Game boy!

I love gaming. It has always been the one true constant in my life. At times a passion, at times an obsession but always a means of escape through entertainment. I have been a gamer since as far back as I can remember.

My first introduction to gaming was on a system like the pictures below. I cannot specifically recall the brand but it was highly similar to the Atari consoles below. My uncle had a friend who owned this console and would often borrow it for us to play and the simplicity of the games were actually highly addictive. I vividly recall a Pong-like game that was just two white paddles on a black screen with each player controlling a paddle with a nob to move it up and down with the aim to try and hit a white pixel past the other player's paddle for points. There was not much variation except for a few options to increase the speed to further test player reflexes. Simple as it was it kept me entertained for days and so my gaming passion started.

Few years later my other uncle introduced me to my first interaction with a computer. I was too young to understand at the time the capabilities of the contraption I was actually dealing with but I could play games on it and that was all that mattered to me. Chess fast became a favourite and in time he got copies of Golden Axe which blew my tiny mind. Think I was about 7 or 8 at the time. I remember being a nag about it and would often visit his room in the backyard to hassle him to put it on for me. In the beginning I never truly bothered to learn how to install or play the games on his many floppy and stiffy disks and was actually careful not to break anything as it seemed all too complex with the typing of commands and green text that appeared daunting to my naive and frankly nonchalant mind as long as he was around. One time curiosity did get the better of me and I attempted boot it up on my own when he left it unattended. Long story short I for the life of me do not know what I did but apparently I did "break" it and got quite a memorable scolding as result.

 

During the same time my grandfather used to own a shop where he had a few arcade games such as Miss Pacman, Dig Dug and my favourite at the time Kung Fu Master, or as we dubbed it "Wa-dah" after the sound the lead character made when he would kick an enemy off the 2-D side scroll platform. A simple plot for Thomas who only seeked to free his love interest Sylvia who was captured by the villainous Mr X for reasons unspecified, with his very limited but effective range of karate moves. See below

I shall stop here for now and make this a multi-part post as I continue to reminisce about my gaming journey up until present day.