Classic Video Games from Your Childhood Past

I remember when I was a kid I was absolutely terrible at Donkey Kong. I was lucky if I made it past the first level. Still, it was one of the few video games around so I kept pumping in my quarters. Now I can get through the game three times pretty much every time, but on the fourth time through there's a drastic jump in difficulty and I'm always doomed.

 

Here's a few memories.

1. Adventure for 2600 - the three duck-dragons and looking for the "dot" - one of the first Easter eggs! "Raiders of the Lost Ark was fun too"

2. The frenzy surrounding the release of Pac-Man for 2600. I was bummed at first when I didn't get to buy it... but a friend did. And we opened it and put it in and were disappointed at how badly it stunk!(even by late-70s standards).

3. Really LOOOOOOONNG games that you couldn't save. Like Super Mario 1 and 2, Batman, Mega-Man, Super Star Wars, to name a few. So you had to leave the console on and hope no one tripped over the power cord or have a black out or something.

4. Combat on 2600 - my first game. Loved the tanks.

5. Getting so good at Pitfall and Missile Command and Space Invaders on 2600 that you could play forever and never lose.

 

Wow, I can relate to every one of those memories. Combat was my first console game as well. I loved playing the tanks with the "ping pong" mode on.

I also look back fondly on Warlords. I used to play Atari all the time at my friend Paulie's house and he had three older brothers, so if they were all home we barely ever got to play. Warlords is the first four player game I can remember and finally we could get in on the action. Even though we almost always got our butts kicked it was still fun. Incidentally, Paulie's older brother Kirby was a video game wiz. He used to enter video game tournaments and almost always won. He could play Pac Man for over six hours on one quarter.

 

I grew up playing video games on an old Commodore 64, so games like Jungle Hunt, Pole Position, Pitstop 2, Montezuma's Revenge, Falcon Patrol, Commando, Spy Hunter, Choplifter, Karate Champ, and tons of others all evoke surges of nostalgia.

 

Not really a nostalgic game, but it was one of the first on the playstation and its from my childhood: Jumping Flash and Jumping Flash 2