to finish).
My WTB thread (Sega CD/Saturn games) Also looking to buy: Ys III (TG-16 CD), Shadowrun (Genesis) Hori N64 mini pad and Slayer (3DO) in long box/just the long box
I just never got rid of my systems and games from when I was younger ... they weren't retro when I started playing them
I think I found out about video games around 1988/98, when I was about 5-6. And the first games I ever played were Bubble Bobble and Super Mario Bros. 1 on NES. Haven't looked back since (Well, technically that's not true because I play old games all the time >_>)
I guess this question is aimed toward the young folks. I'm simply playing the same games I always have since I was a child. Actually, I suppose since I no longer play 2600 or Coleco Vision games, I'm a "modern gamer", only playing NES or newer.
I was, shall we say, encouraged to get rid of some of my stuff as I grew up ("you can buy a Genesis if you give your NES to your cousin" etc). As a result, most of my pre-PS1 stuff went away at one point or another (managed to keep an SNES and a small stack of games). A relatively smaller portion of my PS1 collection was flea-marketed (one of my brothers did trade in our entire Saturn collection though ).
In college I stopped getting rid of much, and started reacquiring things or picking up old stuff I never had.
So, in a sense, college, since that's when I first started deliberately going back to buy older stuff.
That being said, my earliest clear memories of gaming are Frogger and Defender on the Apple IIe we were handed down from my aunt and uncle (who later birthed the cousin who got my NES) after they bought a Macintosh. Would have been around '85-'86, playing games from '80-81. Technically, I got my start on older games. I didn't get an NES until the Genesis and TG-16 were already on the shelves either.
). 
