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My Electronic Gaming Past, Briefly
Nov. 14th, 2017 09:03 amI never really got into JRPGs during the 80s because my parents bought me a Commodore VIC20 (and afterwards a Commodore 128) instead of the NES after the video game crash of 1983. I wound up a computer gamer instead. My first video game console after the crash was the TurboGrafx-16, which I received for Christmas back in 1990. In between those times, while others were playing Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star, I was playing the AD&D Forgotten Realm and Dragonlance Gold Box games. I also fondly remember Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator (later Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer). Wasteland. The Adventure Construction Set. The Pinball Construction Set. The Racing Destruction Set. SSI and EA were big to me back then.
I remember figuring out on my own how to use the C128's machine language monitor to hack the AD&D Gold Box files. I deciphered how special abilities were coded and where they were kept. I was able to grant a fighter with the ability to breath fire like a red dragon. Unfortunately the fighter could only use this ability in auto mode, so I had no control of the fighter's aim. He once breathed on a mix of enemies and my allies. He killed everyone, even wiping out everyone else in his party. That made me sad.
I gave a halfling rogue a giant centipede's poisonous bite, which didn't differentiate between missile and melee attacks. It was a bit odd, but fun, to have my halfling shoot a stone from a sling and watch the target die from poison.
I was doing things like that while others were playing on their NESs or SMSs. I never played The Legend of Zelda or Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy. I did wind up buying a SNES and Genesis, and later a Playstation, N64, and Saturn, but I still mostly played computer games.
Funny how these early scenarios shape one later in life.
I remember figuring out on my own how to use the C128's machine language monitor to hack the AD&D Gold Box files. I deciphered how special abilities were coded and where they were kept. I was able to grant a fighter with the ability to breath fire like a red dragon. Unfortunately the fighter could only use this ability in auto mode, so I had no control of the fighter's aim. He once breathed on a mix of enemies and my allies. He killed everyone, even wiping out everyone else in his party. That made me sad.
I gave a halfling rogue a giant centipede's poisonous bite, which didn't differentiate between missile and melee attacks. It was a bit odd, but fun, to have my halfling shoot a stone from a sling and watch the target die from poison.
I was doing things like that while others were playing on their NESs or SMSs. I never played The Legend of Zelda or Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy. I did wind up buying a SNES and Genesis, and later a Playstation, N64, and Saturn, but I still mostly played computer games.
Funny how these early scenarios shape one later in life.
