Me and the Video games

Introduction

I’m fortunate to live in this wonderful era of transition of all this entertainment technology. I prepared this post to tell my experience with all the video games that I had the opportunity to access when they were released. Today it’s easy to choose a console, but imagine a world without the internet, where all the information was provided by magazines or often by stories from friends who traveled around and brought something new. You had no idea what would happen in the future, who would be standing? Which games would become classics? Tapes were expensive and the word DEMO didn’t exist. There was no YouTube, and the internet was still a future project. Don’t forget to click on the links to learn a little more about the consoles and games.

In this I highlight the enormous effort that my mother made, despite us being very poor, she did everything to ensure that I participated in this universe, I dedicate this post to her.

Pong – (1rd Geração)

It all had to start with a Philco telegame that I didn’t pay much attention to because my Playmobils and Comandos em Ação were much more fun at the time, the video found its end in the trash I only played it very few times.

Odyssey 2 – (2rd Geração)

So it all really starts when I got my Odyssey, a second generation console from Magnavox/Philips. This would be the first time I was impressed by graphics, it brought my old tube and tube TV to life. Buying new cartridges was extremely difficult. In those days without the internet and without specialized magazines, looking carefully at the box before buying was the main rule. Another option was to try to borrow games from the few friends who had the console.

The Atari 2600, despite being more popular, was still a second generation console. At this time my mother was fighting for our survival in São Paulo, working as a store saleswoman at Shopping Eldorado in São Paulo, sometimes we had to live out of favor to have somewhere to sleep and this would be a video game that I was sure I wouldn’t have, despite At my young age, around 7 years old, I understood our situation perfectly. But I played Atari a lot at my friends and cousins’ houses, meanwhile my Odyssey became increasingly obsolete.

Nintendo 8 Bits – (3rd Geração)

The third generation has arrived! And who has never been bullied? Maybe it was one of the worst moments of my childhood… I remember that while my “colleagues” were playing, I was left out and had to listen to the door, listening to the sounds and imagining what the game would be like… 😔 Difficult moments. ..

My mother and I had to leave São Paulo for Fortaleza because things got a lot worse. On the way out we passed by an electronics store and I came across the Dynavision 2, the first Nes clone here in Brazil, so you’ve seen it, right? My eyes filled with tears, I looked at my mother and she looked at the wallet and said, it won’t work, son. Wow, I had already put the box under my arm… But the explanation that we needed money to eat during the 3 days and 3 nights bus trip from São Paulo to Fortaleza was more than enough, even for a child of 11 years old video game enthusiast.

1990, already in the city of Fortaleza, as soon as my mother got a job she gave me the third generation of video games, the Top Game VG-8000! It was the cheapest video game, but it was perhaps the best video game I’ve ever had in my life due to all her effort, even though it was a month playing and a month repairing! I remember playing secretly on my grandmother’s TV because she swore it destroyed her old TV. And how good it was… Mega Man, Super Mario, Batman, Castlevania and many others! I played on those absurd CCE controllers until my hands got blisters, and when I wanted new games I practically traveled to rent a game, it was a 2 hour bus ride one way and at least 30 minutes on foot to get a cartridge and then return it to the another day. Reaching the end of a game for me had a very special value. 😛

Game Boy e Game Gear- (Portables)

Then portable devices came along, and when the situation got a little better, my mother and my heroine gave me the Game Gear and later the Game Boy. It was great to play without TVs. But the Game Gear always ran out of batteries when the game was getting good, who remembers?

Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbo Grafix – (4rd Geração)

Magazines appeared and with that first-hand information. One of them introduced me to the Mega Drive (Genesis) and that’s when I thought, it’s time to find my missing father, my mother had already worked really hard. I hadn’t spoken to him for at least 5 years, so I needed to be accurate, I wrote a 4-page letter showing all the details of the new console and all its wonderful 16-Bit technology. I hit the nail on the head! The old man was moved and sent me the Genesis, which had barely been released in the USA, it was beautiful and wonderful to see Sonic in black and white, yes!!! Because transcoder was a thing of the future and my beloved grandmother’s TV was an old PAL-M. But certainly the worst part was borrowing the 110-220v transformer from my holy grandmother’s refrigerator to play, yes, grandma saving me again! I would defrost the fridge at night to give myself Sonic moments. (the transformer weighed around 15 kilos (33Pounds)! A kind of dinosaur of transformers. It was also with the Mega Drive that I learned to make changes and made my first “regret change”, Sonic (Not for Resale) for Shadow Dancer pirate… How would I know that hedgehog would become so famous! Today, thanks to my efforts, I’m recovering my collection, and Sonic Not for Resale is back in my collection!

After several failed deals and other good deals, I raised some money by selling everything I had to buy my ticket to the Super Nintendo. It was definitely the beginning of my business life in the gaming world. My friend and childhood partner Mozart and I finished Super Mário World in just one breath, such was the addiction. From there came the gems, Super Castlevania, Super Metroid, Zelda, in short there are so many that one day I will make an exclusive post about the games I played and the ones I finished on the Super Nintendo, it will probably be called “endurance”.

At a video store I discovered Neo Geo, a video game much desired by collectors to this day. It was really very expensive by the standards of the time, even with my skills acquired in trading and selling and the addition of my mother’s money, I couldn’t even come close to the value it cost! I played a lot in rental stores, something common at that time, paying to play by the hour. Interestingly, the power of its incredible graphics was in the huge cartridges and not just in the video game itself.

At that time, the idea of using consoles in rental stores to play by the hour was a craze. In one of these rental stores I also saw Nec’s Turbo Grafx with the CD drive upgrade. This was the first video game to have a CD drive. I freaked out listening to the Japanese narration of the characters in the game Valis 3, I didn’t understand absolutely anything about what they were saying, but they were saying it, and that was really incredible to me! In addition to CDs he had an excellent collection of titles on Hu-card, small electronic cards. The video game that wasn’t popular here in Brazil. Graphically, the Turbo Grafx resembled the SNES in terms of sounds and was inferior. In the end I exchanged the TurboGrafx for a bicycle. Mine was exactly the same as the photo below!

3DO, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64 – (5rd Geração)

I’ve always been a video store fan and a regular consumer of video game magazines. I believed everything they said. In one of these I read about the launch of Panasonic’s 3DO, to this day I want to kill the magazine writer who put the photo montage of the game Road Rash as a real in- game im! (images below) To this day, even with the ultra realistic look of Forza, it is impossible for a console to make a game with the graphics in this image. Terrified, I immediately put all my energy into buying this video game, I sold what I had and what I didn’t have to buy the 3DO, and I still needed what would be the last time I would ask my mother for money. I managed to buy it!!! It was wonderful to be able to play Crash’n Burn, but with the amount I paid, I could have bought the Neo Geo. The 3DO was really captivating, it’s a shame that it was born in the middle of a battle of Titans and soon lost space.

As I said, the war between Titans had been declared, Sega Saturn or Playstation? I decided to bet on whoever had the best market history. Just because the newbie remembered my Super Nintendo wouldn’t fall into the vicar’s tale. 3DO sold, Sega Saturn purchased and fun was guaranteed, to this day I consider that I made an excellent choice. As usual, I played video games that I didn’t have at video stores, and with the Playstation it was no different. I was never a fan of x or y game company, while my friends were dying to say who was the best, I was sad for not being able to play everything that was released on my console.

At this time I was already working. I did some 3D animation work for a toy store and they paid me with an N64 and Mario 64… That was 3D graphics! And it had a special taste, finally my first console purchased with my own work. I got to play great titles like 007 and Zelda Ocarina.

Dreamcast e Playstation 2 – (6rd Geração)

It wasn’t long before another major war between consoles was declared. The 128-bit generation brought four giants, the Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Xbox 1 and the Game Cube and thanks to gaming magazines that talked about the difficulty of getting games for these last two consoles, I opted for the Dreamcast, and now I was able to buy my own consoles with my work, among the options it was the cheapest and again the SEGA tradition of making games that I liked was in its favor. After all, who needed a DVD player?

Well, time passed and I decided to buy a DVD player, N64 and Dreamcast were sold to help with the purchase of my Playstation 2.

Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 e Play Station 3 – (7rd Geração)

In the next generation I was completely hooked by the advertising of Nintendo and its Wii, at the same time I realized my dream of entering the gaming industry working for Southlogic Studios, the largest game developer in our country at that time. So I started hunting the Nintendo Wii ghost,  it was the hardest video game I’ve ever bought in my life, it wasn’t a question of money, it happened because everyone decided to buy the new Nintendo toy and that’s why it simply didn’t exist in stores. Finally paying the trifle of $600 I bought my Nintendo Wii, super console, super fun, all those Big N titles, but the graphics, well, the graphics were lacking due to the low resolution, precisely in the era of Nintendo TV’s Lcds? After all, who needs graphics who needs DVD, sounds familiar?

It didn’t take long and with a little more work ($$$) I bought an Xbox 360, all for knowledge and fun of course. What wonderful graphics the 360 had! And I was happy with both until I decided to sell everything to buy a PS3! Always selling and buying to be able to live a little from each season. 😉

Playstation 4 e Xbox One S – (8rd Geração)

First came the PS4 which I soon sold to help to buy my house, after catching my breath I bought my Xbox One S. Both are graphically identical, the big difference was the exclusive games. And where did all that childhood excitement go? I say that it has decreased a lot due to the industrialization of the area, much of the same has been repeated, always the same formula. But I continue to believe that new ideas, new consoles and crazy accessories will still come. And after all these years who would have thought? Sony standing! Sega left the console business, Microsoft entered the gaming market in earnest, and Nintendo, after all this rollercoaster, remains a giant and a reference for all generations!

Collection:

I didn’t give up on recovering all the history I experienced by buying the old manuals, some rare cartridges, some of the main old consoles and most of the joysticks and their appropriate USB adapters. This is something I’ve been working on for a long time, I do everything to remember the best moments. I owe a lot of this to my mother who bet on me from the beginning to the end of her life and who today rests in peace. It is currently in this area that I work with great satisfaction. And it is with the fruits of this area that I bought my house, my car and support my family, creating and planning these games, hoping that one day I can surprise you and myself with a great title. I sincerely hope that this area only grows and that the next generations come! Health!

Conclusion

Now 48 years old, I got rid of part of my collection. I have some old consoles and plan to keep some of them. Today I have a Nintendo Switch, I’m almost finished Zelda Tears of the Dragon. I continue playing and I think I will do so until the end of my life. I hope someone reads this text. Me rereading and remembering everything I experienced, it was truly a great adventure! Too bad we only have one life and the game over is imminent. But if I can leave some advice for younger people it would be, never stop dreaming, and I’m not talking about dreaming about ambitions and achievements, but about dreaming about a magical world of good and happy achievements, what can you do to bring more happiness to this world? Never exchange your dreams for ambitions and mere achievements! Life will be hard, and if you return this hardness to the world, you may never again see the purity of being an eternal child and with this you will become an active agent that will prevent other children from seeing this wonderful world we live in.