Britt and Faye From Kingdom Of Carts have kindly agreed to share with us some awesome video games memories that will stir up some awesome recollections of your video games past!
"My earliest memory of gaming must have been when I was around 3 years old. After my parents got married in 1985, they treated themselves to a Commodore C16 on their first Christmas together, which they bought on Christmas Eve at a special offer price of £99.99. I came along a year later and when I was old enough I slowly got introduced to gaming. I vaguely remember the load up screen on the C16, the bright horizontal stripes as you waited for the game to load up, this felt like it took an eternity, but worth it!
I remember playing the likes of Fire ants, Number Builder and Icicle Works with my mum where you had to push snow out of the way to create a path while trying to avoid the snow avalanches, it was pretty basic but I remember having so much fun playing it.
The first console that I remember quite clearly was the Sega Mega Drive. My mum had received it as a gift from my dad one year for Christmas and it came with Sonic the Hedgehog, a classic. She had a few games like Aladdin, Lion King, Jurassic Park and several others.
I also remember her taking me to a very smoky VHS store called Diamond Video that loaned out video games overnight (I remember they had a massive statue of Laurel and Hardy inside). Back then they would only have around 4 copies of a certain game that you could rent so more often than not you had to put your name on the waiting list to rent the game which often felt worth the wait. One of my favourites was The Addams Family, (I think we may have rented this a good few times).
I play this game regularly as an adult and I have no idea how I managed to play it back then as I remember getting quite far into the game as a child... it must be one of the most unfair games ever! It definitely doesn't help with a very 'slippery on his feet' Gomez constantly skidding around every level... and that definitely proves a challenge when on the ice levels, phew!
Each Christmas I was lucky enough to receive the latest games and gadgets. I remember having a Grandstand LCD racing game which I thought was fantastic at the time (still, do), the fact that you could carry it around with you and was small enough to fit into your pocket was genius in that you could play it whenever you wanted. I remember that the game would flicker when the batteries would go so you could hear the sound of the game but you couldn't see an image on the screen. Others I had included some of the Disney series like Aladdin and Ariel the Little Mermaid. Sadly I think I gave many of these to be sold at the local car boot sale to sell when I was younger, I wish I could go back in time and stop myself...
Over the years I have picked up some of the handheld games that I used to have as a child, partly for nostalgia but as a collector of electronic handhelds too, I must have over 100 and I'm not stopping!
The original Nintendo Game boy was another favourite of mine from childhood.Yet another awesome Christmas present that I had back in the day. It came with a copy of Tetris and my parents had bought me many accessories to go with it like a Light Magnifier and a really cool black canvas briefcase-like satchel with a strap that I used sling over my shoulder and take on long journeys in the car when I went to visit my grandparents. I think I even used to take it when we went to the local shop... you just never know when you are going to want to play on it! I was clearly a cool kid and now I was even cooler with my new 'bag'.
I had some really cool platform games on the Gameboy. I saved my pocket money and bought a copy of Super Mario Land from Toys R us, I don't think I finished it at the time although I did come close, I spent countless hours in my room under the duvet after 'lights out' with the Gameboy teamed with the Magnifier (which lit up the Gameboy a treat!) so I was good to go. I remember speed-running through the levels just to get back to the same spot that I had lost my lives on. That along with Kirby's Dreamland, you wouldn't see me for days. I used to borrow my sister's Mickey's Castle of Illusion game too and my brother's Super Mario Six Golden Coins. The joy of having a big family with lots of siblings meant lots of game swapping.
Around the same time, if not a couple of years later when I was about ten years old, I got my very own console, a Sega Master System which was given to me from my parents as a joint Christmas present for my sister and me, this was the best thing ever! We used to spend evenings upon evenings up there in our bedroom, getting up really early on the weekends just to play on Wolf Child and The Smurfs (which was a favourite of ours), I even used to squeeze in an hour after school before I had to go to my ballet and tap dance classes a few times in the week, I just became addicted! I don't remember having many games for it but we had Super Monaco GP on a three in one cart special (Master Games 1). That game was amazing.... I have never loved a driving game as much as that one, it was so basic, but the only other racing game I had played was my Grandstand handheld so this seemed awesome in comparison.
As far as the Super Nintendo was concerned both my younger brothers had one each for Christmas so there was no squabbling or fighting over the system. I spent hours in their bedrooms as one had a copy of Zelda and the other had a copy of Super Star Wars. This was one of the first times I had really been introduced to Zelda, the graphics were lovely and the fact it was sort of like a big open world game where you could go into shops to buy potions out of your Rupees and basically spend hours roaming around in this little world, pretty much what I'm like today when I play games such as Watch Dogs, GTA or Lego City. I would spend hours and hours just collecting rupees just so I could go back to the shops and make some more purchases.
Another of my favourites was Taz-Mania on the SNES where you played Taz in a 2d platform game where you literally were like Forrest Gump just running on the roads to get home while trying to avoid the cars and pit holes on the road. You had to avoid being mowed down by traffic but you could rebuild your health by eating little birds that hovered around you.
A few years and a few systems later, my sister had received a Sega Saturn for her birthday and my mum a few years before had bought, played and sold a Nintendo 64, although the games on that I did find quite hard to play when it came to the 3D aspect as 3D was still in its early days, I'm a bit of a loser when it comes to this kind of games in early 3D, I can play for about ten minutes then I just end up feeling queasy, which is so, so annoying as even today there are some I just can't play, a couple of years ago we had a gaming night in our apartment and we played Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 with four of us competing, I had to stop halfway through as I just couldn't play it due to motion sickness.
Back to the Playstation One, a memory which stood out for me was playing Casper with my mum, we used to play it together as she was a secret gamer herself. In the game, you play Casper roaming the halls of Whipstaff Manor finding keys to unlock drawers and chests while avoiding your uncles and collecting puzzle pieces.
I think I was lucky enough to get introduced into gaming through my parents, my mum enjoyed the home consoles where as my dad preferred PC gaming and Early Flight Simulator games although he was partial to Wipeout on the Playstation. Through them, I think by the age of 12 I had played and owned a variety of consoles and had the opportunity to see how much gaming has changed over the years and how much it continues to change.
I started Kingdom of Carts about two years ago when we discovered Twitter and thought it would be a good platform to share our enjoyment of games with other like-minded people. 
We had no idea that there was such a great community of people willing to share their memories, stories and collections. It's awesome to be a part of such a positive, thriving gaming community, long may it continue!"
That concludes a brilliant 2 part article by Britt & Faye from Kingdom Of Carts!
Catch them on Twitter and say hello when you next get the chance.
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