☆ My Christmas Video Games Memories ☆ #Retrogaming #GamersUnite

As Christmas draws nearer my mind always wanders back to when I was at school and constantly talking football and video games as the Christmas holiday came closer and closer.

My talk would always be of the video games or video game consoles or computers that I wanted from Santa that year.

It would vary from year to year and there always seemed to be something to get excited about in the world  of video games before Christmas.

Being a kid though, I always wanted the thing that I had every chance of not getting. Granted my mum and dad would always get me something cool at Christmas but it might not be exactly what I had imagined and asked for.

This all started when I started to wish for the ZX Spectrum +2. I was convinced mum and dad would buy me the behemoth of the video games computer world and when Christmas rolled up I was ready to open that large box shaped present and I was certain that my Speccy dreams would come true…..

Alas, I was confronted with the Atari XEGS instead as little did I know but the XEGS was well and truly on offer everywhere as Atari were struggling to sell this Computer / Console Hybrid to the video gamers of the UK. It seems crazy that Atari struggled to sell this cool looking computer as the XEGS could pretty much play every Atari 8 Bit game ever released and therefore had a massive catalogue on release but just couldn’t get a foothold as new releases were becoming hard to come by as the Nintendos and SEGAs of this world started to flex their muscles in the market place.

The XEGS was an awesome machine that I grew to love but it wasn’t a Speccy.

Next up was my infatuation with the NES. I saw a NES in the flesh for the first time at my mate Briggsy’s house as we went over to his house on his birthday to play TMNT and CastleVania. Of course I walked away from Briggsy’s house gobsmacked. I had to have one of these American Nintendo machines! It went straight on my Christmas list and sat tight in anticipation for Santa to unload his sack and for my NES to show up in the front room. Again, there was a lovely square box wrapped up with my name on it and once again my imagination went wild with the thoughts of playing Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros.

Christmas day was a haze of excitement as I tore open that NES sized present only to be confronted with a SEGA Master System Box and a separate present containing WonderBoyInMonsterLand. This wasn’t in my plans but again after the initial disappointment I got stuck into my SMS and played some of the best 8 Bit games in the world which included that copy of WonderBoy!

Even though Mum N Dad weren’t quite fulfilling my expectations they were actually buying me some of my fondest gaming memories that I can recall.

After these expectation deflating experiences I realised that the only way I was going to get what I wanted was to save up my own pocket money and buy my video game or console of choice and that’s exactly what I did after my NES / SMS experience.

My first pocket money conquest was my beloved SNES and oh what fun I had with that machine but nothing since has ever really lived up to the anticipation of trying to work out which console was hiding underneath the Christmas tree.

From here onwards my Christmas requests were expensive cartridges like the £64 Street Fighter II on the SNES and I rarely asked for consoles that mum n dad could never grasp. I used my money to buy a SEGA Megadrive, a Commodore AMIGA, a GameBoy and all manner of other gaming goodies.

It was only when I met my wife that I began to receive cool video gaming related presents at Christmas again when my wife bought me a PSP, then one Christmas an XBOX 360, then another Christmas she bought my beloved PS3 and then more recently a PS4…..

Now I wait in anticipation once again this for my gift from Santa which will hopefully rhyme with “pantendo itch”.......

What’s your most disappointing video game related Christmas memory?

Let Me Know In The comments box below

 

Rich

 

"STAY FROSTY!"