Growing up with video games - Past to Present

Hello, I hope everyone is well and having a good day.

After some deep thinking, I thought I would share my experience with video games. At least what I could recall.

When I was younger, I spent a lot time at my grandparent's house. More specifically my Dad's parents. My cousins always loved spending time there especially since it was the only place where we could play and literally be ourselves. Apart from fighting for the affection of our grandmother.

Though of course both grandparents loved us all very much especially considering at the time, there were only five of us including my younger brother . Well six if you include my little cousin who was a baby while the rest of us were more or less toddlers or pre-schoolers.

It was around then when my dad, uncle and uncle-in-law brought home the first gaming console. It was the Sega Mega Drive.

My cousins and brother and I, all sat around the three adults as they set the console up and started playing.
Soon enough, they showed us how to play.

Some of the games they taught us included these:

I will admit that most of the games that they showed us how to play were hard for me to grasp.
Especially games like Sonic the Hedgehog , Mickey Mouse and the World of Illusions, even more so... Ghouls and Ghosts.
Practically every time I lost or couldn't get through a stage, I would literally cry or complain.
I suppose it was due to partially embarrassment as most of the boys including my younger brother could get through. Otherwise it could have just been my own frustration as I wasn't sure what to do or understand what I did wrong.

The ones I did enjoy though were these along with some which were listed above:

I did notice that i found that the games with either puzzles, 1 on 1 battle or two player one way onward adventure and combat seemed to interest me more than other games . Maybe because it synced better than the rest or it's just simply I could grasp them better than the other games.

Even so, especially with the two player games, I was no where near as good as my dad, uncles or my cousins even my little brother.

Either way, as time went on more consoles entered our lives.

Around my 5th or 6th Birthday. I received my first Nintendo GameBoy.

Considering the boom of technology and games. GameBoy consoles were the 'IN' thing and almost everyone had them... supposedly. GameBoys were more common the Sega Game Gear as far as I knew. As far as toys went there was a time I never left home or went on a trip without my GameBoy.

This was also around the time my grandparents purchased the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Unlike the Sega Mega Drive, it used not cartridges, but floppy disks.

It was interesting and unique at the same time. However, just like the games played on the Mega Drive, I hovered more towards the subtler games. Though I did play Super Mario Bros. for a bit, at least till it got too hard for me.
There always seemed to be at least one level that I couldn't get through.

Either way, the most important thing was... at the end of the day... everyone was happy and everyone had a turn in playing the games. Including the adults.

From then on, the video game industry expanded and out came the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn.

There were so many games to play and to choose from. All of us, especially the boys went nuts looking for games to play.
At least when we weren't running around playing outside. We seemed to play together more when we were at our grandparent's home.

By the time the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn came out, there were more of us. Though still not as many as from my mother's side of the family.

Everyone went crazy with RPG games like Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, or fighting games such as, Tekken, Soul Edge or Bloody Roar and even breeding battle games like Monster Rancher.

I suppose one could say then the rest was history as many consoles and trends came after that.
There are way too many to list down.
All of us picked and chose the ones we liked best and played when the other wasn't or we either had our own devices.

As the latter...

Looking back now, video games along with cartoons and anime played big parts in my life, despite being a girl.
I do understand that there are others with similar childhoods like my own, and some will have more and some will have less.

This may sound odd, but even those games taught me a few things and developed my interest in the more creative as well as hands on kind of work.

Some of those things included, solving certain kind of puzzles, sometimes mimicking what I see on the screen, trying to draw the character or trying to sing the songs which came with the soundtracks. Similar instances to what I relayed in my previous post regarding cartoons.

As a conclusion, I am grateful to have had a very privileged childhood and to have had that time spent with loved ones even if we were all distracted by the consoles or which ever platform our noses were in.

Video games, as a whole... was something that brought us all together even though nowadays it tends to separate us.
Otherwise, I am glad that it was and still is a part of my life.

Thank you for dropping by and reading my story.
Take care and I wish you all well ^_^

*Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images. The belong to their respected sources.