Friday Favorites #1

It kind of goes without saying already that videogames are among my favorite things in the world. As well as my family of course. My wife and son, so before my wife does read this and ask me "Why am I not there listed in your favorites?", mockingly in jest of course but it's no less of an awkward moment having to explain that actually yes, they are my my favorite thing. It's just that  this is not about them.
So what is it about? It's about favorite things of mine. Perhaps it will be my favorite brand of tea to drink (it's Lipton) or my favorite place in the world (that would be the place I consider home, which is not where I currently live). I intend to post a favorite something of mine here every Friday. Friday seemed appropriate because it's a pretty cool day of the week and only a day away from my actual favorite day of the week, Saturday. Also, the word Friday starts with the letter F just like favorite does. I already stated that videogames are among my favorite things and that is what I will begin with.




The first videogame console I ever had experience with was a binatone home entertainment system. My mother had bought it from a jumble sale somewhere. It had 8 games loaded on it. One of them was Pong and the other 7 were Pong variations. It would not be until the days of the Sega Megadrive that I would develop an actual interest in videogames. My older brother had bought a Sega Megadrive and the evening that we rented Streets of Rage was quite literally life changing. Then came Toejam and Earl, we had to rent this one out again in order to finish it as we had spent too much time in fits of laughter on the first occasion. The Desert strike series was one hell of a time sink and I never even completed any of them. Sonic the Hedgehog was another series where I did not complete a single one of them but spent a lot of time trying. It was not until their release on modern consoles via digital download that I was able to finish the games. Thank the devs for save points!

My Brother moved on to Amiga after the Megadrive and whilst Amiga is somewhat iconic, there is little I remember from the Amiga days beyond a program that converted text into speech. Amiga ran it's course and my brother moved on to PC's. This brought with it Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and of course online multiplayer. My brother became hooked on Doom multiplayer for a while but since it was being run through a 56k dial up modem, this came to an abrupt end when the phone bill arrived.

Due to being somewhat pressed for cash during college years it was not until the release of the Sony PlayStation that I did in fact move on from the Sega Megadrive myself. The PlayStation brought with it Crash Bandicoot and Tekken. While Crash Bandicoot was enjoyable, it became rather tricky and a little tedious halfway through and was therefore abandoned. I'm still a Tekken fan to this day though. I have a figurine of Jim Kazama ripping off Ogre's horn sat on the mantlepiece now. It's my favorite piece of videogame memorabilia. Recalling the hours that were sank into Tekken 3 trying to perfect 10 hit combos and competing with friends in survival challenges make me go all warm and fuzzy inside.

Rollcage Stage II

The next big time sink for me on PlayStation was Rollcage Stage II. This was a game that I found to be immensely satisfying and I still have the game now even though I no longer have a PS1.
Another fighting series that I became enamoured with was Bloody Roar. This game took over my passion for Tekken for a while and while it did not the same level of gameplay as Tekken I would play and complete it several times a day everyday. I unlocked every bonus mode the game had, my best time attack completion was less than a minute and right now, I wish I could remember what my survival mode record was. Because it was high, really high. My brother in law has it now along with my PS1 memory card so I will be able to find out what my records are. He had to swear an oath to not delete a single thing from that memory card before he could have it.

There were many other throwaway titles for PS1 that came and went but there is another that still deserves to be mentioned and that is Dead Ball Zone. A future sports simulation game. Never before or since have I ever played such a rage inducing game as this. It was such a fast paced game that you could go from winning to losing within the last 5 seconds of each match but it was the same the other way around as well which was what made it so Damn compelling from start to finish. I smashed my first PlayStation controller playing this game. Losing a vital league match in the dying seconds and flying into such a rage that I smashed the controller against the side of the drawers my 14" portable TV was sat on, until it split into pieces.

The PS1 served me well for many years. The PS2 launch came and went. I could not afford to buy it during the launch window so it was not until the price drop that I was able to buy one. I bought the PS2 from the Electonics Boutique store in town along with the PS2 memory card and 2 games. I don't recall now how much it cost but there was not much else I was going to be spending money on in the following weeks! Being a Tekken fan, Tekken Tag Tournament was a must buy for me and Bloody Roar 3 was the second game that was to be keeping me occupied for many months.

Tekken force mode in Tekken 4 

Other PS2 titles worthy of note for me include SSX, Maximo, Deus Ex, Ico, Metal Gear, God Hand, Killzone, Black. The list could go on. There are a few standout moments in particular though that stick with me to this day. The first being the day my Brother brought GTA3 over to my place. Upon witnessing the game for myself and going to get my own copy as soon as possible, the disc went into my PS2 disc tray and didn't come out for many months. The second was Tekken 4. Tekken 4 is my favorite Tekken game of the series. Many Tekken fans did not like it but I found the new direction T4 took to be refreshing and the surprise return of Kazuya in the intro was incredible. The Tekken Force mode was particularly brilliant and has somehow has failed to be recreated quite as well in subsequent editions of the Tekken series. The third standout moment for me takes us back to Grand Theft Auto again. This time in the form of San Andreas. Vice City didn't capture my interest as much as any of the other GTA installments but San Andreas did. I still regard San Andreas as the best of all the GTA series.

Patapon 2

When the PSP launched I was at a midnight launch in order to be one of the first to have one of the machines. I thought that it was an incredible console from the moment I turned it on to the moment I traded it in. So why did I trade it in if it was so incredible? Because, as most people who know anything about the PSP already know, only a few years after it's release game development for it all but dried up. The blame for this has quite definitavely been put on piracy. Before developers abandoned the PSP though, there were some fantastic games made for the console. My favorites include Justice League Heroes, Fifa Street 2, Lumines & LuminesII, Wipeout Pure & Pulse, Modnation Racers, LittleBigPlanet, Patapon 2, but easily and by far the best PSP game for me was Tekken Dark Resurrection. The visuals were bright and vivid, the action was fast and precise, the sound and music were of the same high quality expected from the Tekken series. Dark Resurrection had all of the usual bonus modes such as time attack, survival, arcade, story, team battle but all of the extra bonus modes added to Tekken:DR such as Tekken Bowl, Gold Rush, Challenge mode, the extensive customization options and my personal favorite, Tekken Dojo were the cherry on the icing on the cake. I did repurchase a PSP a couple of years after trading in the first PSP. Mostly because I missed playing Tekken:DR and Lumines.

I have since moved on from PS2 and PSP to PS3 and PSVita but since I have already gone on for what is probably far too long already, I'll sign out now and save those for another time.