My first console was the PS1, so I can't talk really retro. I do - however - have every REAL Zelda game at my disposal including the old 2D ones. I also have a few great Sonic games like S&K Collection, Sonic CD and Sonic R.

Regarding the mega-retro stuff, I've found an interesting physics-based version of Tetris. I'll provide the link if anyone's interested.

I'd like to take a look at that Tetris game.

link

I'm 30... and my first console was, wait for it... Atari 2600! XD Granted I was a kid when we got it, but it still counts.

So I pretty much can talk any retro console, although my expertise lies with Nintendo's systems.

Sadly, I am woefully lacking in current generation consoles. I've played on the Wii, but I don't own one. My newest system is Gamecube.

And I might write an article about the GameGear for anyone who missed the blip it made in the handheld world.

My first was Snes. Im 22. I still play old systems. Dreamcast and Nes most recently.

Right now I only play my 360 to build vehicles on Banjo Kazooie N&B. Online multi has gone stale for me. Too many unreasonable people with head sets. Plus people only play FPSs.

As for Tetris the original Nes box says "From Russia with Fun" I think thats pretty hilarious.

You don't have to tell me, astro, because I already have one. Anyway, just like knifewrench, my first game console was the PSOne. I guess I can't really say that I remember any of the game consoles before it, but I DO remember the Sega Saturn and N64 as well. My dad's first game console was also an Atari 2600, but he's not really into gaming department anymore. Gee... it's so weird how fast time can fly when you least expect it.

Ok, I'm showing my age because when I saw your message about the "old" consoles I was thinking Pong, Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision!

Fwiw, Colecovision was the first console I ever owned. It was bundled with a very good version of Donkey Kong (yes, a port of the first game that introduced the venerable Mario).

After Colecovision, I did most of my gaming on PCs until 2004 when I bought a PS2. I now have a PS3. So that's pretty much my console gaming history (though I did play others in between like the NES, Sega Genesis, etc).

Currently replaying the first Legend of Zelda. The funny web series "Legend of Neil" has reignited my love for 2D Zelda games and those awesome sounds.

Regarding Papa's perspective on older consoles, I find that games of that era have little depth. the period of NES-N64 has the perfect balance of retro:depth ratio.

P.S. can we have an emote with geeky glasses?

I guess this emoticon will have to do, for now. Anyway, the consoles that I currently own are the NES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, DS Lite, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, and the Sega Game Gear. I can't really play my Game Gear, though, because the screen is, no exaggeration, unreadable... I'll be 15 in May, BTW.

My console history is (in order of purchase): PS1, GBC, N64, PS2, GBA, GC, DS, Wii, 360, PS3.

The consoles I currently have are the same as above with the exception of the PS1, which kicked the bucket a short time ago.

And I'll be 18 on the 23rd (hold on.... 18 days until I'm 18? Isn't that strange...)

My console history is: PS2, one of those little Plug-and-Play things, and a PS3, and I play with my friend on his 360 on a regular basis. I'm pretty new to gaming, but it doesn't matter about how long you've played, it's about how much fun you have with it, and I've had a LOT of fun.

Wise words Lord Spud :D

My gaming history goes like this: Atari 2600, Game & Watch, NES, Gameboy, GameGear, SNES, Super Gameboy (hey, I can count it if I want! ;)), Nintendo 64, GBA, Gamecube, Gameboy Player XD

And somewhere in the midst of all that, I played a crapload of text-based computer games back in the 80's. "You cannot use this here." "These things can't be used together." "What are you trying to do here?" XD

As you can see, though... I'm mostly a Nintendo girl at heart. I do plan on getting a PS2 eventually (I'm too cheap to try for the PS3 XD), but Wii is my next goal.

The Wii is a great buy, I can tell you that. Anyway I told you all the gaming consoles that I currently own right now, but I HAVEN'T told you the order. My gaming history is PSOne, Game Boy Advance (Indigo), PS2, GameCube, PSP, N64, DS Lite (White), Wii, Xbox 360, DS Lite (Blue and Black), Game Gear, NES, GBC, GBA (Platinum), and PS3. I sold my purple GBA a LOONG time ago, my polar white DS Lite broke, and I gave my PSOne to my uncle after getting my PS2 (I didn't give him my games, though). I'm currently saving up to get a brand new Dreamcast, as of 2 weeks ago. Oh, and once again, Doc, you continue to amaze me with your brilliant logic in video game. Not bad, for a beginner.

BTW, have any of you heard of a website called "Playfire"? It's a gamer site, but it's pretty cool.

Thanks a lot, and I've never heard of the site, but will check it out!

Oooh, just checked out the site, from what I see, it's awesome, I just signed up. My username is DoctorSpud- didn't expect that one from me, huh?

I have been playing RPGs on Nes for weeks.
Fire Emblem for Wii will be untouched until I beat Dragon Warrior and Zoda's Revenge.
I needed challenge and when I beat Link to the Past without breaking a sweat I knew I had to play Nes.
Plus the games are only like $5.

Yeah, NES games today are incredibly cheap. Like when I bought my copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet it was only $4.95, not including shipping. I haven't really bought anything retro or classic lately, but I DID manage to 100% Spyro 2 for the... sixth time, I think. Games like IT never get old.

I joined this Playfire site... but I don't know if I'll stick around on it or not...

UPDATE:
My dad just took me to a flea market where I managed to find an almost brand new edition of the original Rayman for the PlayStation for five bucks. I haven't seen, let alone played, this game in forever.

I finally hooked my N64 controller up to my new PC, so now I'm retro gaming in style XD

Of course, the best part is: The controller works PERFECTLY for all the systems I'm emulating on here... except for N64. Irony! :P

Emulating is awesome :D My N64 is getting on in years and as such I'm keeping ROMs on my computer as a back-up for when it has an off-day.

I use Project64 for emulating and the ROMs I own are: Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. If anyone wants them I can send them as attachments via email; although I won't direct you to the sites in case some spoil-sport sees the link and get the website in legal trouble.

What's your username on Playfire astroasis?

My username on there is astroasis, 'cos I'm so creative with usernames! XD I started adding my games the other day and then I got distracted by something and forgot to finish. XD I think I only have my NES and Atari ones finished so far. Maybe the original Gameboy ones, too.

I'm playing the first Legend of Zelda now. Almost done... In the 8th dungeon now.

I have emulators for Atari 2600, NES, Super Nintendo, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS... Umm... I think that's all? XD Aside from the DS, I own all the systems I emulate, though. It's just more convenient to play them on the PC than on the system. AND I can chat on AIM while I play and load up whatever maps/walkthroughs I might need. And I gotta admit, the "save state" function is really handy XD

I'd totally join an emulation spot on Fanpop, but I think that would be bordering on illegal activity. Emulating itself isn't, of course - but there's all kinds of black and gray areas once ROMs come into the picture.

I think that downloading ROMs from other people/sites is sort of illegal, but morally I don't think it's wrong. The company that made the game won't get any sales out of a game which is old enough to be emulated.

Yeah, it's definitely a gray area there. Technically, illegal... but a totally victimless crime, so to speak. At least when it comes to old systems.

Although now the emulation scene has evolved enough to allow outright piracy of current systems/games... which muddies the waters still further.

And now there's the Wii Virtual Console to consider, too...

But at the end of the day, I just like playing games on my PC XD

VC is cool and all, but I would mostly like to play older games the way they were meant to be played. On the original console. However, I DO have every one of my PSOne games backed up to my computer. I've owned them for quite a while, so you never know when you just might need a digital copy. The emulator that I'm using is called pSX. The reason that I use this one instead of ePSXe is because the latter emulator has a glitch that causes the music from the previously-played game to continue playing. Also, every time I exit from fullscreen mode the "_[]X" symbols on the top right part of the screen disappear. So I always have to stop the executable with the task manager. pSX is a very nice emulator, though, and doesn't require plugins. Sometimes that can be a problem, but that alone doesn't stop me from enjoying the emulator itself.

BTW, knifewrench, PJ64 is awesome too!

Say, BlueBadger... What kind of graphics card do you have in your PC? I'm just curious... because I'm leery of too much N64/Playstation emulation on my system. I'm still running on-board graphics, because this is a newish PC (for me) and it doesn't have a card in it yet.

Also, I'm guessing that was you that sent me the friend request on Playfire...? The icon looked similar to the one you use here, so I guessed that was you and accepted the request :)

I have a PNY XLR8 8800GT graphics card installed in my PCs motherboard. I WOULD buy another one so I could link them both together using an adapter that Nvidia made, but my motherboard only has one PCI Express slot and the cards themselves require one for installation. I also updated my PC with a Thermaltake 500 watt power supply so my XLR8 won't suck up so much power from my PC while being used. Now that I have the card installed I can run almost any PC game at a VERY nice screen resolution.


BTW, I am also known on the PlayStationNetwork as DarkEcoFreak, so yes, astro, I am the one who sent you that friend request on Playfire. I figured you would use an anime icon, so finding your profile wasn't too hard.

Here's a random funny for you guys before I head off to bed...

I don't know if any of you are familiar with Yars' Revenge from Atari 2600 (it was also ported to Gameboy Color). You're a fly... and you buzz around in space and chew on this fortress to destroy it. The fortress will shoot at you, both big bullets and little ones. Well, the little ones can be avoided by going into a safe zone in the center of the screen, where they can't hit you. I uploaded a picture down below.

Well, this fellow on an emulation forum decided to test the Atari 2600 games for compatibility with the Stella Atari emulator. About Yars' Revenge, he had this to say:

Yars' Revenge - Works perfectly, but there's a strip of shit in the middle of the screen.

Understanding of Retro Games FAIL! XD

Somehow, I think I'm one of very few people who will find that funny... XD Oh well!

Goodnight, guys! :D

Good night? You posted that two hours ago and I'm getting ready for work!

LOL! Well, you're about 6 hours ahead of me... XD

LOL. This goes to show that console emulation of any kind will never be 100% accurate.

We used to have an NES when I was real little and I'd try to play and get mad and give up.

Hey! Welcome to the retro station, God1!

Anyway, my dad used to have an NES, but he sold it a long time ago. I managed to find one with four games, a Power Glove (with both instruction manuals), two controllers, a Zapper, and... I think that's it, for $20. With it, I also got a free Game Gear with 6 games, two AC Adapters (one of them was incompatible), a car charger (again, incompatible), a carrying case that holds 12 GG cartridges, and a poster for Eternal Champions.

I still have the original NES my uncle bought for me and my sister for Christmas back in the 80s XD Along with all of our original controllers, games, manuals... everything.

My dad sold the Atari 2600 and all the games to someone he worked with. It would be nice to still have it for old times' sake - but then again, even the biggest retro fan would have to admit that very few Atari games are still "fun" to play. XD And those I play just fine on my emulator. I also have an Atari Flashback that has a few good games on it (but no Space Invaders! For shame! :P)

I never had a Sega and still don't... but I do have the Game Gear my sister got for Christmas the year it came out. XD It doesn't work, though... not sure if it's the system or the power cord that's to blame for that.

And I still have my N64, Gamecube and GBA.

My sister brought the SNES over to her boyfriend's house a few years back... then they broke up and she didn't bother to get it back. Sacrilege, if you ask me! :P

Wow, that stinks.

Anyway, my Game Gear's screen is completely unreadable, so I can't see a thing when I'm playing. The audio, strangely enough, works just fine, so I at least can hear what I'm playing. Another very odd fact is that I was able to beat the first level in Sonic 2, without even being able to see anything on the screen. o_O

I also have a Nintendo 64, but I had to go through two of them before I finally found one that still played properly. I only have five games for it, so far, but all of them are very good. I've had my GameCube since '05 and my PS2 since '02, so I was able to survive during the last generation of game consoles. ...It feels so weird how fast time can go by within the next few seconds. I mean, one day you finally beat Chrono Trigger, and the next day you're still figuring out the perfect strategy for conquering Halo 3 on Legendary. Time is a strange thing that you can never take back, no matter what.

I got pretty darn excited when I saw that the arcade version of Virtual On is going to be released for Xbox Live. I had been trying to decide if I should get it for Dreamcast even though a twin stick controler was not released. Using face buttons as a control pad bugs me.

Dragon Warrior has started taking me 40 min
just to gain one level. I avoid boredem by playing some awesome cheesy metal music like Lordi, King Diamond, or Manowar.

I stopped by to strongly recommend a game that could be the best 2D 2 player game.
Its General Chaos for Sega Genesis.

You control a small group of funny soldiers (2-4) that have different weapons.
You can play single player, Co-op, and VS.

The game is hilarious.
For instance: you can get into a fist fights and the grenade thrower ,called Chucker, looks kinda like Chuck Norris.

There is no gore, instead fallen grunts turn into cartoon skeletons then disappear.
You can sometimes have a medic save them before that happens.

Its a great game that should really have a sequel on DS, PSP, XBL, PSN, and Wii.

I remember my nintendo 1994 console

My first console was the very old XBOX. It cost $70 cause it was preowned. I still have it. My current and fav game is Blinx 2. Anyone remenber the time traveling cat Blinx?