Gaming in my childhood - The games that have stayed with me today - Age of Empires and London Racer
I've been gaming for nearly 15 years now, and I've played games from the late 1990s to the next gen games of today. I've not been gaming that much in the past one year due to a variety of reasons; studies, work, and my laptop not supporting any of the games and their monster requirements of these days. Yet, I collect them, waiting for the day when I have built my gaming rig and can game hard!
Looking back at my childhood, there have been few games that have gotten me really hooked on to the gaming world. I spoke about some of them in my last post on the how I started gaming and some of the earliest games I can remember playing
But over the years, I can mark two games which had a profound influence on me; London Racer (or Midtown Madness 3) and Age of Empires II.
London Racer
London Racer was probably the most amazing game for the young me. NFS appealed to me in terms of the raw speed and the thrill of racing in exotic locations. But London Racer was different. I knew London was a city and it existed. And the thought of seeing the sights of London, Oxford, Cambridge and even Stonehenge appealed to me in a way no game ever had. Driving through the cities of London and Oxford, and the countryside was my first tour of another foreign country.
At that time, I believed it was an actual representation of London city and it looked amazing. To a 13 year old boy, driving a Mini, followed by a Porsche and finally a McLaren F1 was an amazing experience. I still remember crashing through a Museum with the McLaren F1, to the noise of people screaming and shouting.
London Racer gave my first glimpse of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, WestMinister, Tower Bridge, and Heathrow Airport, this was my first tour of London city. 13 years later, when I actually visited London, I had vivid recollections of the game and it was a very happy feeling.
London Racer burned in my mind an image of the English countryside that I vividly recall. When I finally stepped foot on the shores of the UK and went on a little roadtrip, I was expecting the countryside to be of the visual I had in my mind. And I was not disappointed.
Age of Empires II
Age of Empires II, or AOE2 as it was popularly known in those days was another game that appealed to me. It started off with game world creation for me, but what got me hooked to the game was the intro music. The way the music started and built upon the initial tense, adrenaline spike got me hooked to the game. One of the other things the game did for me was to give me a history lesson.
The history lessons were unlike any I had ever gotten in school. No dull textbooks and boring lectures. Instead, I was living history by playing it! To the child in me, it created an insatiable curiosity which I carry to this day. I love reading about history and learning more about our past. I am a big fan of the medieval history of our world, and also the history of many of the great wars of the world.
The Mongol Empire campaign was one of my favorites, particularly because the idea of world domination appealed to me. Playing the game was taking the mongol army on a conquest across Asia minor, and into Eurasia, all the way to the European kingdom of Hungary....
I still remember the first lines of the script of the campaign; "A blue wolf took as his wife a fallow doe. They settled at the head of the Onon river to raise their offsprings. And there were born the Mongols..."
Overtime, the finer aspects of the game such as strategy, warfare and fighting, economy all trickled into my brain, and that was probably my first lesson in basic economics. All of these made history and economics a lot more fun to learn and understand, because I could play them!
During my college days, I played AOE2 harder than ever. I have a fondness for the game that transcends all the games I've played. I still play multiplayer campaigns on AOE2 with friends and people from around the world who love this classic game. I still win most times, and other times, it is a hard fight to stalemate. But I love the strategy, the simplicity of economics, the complexity of warfare and the possibilities.
Age of Empires 2 bestowed in me a love for strategy and multiplayer games, and I cannot imagine how much poorer my life would have been if I did not have that game. Three cheers to the developers.
If you like my work, please upvote, comment and resteem/share. If you liked reading this article, you may like some of my other articles on my blog via the links below:
Remembering the video games of my childhood - Need For Speed, Roadrash, Smackdown and more!
The mistakes I've made in my 20s - Lessons I've learned in the third decade of my life
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AOE: Brings back old memories.
While everybody played Counter Strike and because I was the first one to get a headshot, I chose AOE to be my engineering companion.
Same thing. Plus was never a fan of shooting games multiplayer. age2 was my drug of choice.
I definitely agree with what you say about AOE2. That's one of the favorite games from my childhood and it still holds up well today. It's even receiving new content for the HD edition!
I didn't know they were making add-on contents for the HD edition. Gotta try it out!
Oh yeah, 3 DLCs with a total of 13 new civs and 15 new campaigns. I was surprised as well to see them adding so much new content to a remastered game.
15 new campaigns? Holy shit! I have to play it now!! Looks like Microsoft has seen how loved AOE2 is!
Nice old-school game :D
I love this game <3
Old school is cool! :)
AOE- really an addictive game !
Yeah, campaign hours on end!
¡Good games! The better ones! Thanks for sharing
You're welcome. Great games!