Whether it reminds you of the good times or was a respite from the bad times, what is your favorite oldie to put on for a good old fashioned serotonin dump?
For me, it’s Timesplitters 2. I own it in PS2, XBox, Game Cube, and digitally on XBox One because I must have access to that game at all times.
No matter the mood, it can only be elevated by stepping into Sgt. Cortez’s shoes… as he steps into over half a dozen other people’s shoes, Quantum Leap style.
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For me its Pokemon fire red or leaf green. I had the original red, blue and yellow as a kid, they were the first videogames I really loved. I still remember one shool holiday, my mum getting fed up with me saying I was board and giving me pokemon blue to shut me up...and it worked 😆. I go back and play fire red every now and again as its a brilliant one to one remake and looks like how I remember the original ones did. The original Pokemon games were the gateway drug to a hobby I am now very passionate about and now they are an antidepressant, child hood photo album and warm blanket all rolled in to one.
I actually used to take it on exercises while I was in the Army, you would be surprised how many people also played them on original gameboys or emulated on phones. Just shows we never fully grow up 🙂
Growing up is way overrated! I’ve also got my OG Pokémon Blue with my GBA SP.
I'm sort of happy to be a grownup because I hated to be in high-school. On the other hand though my 2 years in college were the best time. Old enough to do what I want (or know how to get away with doing stuff without having to tell at home) but without constantly being tired from the mountains of responsibilities which comes with being a self-sustaining adult XD
I’ll rephrase to growing up mentally is way overrated haha. My 30 some odd strong Nerf gun collection is evidence of that. Growing up physically means I can drink bourbon while I play with my nerf guns!
Oh if you put it like that then yes I absolutely agree! Still "playing with dolls" XD
I was just playing with my Lost World of Jurassic Park trailer set I got for my birthday when I was 8 a few weeks ago. Then my puppy ran away with the rubber connector thing and I decided to put the set away for its own safety 🤣
Aww they look very cool!
I almost did the same thing!
I was getting my butt kicked by lance and just couldnt beat him and like you, saved inbetween. I eventually beat him in a war of attrition. All my squad bar one was down and my two strongest had 0 pp on all moves. All I had was a poket full of "ill need these later" potions and revives and abject stubbornness. I would revive one in reserve, potion it, attack with struggle with the one out, get K.O'd and do this again and again until I finally beat lance.
Aw man that sucks!
The very first time I played pokemon it was on a friends gameboy, just to see what its like as he just came back from Japan, right before it came over to the West. He let me start the game from the beginning but forgot it autosaved at some point and it wiped his recently completed game. I felt terrible.
Survival horror fans know that well. You want me to use the magnum rounds on a boss I've been stuck on? What about the final boss which is sure to require all... checks inventory... thirty eight of my magnum rounds!?
Star Wars - Jedi Academy
Sometimes all you need is a good lightsaber fight. I played that game during a time when I had to realise I can't count on my family and I was constantly bullied at school. My only friends were from the local Star Wars club I joined recently and one of them gave me the game to try. That was my safe place and escape when I was hiding in my room pretending to be studying for A levels. So every time I play that game it reminds me that family is not necessarily defined by blood relatives.
Learning about “chosen family” is a priceless development. I do totally love a good lightsaber fight, as well. I’ve got big “Star Wars kid” energy when no one is looking.
Then you are definitely at the right place, I'm still waiting for @AlexSinclairLack to flood the Film & TV space with all the Star Wars goodness 😀
Alex Sinclair - I think we need a movie marathon watch-along in Film & TV!
for me it’s super Mario whether I’m playing it on my Snez or N64 or emulating it on the pc. It’s always my go to relax and go to shut myself off if I need to block the world out
Nothing beats one of those games you know so well you can boot it up and practically meditate to.
100% mate.
command and conquer 3 / red alert 3 for me, just love chilling playing then building my base and going to war! RTS is just so good to chill out to for me!
Oh man, the first RTS I ever played was Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun on my old Pentium 2 laptop. I was obsessed with it because Bill Pullman, the freakin’ president from Independence Day, was in the cutscenes haha.
haha! Brilliant!! The cheesey cutscenes just add to the whole experience lol good times! Awww the old pentium 2! Was that with “MX” technology lol always Remeber I think it may have been my pentium 3 had that lol no idea what the hell it meant tho , multithreading or something?
This might show my age a bit, but mine would be Rainbow Islands (1989).
It's just so relentlessly upbeat and colourful, but I could never beat it! 😆
Does knowing how short they are ruin the magic of these games, or does it give new appreciation for the amount of time we got to spend with them?
I used to play a game called Mighty Mike on my dad’s Mac and I could never beat it. I thought it must have been the best game in the world with so much content and super tough puzzles. Had a hankering to seek it out and beat it in a few hours as an adult lol.
So, I’m in camp “new appreciation.”
Is Dark Souls retro yet? That's absolutely one of my comfort games, especially satisfying because of how scary it used to be to me but now it feels like home.
I think we can consider DS as retro. Two full console generations ago? Who would argue about that!
Spyro, one hundred procent! The whole original trilogy. I knew where to jump when to jump to reach all the hard to get spaces, when to start charging enemies just at the last possible time, how to charge through the whole level smoothly… platinumed the remastered trilogy recently and it was much harder than expected, because the controls are a little different and muscle memory lost, but damn, are those comfy games!
Links Awakening for me I think. I posted about this before but it became a safe space game when I moved out into my first place from home and I had a lot of emotions going on about parents moving away and our childhood home being sold. So I fired up my SNES with the Super Game Boy and started a fresh save of Links Awakening and it was like a warm blanket around me keeping me safe.
This was my first gameboy game (along with Star Wars but...I try not to think about that one). In my comment about being a bored, that was because I was stuck in a dungeon 😆. When my wife got me the remake, that music slapped me in the face with nostalgia, like I was a kid playing it for the first time!
Great pick!
Mine is probably Super Mario Sunshine, although I have to admit that I do struggle to re-immerse myself in older games when the graphics are so bad compared to the modern day. Sometimes the memory is better than the reality. I went back to Bioshock a year or so ago and it was just so sparse and empty feeling.
So, I'd probably plump for a modern reimagining of some of my old favourites - either Super Mario Odyssey or Halo - The Master Chief Collection
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