Somewhere in the eighties, they are just everywhere.
Video games. Consoles. Entertainment. Play. Come play on the NES with me, my Amiga. Connect the Atari 2600 to the telly.
Small joysticks, Space Invaders, I never had an Atari myself, but made some great highscores on the normal pc. Who remembers the Digger game from 1983?
Nintendo came up with the NES. We all love(d) the dog in the duck game, that barks and jumps in the bushes.
Here they are again, the italian brothers. Luigi is the green boy, a bit younger as his brother Mario. How many times we fell in the sea, couldn't swim,dropped into the ravines, got hit by bombs or killed by backbouncing Koopa shells. The castleworld with the lava and Bowser. Jack and the Beansteak by climbing to other worlds.
Sega had the Master system, and then in the nineties, they hit the gaming market with the Megadrive (or Genesis). We were kids in secondary school, 13 or 14 year olds, and in the weekends, I used to go to the videotheque and loan a megadrive with some games there.
What Mario is for Nintendo, Sonic became for Sega. Coins are rings.
Searching through all those game titles, such as European Club Soccer, also one of my favourites back then, my eyes fall on the Road Rash cartridge. Racing on the US highways, kicking other bikers off or hitting them just in front of a car. The funky noisy sounds, the somewhat sinister gameplay, chasing the way down the finish, getting knocked on a tree or a cow, falling from the bike and running over the highway to follow the route. What kind of keyboard/synthesizer has been used to create these brilliant mega drive tunes?
After 5 circuits ending good enough on each track, you get in the second level. The tracks are longer, there is more police to tail you and bust you, fining you and eventually when you get a more expensive motorcycle, you crash more.
This is 1991, and all these old games bring back nostalgic memories. Here in Spain there are a lot of second hand cash converter stores where all these brilliant "living in the past" consoles are still being sold. Then again, there is also Ebay. And what about our friends that have a basement full of Commodores, with thousands of floppy disks.
But you can also run your torrent client and find all roms you want. Emulate any rom for any console and travel back in history of gaming.
