Stuff that, back when you were in the economic clutches of your parents, you could but dream of having.
For me, there were several. The Dreamcast was the first, then the PS2, back in the early 2000s
More recently, I’ve been completely enthralled by the Amiga and what it offered back in the late 80s. That’s a system that was never available around my parts (Brazil), even as a clone product or contraband
ColecoVision with their perfect-looking Donkey Kong, and later Neo-Geo with the same graphics on the very expensive home console as the arcade games.
Collecovision achieved what we all wanted when I was a kid, arcade games at home. When you compare donkey Kong on the Colleco to Pac Man on the 2600, it is night and day.
I had a Commodore 64 and really really wanted an Amiga. Saw all the games for the Amiga and Atari ST in magazines and wept. It wasn’t really available in my country so I didn’t know anyone with one but even if it was available we wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
I was in the UK last month and went to the computer history museum in Cambridge. They have working versions of every single computer and console ever and you can play with them.
It was great nostalgia to use a ZX Spectrum, my trusty VIC-20 and C64 again. But there it was… An Amiga 500. I played a bit and the graphics and sounds still blew me away now in 2023 as a late 40s middle aged man. It was everything I dreamed it would be.
100% recommend.
I had an Amiga 500. It was great and I felt very fortunate to have one when I was a teenager. At some point, you could either buy the Amiga 500 mini or get a refurbished one. There is a nice community of Amiga enthusiasts who buy and sell hardware and also share software online, along with sharing emulators. This year for my birthday I might buy myself an Amiga 500 mini. I miss my old one, which is long dead and never coming back.
Kids growing up today will never know the pure awe of going in a Blockbuster Video and playing Mario64 on a Nintendo 64 store demo for the first time. It was absolutely amazing.
I’m an older millennial and I’ve played a lot of cool games. Nothing comes close to that, though.
So true. I got chills all over again just reading your perfect description of that moment.
Only rich kids had a Neo Geo or Turbo Grfx-16.
We were far from rich.
Ah I coveted the Neo Geo. I would gaze longingly at screenshots in CVG magazine and dream of having one.
Now I have a multicart for my Jamma cab and I can play pretty much any Neo Geo game I want. Turns out, apart from Viewpoint, metal slug and a few others I tend to prefer other systems.
PS2 in the early 2000s. I thought the graphics were something else. Up until 2005-2006-ish all I had was a bootleg NES clone with a shoebox full of unlicensed cartridges. I grew up with 80s games in the 21st century.
I finally got my hands one one off the flea market for 30$. Some modding later and it plays like a charm!
Definitely PS2. My cousin had God of War and I was insanely jealous. I remember thinking that it looked just like real life. Funny to see it now and compare it to the PS5 games.
I distinctly remember playing my friend’s PS2 and thinking “there’s no way video game graphics can get any better than this. This is the endgame” lol
Now we have massively better graphics but in many ways the experience and gameplay have gotten worse.
Dreamcast and both PSP and PSVita. I was a Sonic fan, and in the case of Sony’s portables, they were mini powerhouses.
The Steel Battalion sim controller setup for the original Xbox.
I really wanted a Vectrex as a kid. Having an all in one system and not having to fight to use the tv like we did with our Atari 2600 was a dream. The arcade quality vector graphics were so rad. I spent hours looking at it in the sears catalog, dreaming about playing it. I asked Santa for it but he didn’t deliver.
I remember seeing Stunt Car Racer and Shadow of the Beast running on an Amiga for the first time, and being absolutely blown away. They were so far above anything my trusty Speccy could do, it was almost funny.
Of course, both these games would eventually come to the Spectrum (with varying degrees of success) but to say that it wasn’t really the same would be a grotesque understatement.
Showing my age here, but my Sega Genesis “did what Nintendont” - and so I played Super Nintendo at store kiosks every chance I got.
Many years later I bought a used SNES and some games, and it was a very good day.
The Sega CDX. I had a Genesis, I had a Sega CD, but the thought of having both of those systems combined into one compact unit that also could be used as a discman (a really bad one, even I knew that at the time) was so appealing to me. There was one at the local game store for some absurd price ($350 I think) for literally years, and I would salivate over it every time I went in the store.
Ultimately I never got one, but at least I didn’t miss out on any games or anything.
As laughable as it sounds, the Sega 32X. I was a Genesis kid and one birthday my parents bought me Star Wars Arcade not understanding that it required the 32X to play. I kept telling them that the game wouldn’t work without it (even showing them that it wouldn’t fit in the regular Genesis slot) and they kept insisting that I must be doing something wrong or that I could just cut the corners off the cartridge to make it fit. So I wanted the 32X to play Star Wars, as well as this strange Knuckles game I kept hearing about (which I know is Knuckles’ Chaotix). Never ended up getting one. Got an N64 soon after, much better decision.
Good news and bad news for you:
- Chaotix was so buggy it was unplayable.
- Star Wars 32X was everything you probably dreamed it was, and more. What a fantastic port. I’m so sorry your parents didn’t understand.
