Do you know a woman named Carlotta...?
Aug. 1st, 2008 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
r_scribblesEee! Soul Calibur IV is out today!
*Excited*
In celebration of this, and prompted by Bibsy's post about the humble N64, I thought I might regale you with a post about the Games Of My Youth - the 'youth' in question being largely the University years, and those that followed shortly after.
In my Student House we had a Playstation (not even a PS1, just a 'Playstation' - big, ugly, grey box!) and Claire's N64. I spent much of my 3rd year at Hubs' house down the road, where the same consoles were in residence. I have a feeling that at one point Hairy Dan The Pirate Man had a Dreamcast too.
The N64 came first though, in both houses. Chief group game amongst our household was Mario Karts. At Hubs', it was Goldeneye. Mario karts sessions tended to be restrained to an hour or two - eventually, there would be something on the telly that one of us wanted to watch (I'd like to add at this point that our house was where tellies went to die. We got about three very old, very cheap ones in quick succession, all of which gave up the ghost within a matter of months, and would then sit forlornly in the telly corner as we got another one to go next to it that would work. After a while it started to look like some sort of strange modern art installation. I think it was Spuddie who finally decided we should just bloody well get one from Radio Rentals, since at least that would work. Whatever happened to Radio Rentals, BTW? Whatever happened to that grand tradition of renting instead of buying your electronic goods?)
The Goldeneye sessions, on the other hand, could be epic. Somebody on the film course when I was in my 1st year made a film about a guy who plays too much Goldeneye and starts to think he's in the game when he goes to work, but it really could be like that. You's close your eyes after playing it and see the pixellated gun in your hand, as I find is often the case with 1st Person shoot-em-ups. The worst game for 'phantom shotgun syndrome' is yet to come, though...
Then came the Playstations, and since these belonged to me and hubs, and not our housemates, we could play them whenever we liked. Which tended to be the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning. Here are the games that particularly rocked my socks:
Soul Blade: Polygon-tastic precursor to the Soul Calibur series, and a true, true love of mine. I loved Seong-Mina and her giant hockey stick of wrath. I refused to play Hubs when he was being the ill-fated Li-Long, since he would just jump on me repeatedly. Sophitia, back in those days, was hilarious. She would bleat, Uni-style, whenever badly hit. It took me a long time to warm to Taki, but she has since become my favourite fighter. And if Soul Edge killed you, you had to go back and defeat Cervantes again. Aaaaarrrghhh!!! see, that was before you drew the evil spirit out of the body of an undead warlord and decided to make the resulting deathmatch best-of-three.
Tomb Raider 2: More polygons! I have a soft spot for Lara Croft, she's like Action Barbie. Tomb Raider 2 was the first game I ever completed. I have to admit that not many others have joined its ranks. I bought my Playstation and that game with Christmas money at the end of 1999, and spent the vast majority of the New Year week at my parents' house with Hubs over to stay, staying up til about 5 every morning wandering around Venice and a sunken, upside-down cruise ship.
Resident Evil 2: Could never play it - always just got attacked by zombies straight away and would panic, but used to love watching Hubs play it for hours on end. It gave me the creeps. And we have Resident Evil 2 to thank for SotD, of course :)
Discworld Noir: THE game of my third year at Uni. Me, Jools and Sylv would play it either together or seperately-but-in-tandem. It is a brilliant game, but I think only we, and about five other people, bought it. Lots of wandering around Ankh-Morpork asking people if they knew a woman named Carlotta. You get killed a third of the way through, but crawl out of your grave as a Werewolf, for God's sake. It's AWESOME. That was the ultimate in put-it-on-for-a-bit-after-you've-been-clubbing-while-you-have-a-piece-of-toast-then-look-at-the-clock-and-notice-it's-6-in-the-morning games for me.
Timesplitters: This was the big 'phantom shotgun syndrome' game. Too long at it and it would give you motion sickness, which was a pity since we'd play it for hours on end. Massive groups of us. We used to go round to Greaves' house and link up the tellies. It would usually be about 8 of us playing together, although I think the biggest group we got was 16. The best one was Eliminator, with everybody cloaked, usually played in the hospital. Greaves used to sneak up behind people and whack them on the back of the head, the bastard. Occasionally, a silent stillness would pause when everybody was either taking cover or unable to find anyone else, and all you would be able to hear would be a dozen or so invisible guns all reloading at once. Magic. the three words destined to strike fear into my heart to this day are: 'Let's. Split. Time.'
*Excited*
In celebration of this, and prompted by Bibsy's post about the humble N64, I thought I might regale you with a post about the Games Of My Youth - the 'youth' in question being largely the University years, and those that followed shortly after.
In my Student House we had a Playstation (not even a PS1, just a 'Playstation' - big, ugly, grey box!) and Claire's N64. I spent much of my 3rd year at Hubs' house down the road, where the same consoles were in residence. I have a feeling that at one point Hairy Dan The Pirate Man had a Dreamcast too.
The N64 came first though, in both houses. Chief group game amongst our household was Mario Karts. At Hubs', it was Goldeneye. Mario karts sessions tended to be restrained to an hour or two - eventually, there would be something on the telly that one of us wanted to watch (I'd like to add at this point that our house was where tellies went to die. We got about three very old, very cheap ones in quick succession, all of which gave up the ghost within a matter of months, and would then sit forlornly in the telly corner as we got another one to go next to it that would work. After a while it started to look like some sort of strange modern art installation. I think it was Spuddie who finally decided we should just bloody well get one from Radio Rentals, since at least that would work. Whatever happened to Radio Rentals, BTW? Whatever happened to that grand tradition of renting instead of buying your electronic goods?)
The Goldeneye sessions, on the other hand, could be epic. Somebody on the film course when I was in my 1st year made a film about a guy who plays too much Goldeneye and starts to think he's in the game when he goes to work, but it really could be like that. You's close your eyes after playing it and see the pixellated gun in your hand, as I find is often the case with 1st Person shoot-em-ups. The worst game for 'phantom shotgun syndrome' is yet to come, though...
Then came the Playstations, and since these belonged to me and hubs, and not our housemates, we could play them whenever we liked. Which tended to be the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning. Here are the games that particularly rocked my socks:
Soul Blade: Polygon-tastic precursor to the Soul Calibur series, and a true, true love of mine. I loved Seong-Mina and her giant hockey stick of wrath. I refused to play Hubs when he was being the ill-fated Li-Long, since he would just jump on me repeatedly. Sophitia, back in those days, was hilarious. She would bleat, Uni-style, whenever badly hit. It took me a long time to warm to Taki, but she has since become my favourite fighter. And if Soul Edge killed you, you had to go back and defeat Cervantes again. Aaaaarrrghhh!!! see, that was before you drew the evil spirit out of the body of an undead warlord and decided to make the resulting deathmatch best-of-three.
Tomb Raider 2: More polygons! I have a soft spot for Lara Croft, she's like Action Barbie. Tomb Raider 2 was the first game I ever completed. I have to admit that not many others have joined its ranks. I bought my Playstation and that game with Christmas money at the end of 1999, and spent the vast majority of the New Year week at my parents' house with Hubs over to stay, staying up til about 5 every morning wandering around Venice and a sunken, upside-down cruise ship.
Resident Evil 2: Could never play it - always just got attacked by zombies straight away and would panic, but used to love watching Hubs play it for hours on end. It gave me the creeps. And we have Resident Evil 2 to thank for SotD, of course :)
Discworld Noir: THE game of my third year at Uni. Me, Jools and Sylv would play it either together or seperately-but-in-tandem. It is a brilliant game, but I think only we, and about five other people, bought it. Lots of wandering around Ankh-Morpork asking people if they knew a woman named Carlotta. You get killed a third of the way through, but crawl out of your grave as a Werewolf, for God's sake. It's AWESOME. That was the ultimate in put-it-on-for-a-bit-after-you've-been-clubbing-while-you-have-a-piece-of-toast-then-look-at-the-clock-and-notice-it's-6-in-the-morning games for me.
Timesplitters: This was the big 'phantom shotgun syndrome' game. Too long at it and it would give you motion sickness, which was a pity since we'd play it for hours on end. Massive groups of us. We used to go round to Greaves' house and link up the tellies. It would usually be about 8 of us playing together, although I think the biggest group we got was 16. The best one was Eliminator, with everybody cloaked, usually played in the hospital. Greaves used to sneak up behind people and whack them on the back of the head, the bastard. Occasionally, a silent stillness would pause when everybody was either taking cover or unable to find anyone else, and all you would be able to hear would be a dozen or so invisible guns all reloading at once. Magic. the three words destined to strike fear into my heart to this day are: 'Let's. Split. Time.'
