My own personal gaming history

The first game i remember playing when i was a child was Super Mario World on SNES in 96 when I was 3 years old, alongside this would have been Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex Kidd, the only reason i played these games from such an early age was because my father had bought a SNES and MegaDrive for himself and let me play on the games.
My favourite Genres of game when i was younger had to be the Platformer, From Mario, Sonic, Alex Kidd, Metroid, Ghouls and Ghosts, Abe's Oddysee. And the Brawler, which for those of you who dont know is a cross between a fighter and platformer, they are rarely seen these days bar Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Castle Crashers. Some of my favorites as a child were Streets of Rage, Altered Beast, Double Dragon and Golden Axe. I Played Final Fight as well but wasn't a fan it just felt like a Streets of Rage ripoff with larger sprites but less awesome music.
Streets of Rage 2   (top).                                                
Final Fight (bottom).


                                                      SO SATISFYING TO UPPERCUT A MINI-BOSS! SHORYUKEN.
My favourite feature of Streets of Rage was that each level was split into sections each with its own Mini-boss and then the final area would contain the level Boss, it made what was a fairly short game seem much longer and much more of a journey to reach your final goal, it also meant that The Totally awesome 16-bit soundtrack and setting would change from area to area meaning you wouldn't get bored of the theme or the backdrop.

Toe Jam and Earl was another one of my childhood favourites.
 
Man i hated the Camera guys, the Jackhammer guy was pretty bad too.



As got older i began to get more and more into Platform/Exploring games or Adventure Games, by the age of 6 my Favorite 3 games were Zelda A Link to the Past, Super Metroid and Abes Oddysee/Exodus.


I think the reason for this was that i found Traditional A to B gameplay less rewarding and even at a young age appreciated games that made you work harder for your victory, games that would severely punish wrong moves such as abe ( you did something wrong you died ) or you didnt help out enough of your buddies and got punished at the end with the bad ending, games that required exploration and optional self improvement of your character to make the boss fights an easier process ( Metroid, you didnt have to get all the missile and suit upgrades but i challeng you to kill Ridley without any Rockets.... those of you who play metroid will know what i'm talking about ).

A Scrab from Abe.... Who else found these things terrifying. They were so fast when they chased you!



At age 8 I played Halo:Combat Evolved for Xbox. Now i'm not a huge Halo fan-boy or anything like that but it really was the game that got me into shooters and restored my faith in A to B games, that and Goldeneye 007 for N64.


Looking back I believe its due to there Narrative and Great level design that kept me coming back for more, that coupled with the fact they played responsively and had comparatively less glitches than other games at the time.

Shortly after playing Halo on Xbox, MechAssault was released in 2002, if you dont know what MechAssault is, its a game about piloting huge Robots ( Mechs ) and battling them against one another alongside soldiers, tanks, helicopters and jets. You play the lone wolf, a mech pilot who's team is fighting against the terrorist organisation "the word of Blake".
The second game in the series featured a impressive online mode known as conquest where players made clans with their friends and battle it out for dominance of planets and solar systems against other clans. As well as the new battle Armour mode which allowed you to hijack opponents Mechs.


Blowing stuff up as a huge robot was so fun.

When I got my hands on a Game-cube at age 10 along with Metroid Prime, I was simply blown away by how amazing the game was and too this day it stands in my top 3 all time favorites, if you haven't played the Metroid Prime series your missing out, while everyone was still going crazy for Halo I had found a new favorite game.

This Boss was a Bitch to kill the first time you play.
Kill it! Kill it with Fire!

Metroid Prime had a bit of everything, it was like a drinking a beautiful cocktail where all the flavors and scents complimented and supported one another in perfect harmony, you had a FPS game which had Leveling up RPG elements, Exploration and Puzzles, Character growth, Multitudes of Enemies and Bosses in addition to a wide array of Skills and Weaponry in your ever growing arsenal throughout the game, each area would introduce new enemies and puzzles requiring your current knowledge and skill-set to adapt to the changes.
The addition of a Log-book feature where you store all the information about Enemies you fight and artifacts you uncover added an extra element of reward when you finally got 100% logbook entries, it was also a key feature for finding out a particular enemies or bosses weaknesses.

Metroid had some pretty big bosses too....



As well as all this it looked gorgeous for its 2002 release and played better than any game I had played thus far. The game also contained some rather impressive set pieces for the time from the frozen wastes of Phendrana to the Ancient crumbling Chozo ruins.



After Metroid Prime it was a few years until I played anything as equally impressive, then in 2004/2005 DOOM 3 and Resident Evil 4.

 

Both of the Huge titles sold in the millions within the first few days of their release and there's a good reason why, They were already part of established franchises, Doom since 93 and Resident Evil since 96, but as well as there already existent fan-bases both of these games pushed the boundaries of gaming hardware as far as their visuals were concerned and introduced many new mechanics to their franchises.

Resident Evil 4 had a player controlled camera rather than a fixed point camera of its predecessors, as well as a new melee and aiming system, along with realtime survival events where you would have to barricade doors, leap from windows and knock down ladders.

Such a Satisfying feeling. In a tight spot.


How does Leon always keep his hair so tidy?

DOOM 3 took the doom franchise from its initial Run and Gun gameplay to a much slower atmosphere and suspense based game. It had some genuinely creepy moments and always kept you checking every corner and looking behind yourself for nasties ( almost autocorrected nasties to pastries lol, I hardly thing a DOOM set in Gregg's would have the same effect)   sneaking up on you.

  Damn imps. Pesky little blighters.
I hate to brake it to him but this guy is never gonna kill that hell knight with his fists.

Looks like we were a little late to the party.

It was around the same time as I started playing DOOM and Resident Evil 4 that I Played Devil May Cry for the first time even though it was released 4 years earlier in 2001 I didn't play it until later on, I loved the game right from the get go, It was stylish and slick, fast paced and challenging to play it offered a rewarding experience whenever you beat a particularly tough boss.
 DmC3
The Phantom was my favorite DmC boss, the first scene where you encounter him and he tells you he had hoped for something bigger and will squash you like a little bug is just awesome.

Around the same time as playing DmC in 2004/2005 i discovered the RTS ( real time strategy ) genre through a game called Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War.

It was a hugely fun game where you took control of one of four factions, Humanities defenders the mighty space marines, or their polar opposites the Chaos marines, or the Ancient and wise spell-casters the Eldar and lastly the Space Orks a brutal and vicious warmongering race who love to fight.
Space Marines

Chaos Marines
Orks
Eldar

Later installments of the series added more playable factions including the Imperial Guard, Necrons, Tau, Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar  it also expanded upon older ones adding new units, new campaign modes and multiplayer maps were also added, the games themselves were surprisingly easy to learn and get into but devilishly hard to master making for hours of gameplay and learn which units best others and where, where to go on which maps and when, how to best spend resources and expand your base, where to build fortifications and so on.
Necrons
Tau
Imperial Guard

Sisters of Battle
Dark Eldar

As i got older I began to Play more Rpg and Jrpg titles, such as Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Fable, Final Fantasy, Persona, the Tales series and Eternal sonata.

The Persona 3 and 4 games developed by Atlas are two that have stuck with me as they have a fairly different approach to the very typical Jrpg storylines, with some very memorable bosses and intriguing story-lines they are games that need to be played by all rpg fans irregardless of your stance on anime styled games.

Going about your regular day after schools over.
Exploring one of the many realms within the Midnight Channel

To put it simply as possible the games revolve around the lives of a group of high-school students, people from their school begin to go missing, turn up dead etc, you go about their regular lives during the day, attend classes, socialise over lunch, walk home with people, go to the arcade, talk to parents etc this at first may seem like its just filler while your waiting for the action, but during the day is when you can progress character relations, uncover clues and so on, these in turn effect the outcome of the game and the action sections which take place overnight, through your investigations you hear rumors of a mysterious TV channel known as the midnight channel that only becomes available for a brief period after 12am, whenever the channel becomes available it is linked to one of the missing or due to be missing characters,through the Midnight channel you enter a bizarre world and fight enemies and a boss that reflects the inner thoughts and torments of the missing character..... but yeah ill stop because I said i'd keep it simple.

I also began getting into one on one fighters, like Street fighter 4, but my favorite fighter right now is the BlazBlue Series.


Blazblue supports a ensemble cast of 19 completely unique characters all with their own fighting styles and button layouts, which I believe is a first as far as fighters go, most fighting games see recycled move sets, character types and so on. On top of that it has the most immersive fighting game storyline ever, theres a huge plotline spanning over 3 games and all 19 characters get their own chapters allowing insight into their intertwining plot-lines, aswell as this you get traditional arcade mode aswell as a conquest mode, a wave based leveling up mode and a huge gallery full of collectables, art and character skins and upgrades to be unlocked. Now dont get me wrong Blazblue does have your typical Fighter archetypes such as the Large burly character who's slow an takes loads of hits to take down ( thats iron tager below ) along with nimble longer ranged characters ( Jin Kisaragi below )





 But blazblue expands upon these pre-sets and makes them something new and exciting, ive been playing for two years now and still haven't mastered all the characters.
There are a few characters in particular, one being Relius Clover a scientist who has an Automaton fight on his behalf, its quite an  unusual experience to have to control two characters that can move independently of one another with the same controller.



There's also Rachel Alucard who is a character who uses a multitude of ranged projectiles combined with remote detonation commands and summon-able minions to do her fighting.


Ohh and Hazama, this guy fights using grappling hooks kinda like Scorpion but not really.


Its a spectacularly well presented game with an enormous amount of polish, the 2d anime hand drawn sprites move fluently and beautifully ontop of the full 3d cgi backdrops and full anime cut-scenes complement the story mode. As with Persona Once again anyone who loves  should definitely play it even if you hate anime just get over it and give it a go its so good i promise.