Second Playthrough | Birthday 1994 - Game Boy Starts gettin' good

The Game Boy eventually had one of the best libraries of any system ever, and in mid-1994 I started to really explore it.

I was highly anticipating my birthday in 1994, I was turning 5 and my mother had promised that it would be a big one. I was about to start school and my parents had told me that doing well in school was my responsibility, but that I would be rewarded - and I was with three new Game Boy games. More importantly (yes even than new games) was that I would start to receive a weekly allowance - contingent on doing all of my chores and doing well in school. Thus began my era of saving money to buy video games (an era that is currently still going on!)

1. Donkey Kong

I talked previously about the fact that we had Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600. That game was incredibly limited, had bad graphics and was just not nearly as fun as other games I had access to even then. However, it was a name my parents knew and the first game I got for my Birthday that year was Donkey Kong for the Game Boy.

This version of Donkey Kong had actually only came out a few months before my August 30th Birthday in 1994 and quickly became my favorite game for the system. It's first level plays very similar to the original Donkey Kong game but then so much more starts happening, there is an overworld with levels bound together by themes, enemies and sub-bosses, different puzzle types and features and great level design.

I put countless hours into Donkey Kong and loved the saving feature (first game I had with one). I don't know if I ever actually beat the game, I replayed it recently to about half-way and had great fun doing so. 

Of the Donkey Kong Games before the venerable Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong for the Game Boy is without a doubt the best in my opinion.

2. Dr. Mario

I am fairly certain my parents went to a store like Best Buy, asked one of the people there 'is there a game like Tetris' and that person pointed them to Dr. Mario - and I am grateful for it! Dr. Mario can be described as like tetris in that it is a puzzle game with pieces falling from the top that need to be arranged, but it is also different in that your goal is not simply to survive by clearing enough of the puzzle to keep making room for more pieces, but to also clear the bottle of viruses and advance to the next stage.

I of course didn't put as much time into Dr. Mario as I had Tetris (I had many other games to play!) but I did love it and it was a great time waster on car trips (or other times when my parents just needed me to be quiet!).

3. Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

The final game my parents got me in 1994 was Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. Yet another Nintendo franchise that I began with the Gameboy version before playing the original on the NES (Super Mario and later Metroid and Zelda, and of course Donkey Kong as the 2600 version pales in comparison to the NES version).

Truthfully I don't recall much of this game. I remember liking it and comparing it to Kirby's Dreamland but being much more interested in Donkey Kong (and Metroid and Zelda I got later that year). I have since lost this game and couldn't play it for this blog post - I hope to pick it up again soon as I'm trying to add to my older NES, GB, SNES and Genesis collections so hopefully I can replay it soon.

Second Playthrough | Christmas 1993: Gaming on the Go!

I never got to see the box (I wish I had!) but this was the set my parents bought 'the family'.

I don't recall when they actually purchased it (heck, it may have been around when it was first released in NA in 1989) but in 1993 for Christmas I got the 'family' gameboy as my own along with the modest game collection they had along with two new games! I was ecstatic, I played the family Game Boy more than anyone and couldn't wait for it to be all 'mine'.

1. Tetris

First up was of course Tetris, it came with the system when my parents originally bought it and it got the most use out of the system (until I got a hold of it of course, don't get me wrong I played Tetris a bunch but eventually Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pokemon, etc. would get more play time). I broke this out just yesterday (as part of planning to write this down) and the sites and sounds were like a tidal wave of nostalgia. I know I'm not nearly as good as I was back in the day but I played for a little while to try to see how long I could survive (only took a few minutes :) )

If somehow you've never played Tetris (or one of the many sequels) you are missing a simply great puzzle game - go play it now!

2. Golf

Next out of the games we had for the Game Boy was Golf (later games in the series were called Mario Golf, and its obviously Mario you're playing as, but it's just called Golf). This game too had a very distinctive sound when you hit the ball (the crescendo then fall of the music follows the ball, it's great).

3. Jeopardy!

The final game out of the original 3 was Jeopardy! I didn't play this very much if at all when I was younger. I like to catch a Jeopardy episode every now and again today but I was a little young to know the questions (or care really).

4. Super Mario Land

The first game I got new was Super Mario Land. I played this game through from start to finish (you have to, no save function) more times than I can count. I had played Super Mario Bros. 3 some on a friend's NES previous to this but ironically I had never played the original Super Mario Bros. when I first played.

A few cool things that set this game apart were the airplane/sub levels, where you piloted either an airplane (kinda looked like a blimp maybe) in the air or a submarine under the water (the levels played similarly) and could shoot enemies. Also in the normal levels the Fireball powerup allowed you to collect coins (something that doesn't occur on the contemporary NES titles of the time) which allowed some cool secret areas that you needed the Fire Flower to fully exploit.

Super Mario Land was likely the first full length game that I 'beat' all the way through. I loved the game, however  it is a bit short.

5. Kirby's Dream Land

The second game I got new that Christmas was Kirby's Dream Land. This game actually got more playtime than Mario, I loved the platforming with the ability to fly (kinda, 'Kirby' floating/flying) and eating enemies and spitting them back out. I had a lot of fun with this game. I recently pulled it back out and played through the first couple levels to much enjoyment.

Interestingly, this was the first game in the Kirby series and he was yet to be stylized as Pink nor did he have the ability to copy enemies (he could eat and spit them, but no copying). These series trademarks would come in Kirby's Adventure for the NES.


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Where to play them now:

You're best bet if you're looking to recreate the old Gameboy experience is to purchase the games off of Amazon or any number of retro gaming site (unlike other consoles of the time period like the NES, the original Game Boy games are pretty cheap). It can take some time to find a nice looking/working original gameboy (although not too expensive when you find one - much easier to get a Gameboy Color if you're in a hurry and it will play all the original's games). But the feel of a real gameboy and games is very hard to recreate.

There are also of course emulators, however without a physical copy the legality of these (Nintendo and many of the other companies still maintain copyrights on all of their IPs from the era, technically the Roms used in emulators are only usually legal if they are a back-up to a physical copy you own. Many people now emulate old Gameboy games on their PSP's and/or Smartphones - I won't explore this here as I don't support that but it is an option if you are okay with that.

Also many of these games are available on the 3DS Virtual Console, this allows you to be legal, and fairly well recreate the handheld experience - additionally the creators of the games (or at least IP holders) get some of the money from the purchase so more games can be made.

Second Playthrough | Birthday 1993: Entering the world of Video Games

Only about a decade and a half late!

As a young child (living in the house I now am back in, renting from my father - we lived her originally until I was 9) my father had an Atari 2600 that he kept in the attic. He would bring it down on the occasional weekend day and let my sister and I take turns playing with on the family TV. This was my first taste of video games and I was hooked immediately. 

In August 1993 I turned 4 years old and my present from my parents was that Atari to have as my own (only like 16 years after the system came out, I was a retro gamer from the beginning!).

1. Missile Command

Initially I had 6 games for the Atari. The game I played the most was Missile Command, I would spend hours shooting missiles out of the sky. I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that the Atari 2600 version was woefully inadequate versus the arcade version - heck I didn't even realize until later that I was playing a game about trying to stave off nuclear annihilation! I simply loved shooting down those missles, and it was a game I could play on my own long after my parents and my sister grew bored and left to do other things.

Going back now, Missile Command is actually kind of hard to play - mainly because like most Atari games they expect you to have read the manual and to figure stuff out on your own so it was difficult to know where to begin. Once you figure out how to use the switches and numbers at the top of the screen to choose your game 'mode' and get into the action though it is pretty simple: the missiles fall from the sky and you move your target indicator around the screen with the joystick and fire with the button. If your missile explosion catches the falling missile it will be destroyed, otherwise you miss. If the missiles find their way to the ground they can destroy your cities (or your main base with enough hits) eventually ending the game.

2. Combat

Combat was a close runner up, especially the Tank game against my sister - although my dad preferred the Jets (he rarely played, but when he did I happily played that game mode). Combat is arguably a better game than Missile Command (even at that age I could tell) and I even enjoyed it more, but it was a two player game and as I mentioned, my father (my mom never played) and sister would eventually get bored and go do other things and Combat was no longer an option - when I had someone to play with though this was awesome!

I've tried to get Combat out recently and play but unfortunately it is much harder to find people to play with now. I have one friend at work into retro games enough to have gotten to play with twice (a few other friends are gamers but to them Retro means N64/PS1 or maybe SNES or NES but they can't stomach older unfortunately). Everyone I talk to about Atari games speaks highly of Combat though and I do enjoy it when I get a chance to play - I also have one of the Atari Flashback consoles and it has Combat 2 on it (I don't think that ever actually came out on the 2600, was only planned).

3. Donkey Kong

I don't remember playing Donkey Kong much on the Atari 2600, I remember we had it and it was the main reason we eventually got it for the Game Boy (and later for other systems) but maybe even then I realized how crappy it was (on the Atari at least). More recently with internet research I have come to learn that the Atari 2600 port was basically intentionally made bad by Coleco as they wanted people to get the version on the Colecovision (which just happened to be their console - talk about conflict of interests).

I pulled out Donkey Kong recently and tried to play it and basically couldn't - the controls are crap, the graphics are horrible even for the Atari (hard to tell what's going on) and having played the Colecovision version (which wasn't that much more powerful than the 2600 really) I can see how they basically put no effort into this game.

4. Video Olympics

The only game I ever really played in Video Olympics was of course Pong, I didn't get to play this much as 1) Combat was better and if I had another player we usually played that and 2) One of our paddle controllers didn't work really well so one player was always at a disadvantage.

5. Circus Atari

I never knew (until later) that Circus Atari was based on the gameplay of Breakout and to be truthful I didn't play Circus Atari much.

6. Bowling

I don't recall playing Bowling much back then, I've plugged it up recently and was not very impressed so I doubt I was then either. It seems to be a faithful representation of the real game of bowling - but the fun in bowling is being with friends, drinking and having a good time - a pixelized representation of it with very little skill involved (or at least it seems to just be luck, didn't try that hard truthfully) wasn't the most fun. They can't all be winners!

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Where to play them now:

There are several options for playing Atari 2600 games now, the best is to get an actual Atari 2600 (or 7800 or heck a Colecovision with the adapter will play the 2600's games too) and an older TV and go to town! 

Alternatively you can download emulators and play on the computer, but the controls are just not the same (unless you mod or get a modded Atari controller that can plug in USB).

There is also the Microsoft Game Room service on the 360. I can't say I've used it but there are quite a few good (and not so good) Atari 2600 games on there.