A friend of mine wrote a blog entry on how she played with dolls growing up, and that reminded me of my own childhood, though not cos I ever played with dolls :P Only time I ever remember playing with dolls was at a friends house—I pretended they were a newly wed couple, and actually made them have sex and give birth right there on the spot, the baby being a fully formed child, no less. My friend just looked at me like I was nuts... and I can't really blame her :P
Being a guy, I obviously got to play with different toys. Lego was the big one for me, loved mah Legos :D I still have all my Lego, boxes and boxes of it. I have a bit of K'nex and some Meccano too, but Lego was always my favourite. I remember always building things by the instructions first, keeping it that way for a little while, then tearing it down and seeing what else I could build. I also loved getting the flat green plates you could use as platformd to build stuff; I used those to make buildings. I think buildings were my favourite thing to build. I made pyramids, shops, a shuttle launch centre, houses, even apartment buildings (just smaller houses stacked on top of each other with stairs around the edge). I remember I once made an apartment building with fireplaces in each room, meaning I had to make the floor of the 2nd and 3rd stories out of combinations of smaller flat pieces that went around the chimneys—pain in the ass, but still fun.
By the end of my Lego career, I had a whole fucking town built up. Had its own police station (though that was built per instructions), a mansion with a huge backyard, an apartment building, a restaurant, all kinds of stuff. Everyone had their own car, too. Originally, I wasn't too good with cars, mainly sticking to the ones I could make with instructions; but as I got older, I managed to churn out better designs of my own by mixing pieces. I drove people around and had them talk to each other and do stuff. I guess in that way it's kinda like playing with dolls, seeing as I had to make up their personalities and the surroundings they lived in, but the focus was definitely on building stuff. The main family I decided to model after the characters in Donkey Kong 64, seeing as I loved that game so much—strange, but still, at least I was using my imagination.
That's probably the other big part of my childhood: computers and video games. I remember getting our first computer when I was in kindergarten, and getting the internet not long after that. It's strange to think that back then, the computer was like the fridge or the car: there was just one per household, and you had to share it with everyone. At the time, though, it was mostly a novelty; I had no idea that it'd become so important (and I guess by 1999, when we got our first desktop, it was already an important development and I just didn't know at the time).
Our first machine was this big white tower with a white CRT screen. It looked like the ones I used at school, but the operating system was Windows 98, as opposed to the Mac OS they were using at school (can't remember the version, but it was long before OS X came out). I liked to go into the Control Panel and all the settings menus for things, just look around at all the stuff you could do. I made my own desktop backgrounds in paint, usually trying to make a basic 3D building or something to put there. I learned the advanced stuff pretty quickly, too—how to do all the fancy transitions and actions in PowerPoint, how to make user accounts (and change the user type to 'Administrator'—nice try, mum :P), what browser plugins I needed to play certain games, all that stuff.
I was the computer whiz at my primary school. You had a computer problem, you came to me, or you suffered :P I knew more than anyone else there, even the teachers (bar the guy who ran the server and everything). It was cool to have that position, to have that one aspect of you that no one could top. Going on a little tangent, but I kinda miss being top shit at all the intellectual things. I was the best with computer by a mile, and I was really good at Maths and English (even taught a Japanese exchange student English, lol). My high school, being academically selective, was full of people who left me for dead in every field I once dominated. No longer was I finishing the work way earlier than usual, nor was I called upon to help with computer problems—it was actually quite depressing and led to a huge decrease in my morale. I remember my Year 6 teacher teaching us about the increased workload in high school; he should have taught us about the fact that we are not special and informed us that we will never be the leaders in those fields we explore :P
Gaming was the other big one for me. I played lots of Lego games on the computer, my first one being Lego Island. The instruction manual was like a comic book, all colourful and full of cool stuff. It even said that you had to have a CD-drive in your computer to play the game—people seriously had no fucking clue back then :P I used to read instruction manuals like other kids read books: I read them cover to cover, over and over again. I learned a few technical terms from those manuals, like RAM and DirectX, compressed HDD space vs. uncompressed HDD space, all that stuff. A totally nerdy way to burn 5 minutes :P
But back to the games. Beyond Lego Island, there was also Lego Creator (basically a digital Lego box where you could just go ape shit and build anything, complete with dynamite bricks :D), Lego Rock Raiders (more mission based, never beat it), Lego Racers (Lego'd Mario Kart 64, but where you can build your own kart), and Lego Stunt Rally (like Lego Racers, but where you can build your own tracks). They weren't the pinnacle of gaming or anything, but they were charming for their time. I remember in Lego Creator, sometimes when placing a brick, it would glitch out and fly off in one direction, and you had to fight to get it back to where you wanted it—fuck, that got me so mad :P
There was another PC game I got called Extreme G-2, which was a futuristic racing game a la F-Xero, but I couldn't play it because the computer we had didn't have a 'graphics accelerator' (fancy name for a graphics card). And so we learnt of technological obsolescence :P I remember the next computer we got was actually able to play it (as well as some of the Lego games mentioned above, which wouldn't work for the same reason), and it was fun, but still frustrating cos it was difficult (at least for a fuckin' eight-year-old :P).
I also got a Gameboy Pocket with Super Mario Land from my Gran not long after we got the first computer, and that was another really fun game. It fascinated me; it was like the computer, but it fit in my hand! What was this voodoo magic? I also eventually got Tetris for it, which was just the shit :P I originally thought the goal of Tetris was just to build stuff with the blocks, but the game always ended when I did that :/
I eventually got a Gameboy Color too (my Gran must have been lucky cos she kept winning these things at the RSL :P), but the games I got for that weren't too great. I remember I got a Micro Machines racing game which had an eight-player single console Tournament mode... which I would play alone, cos I was lonely like that :P
Most of my gaming memories, however, lie in the Nintendo 64. Oh my God, I fucking love the N64—to this day, it remains my favourite console. I first played it at this thing called After School Care, basically child care for kids whose parents worked and couldn't pick them up from school at 3 pm. I played Mario Party, Mario Kart 64, Pokemon Stadium, Star Wars: Episode I Racer, all kinds of things. Multiplayer was so fun to play back then, and it's still fun playing those games now—nostalgia mixed with decent competitive split-screen action = teh funz. I got really good at Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party, learning all the courses and all the minigames, analysing them and coming up with strategies to beat the others.
The Nintendo 64 was also my first home console, as well as the first console I bought. I saved up half, and mum paid for the other half (I think it was $150 total). First game I got was Diddy Kong Racing, which was pretty good, but a hard son-of-a-bitch at times. The final boss was damn near impossible for me to beat; and even when going back through the game in more recent years, some of the coin challenges were so tricky, requiring almost perfect runs to both collect the eight coins and make it back to the head of the pack before the race finished. Mario Kart 64 was next, but I'd played the shit out of it so I knew that game back-to-front. It was also less fun, seeing as I had to play alone all the time (didn't really have friends over when I had it).
The next two games I got were Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64, the former of which brings back more memories than I can garner. I fucking love that game sooooooo much. Running around the worlds and exploring was incredible back then, and they were all unique. I can still remember their names: Jungle Japes, Angry Aztec, Frantic Factory, Gloomy Galleon, Fungi Forest, Crystal Caves, Creepy Castle and Hideout Helm. Rare had their fucking shit together, man. Playing their other games now and looking back, they had a great design team, and could appeal to kids and adults, a la Pixar. But playing back then was incredible. I remember having to try over and over to climb the machinery in Frantic Factory, and how it took me ages to beat the boss for that level. I remember how there was this spooky temple in Angry Aztec where, after you collected what you had to collect, a low voice would say "GET OUT!", and a crosshair would appear over you with a timer counting down in the top right. That frightened the shit out of me as a kid, and it made me never want to go into that temple again—you had to go into it five times (once with each Kong) to get everything, but it was tooooo scaryyyyy :( I remember the retro Donkey Kong arcade game they had in it, which you had to beat twice to access the final boss of the full game, but I could only ever beat it once, so the game remained unbeatable for me back then. It was just such a huge game, and I felt so immersed, not to mention proud every time I completed a puzzle or a tricky challenge.
Playing it now, it's still super fun and brings back a lot of memories (it's a game I really wanna Let's Play), but the first time round as a kid, it was incredible. Super Mario 64 didn't make such an impression because I never got that far through it, never making it up to the top of the castle. I did eventually beat that game when I got the DS version, but I never beat the original until later on. A great game, don't get me wrong, but DK 64 has a special place in my heart and always will.
Next was the PS2, which was all kinds of ass-kickage. The first game I got was a Harry Potter game which wasn't much fun; the PS2 demo disc that came with the console was more fun than that, lol. I eventually got decent games, like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (which I only got cos I saw the 'M' rating, thinking it'd be all violent and stuff, even though it was just skateboarding :P), Need for Speed Underground, The Simpsons Hit & Run, Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout: Revenge—ggoooood shit :D I also got Crash Team Racing, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, and Crash Bash, all great PS1 games. Crash Bash broke when I got it back from someone I lent it to and I just threw it in my bag without putting it in its case—how dumb can you get :P
A really cool thing I had was the EyeToy: basically a primitive version of the Wii's motion sensor technology that involved detecting movement through a camera. The games were simple, but playing with other people was still really fun. Hilarious playing with kids at parties and stuff, very enjoyable :)
I was also introduced to Grand Theft Auto on the PS2, first seeing a friend play Vice City at his house, then scabbing it off him whenever he wasn't playing it. I always played it behind my mum's back, always being vigilant and listening for her footsteps, quickly turning the console off if I heard her coming upstairs. It was so naughty, but still worth the trouble. The same friend gave me a damaged copy of GTA III for me 11th birthday; my mum found that, though, and confiscated it for a while. It sucked that, because the disk was scratched, if you went onto the 2nd or 3rd island, or if you used a police/army vehicle, the game would usually freeze (making missions involving driving cop cars on the 2nd and 3rd islands a right fucking pain in the ass :P). But it was still fun to mess around on the first island without having those issues. I was actually the kind of kid who did the missions. Most kids back then told me they didn't care about the missions and that they just went on rampages, but while I loved to indulge in the odd massacre here and there, I wanted to beat the game and unlock everything. San Andreas was next, and it was just all kinds of awesome, with a bigger map, more violence, more swearing—everything a kid could ever dream of :D I'd be sitting there, eating my Rice Bubbles, all like "Let's snap, crackle, and pop a cap in this motherfucker!" That game is still pretty fun to play, though the graphics and physics in GTA IV leave it for dead.
Ratchet & Clank was also on the PS2, being such a big thing to me that it's now my namesake. I don't know what it was about those games, but I just loved them to bits. They were so cool to play, not to mention funny. I loved the first one so much that I wrote a walkthrough for it—yeah, I even wrote walkthroughs for games as a kid. They weren't too crash hot, but some people said they were useful, and I guess it was also an early foray into writing and formatting (loved formatting things with a fixed width font, manually making tables and creating titles with ASCII art :D). But R&C was definitely my favourite series back then, by a mile. I even have the entire soundtrack for each game in iTunes, though they're all set to 'skip on repeat', cos otherwise you get a song from R&C every three-to-four songs :P I remember it taking ages to beat the bosses in each one when I first encountered them, but persisting till I took them down. Good times.
To go beyond here is to go into my adolescence, which I wanna gloss over for a bit, moving to where I am now.
As far as Lego and stuff goes, I don't touch it anymore. I actually think I started to gradually lose my imagination when I gave up Lego, my creativity slowly dwindling as I looked at the things I made (which I refused to take apart, pissing my mum off as there was no room in my wardrobe :P). I like to create things, just not physical structures. Now, I create things like videos, using an editing program to build my creations, working around its limitations, finding new and interesting ways to show what I want to show—so I guess I do build stuff, just not like I used to.
And as for computers, still into that big time, though I question my position there in terms of ability. I love technology, but there are a few people I know who are just so much better at it—you know, coding shit, building websites, making games, that kind of thing. I can't do that stuff. I mean, I'm above average, but I don't know how far above average I really am. Maybe it's just cos I went to an academically selective high school and was just surrounded by smart people who could pick this shit up rather quickly, but I never felt that far ahead technologically. Most people I knew could get by pretty well on their own. I guess I wanna push myself a little farther. For example, I wanna build my own computer from scratch—I've picked out components for a computer I bought and had assembled for me before, but I want the parts to come to me individually so I can put it together (much like I did with Lego back in the day, I suppose).
And as far as gaming goes, I'm not into the newer games too much. I'm not some retro fanboy who's all like "Games were good till the new generation came along and ruined it! >.<", but I prefer older titles, specifically the fifth generation (PS1, N64). I play games from all generations, from the old Super Mario Bros. titles on the NES (loved SMB 3, goddamn that's some good shit right there :D), through to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES (again, Rare just nails it), through to the games I missed out on in the N64 days (Perfect Dark, Mario Tennis, Banjo Kazooie), followed by the PS2 titles I grew up with, all the way up to the current generation with my PS3, playing LittleBigPlanet, GTA IV, the newer R&C titles, Red Dead Redemption, that kind of stuff.
I don't get all the new games, though. Like, I couldn't give two fucks about Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War, God of War, Halo, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Assassin's Creed, not even Minecraft—don't give a shit, man. I prefer me some Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, or the NES version of Tetris, or Worms (another great multiplayer game I played at After School Care as a kid), or Minesweeper—that's just what I like better. Sometimes, my relative lack of interest in newer gaming makes me think I'm less of a gamer, but that's not true; I just like different games, that's all. Besides, I'm fucking stoked for GTA V (the trailer is just... me wanty right nao but can no has and it makes me sad D:), and I'm really into the Wii U, watching videos going through all its features and stuff, but I love games from all over the spectrum and don't need to buy all the newest titles to get my gaming fix. It also allows me to get to know all about emulation and learn more about how computers and consoles work—the settings for emulators are cool to mess about with to see what they do.
Man, that was way fucking longer than I thought it'd be, lol. My eyes hurt. I need sleep. Ow.
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