A Personal History of Gaming - Part 1

Sometimes over on Bluesky, you got these engagement-bait posts that ask you some fun and silly questions about yourself. The person who made the post is just looking for numbers, but these are still good for a larf. One of these posts asked what your "gaming journey" was like in two pictures, basically asking what your very first video game was and what you're playing now. I decided to join in.

"From my start back in 1992 to what’s going on now. My tastes and the tech have constantly changed, but I always liked it slightly silly.— TastyPorkbelly (Charlie) (@tastyporkbelly.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T17:57:37.407Z"

From Sonic 2 on Sega Genesis to Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth on PC. Over 30 years of developing taste and technology. A lot can happen in three decades, though, and it got me thinking: what WAS my gaming journey like? Since I'm keeping a shiny new blog now, I figure this would be a great time to reminise on how I indluged in my favorite hobby throughout the years, as well as how it impacted my life during. As it turns out, video games have been a pretty big part of my life...moreso than I realized.

Let's start at the beginning, or what I THINK is the beginning. My mom tells me that my actual real first forray into games was a Nintendo she bought me back when I was real little. Apparently she got me a Mario and a Barney game on it, but I can't remember that for the life of me. She says I was more interested in "playing outside" at the time. Hey, I was young and didn't know better. Flash forward to 1993 and my five-year-old ass gets a Sega Genesis for his birthday. More specifically it was the Sega Genesis 2, a sleeker and cheaper version of the original, and it came with a pack-in game that would change my life completely: Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Anyone who has played this game in their childhood can testify it having a huge impact on them, and are probably still Sonic fans to this day. Shit, 30 years onward and I still follow what Sonic is up to nowadays, going so far as to paying nearly $100 for the newest game, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (hey, you promise both SpongeBob and PAC-MAN as playable characters and I'll pay whatever you want). Taking in the graphics, the music, the characters, and especially fucking around in Debug Mode, Sonic 2 and the Genesis is what got me into gaming...or at least, it was a start.

You'd think as a big-time Sonic kid, I'd be really into Genesis. I only had four games for it in the time I had one, though, and three of them were Sonic titles. I guess it was more about the character than the gaming for me at the time. While I would obsess over Sonic 2 and Sonic & Knuckles (and on days when I was being a real bastard, Sonic 2 AND Knuckles), that's all I would get out of that console, and on most days would just collect dust. Perhaps I wasn't the biggest gamer after all, and I'd go back to having fun outside like some kind of psychopath. Fortunately my mom realized I did like video games in some way, so for Christmas in 1995, she got me what would truly get me into gamer mode: the original Game Boy.

With Super Mario Land and Kirby's Dream Land 2 as my first titles for it, the Game Boy would take me from a tiny video game sappling to...like, a larger sappling, I guess. One with leaves and stuff. Anyway, the original grey brick got my into gaming in ways that the Genesis simply couldn't, introducing me to the fun and wacky ways Nintendo does things. I'd play on that thing every day after school, and eventually ended up collecting around 20 or so cartridges for it. Not bad for someone still in elementary school (though a lot of that had been accumulated over the Game Boy's various generations; more on that later). I'd have fun with the challenges from games like Donkey Kong ('94), Super Mario Land 2, and Wario Land. Laying on the Mario pretty thick, despite still being a Sonic kid. If Genesis is what got me started as a gamer, the Game Boy was definitely the one that helped nurture my interest in the pasttime. If that Christmas in 1995 were to never happen, I wonder where things could've gone for me. Certainly nothing any better than now, right? R-right??

Come to think about it, 1995 was a whirlwind of Nintendo gaming that just kept going for the next few years. I ended up getting a Super Nintendo that came bundled with Donkey Kong Country, the new hotness with the bestest graphics of all time ever. That alone was pretty fun, but as this was around the midppoint of the SNES's life cycle, there was a ton of cheap carts out there for my mom to buy for me if I was being annoying or pathetic enough. It was a lot more Mario during this time, with titles such as Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart, and Yoshi's Island taking up my time (I'm still a Sonic fan, I swear). I ended up getting all three Donkey Kong games as well, plus some other ABSOLUTE BANGERS like...NCAA Football and The Itchy & Scratchy Game? Well, they can't all be classics. I also got Mario Paint, complete with mouse controller and that dumb plastic "mousepad" it came with, in a time when I started developing an interest in drawing (in a "graphic design is my passion" sort of way). And let's not forget the Super Game Boy, which only exasperated my handheld obsession. At this point, it was all about video games, or at least all about Nintendo. It's all I wanted to do, and all I ever thought about (well, that and cartoons). I even started having trouble concentrating in school supposedly because of my obssession...though looking back on my life nowadays, I believe there was more to it than that. Possible neurodivergency aside, the reign of the SNES was a great time in my life. Little did I know that it would only get better.

With me being big on both Game Boy and SNES during this time, I'm sure you know what's coming next.

Nintendo 64. The big one. Playing on SNES was great and all, but the N64 is absolutely what cemented my love of games. My earliest, most vivid memories of playing video games came from this era of gaming, and specifically from the N64. My fat spoiled junior high ass got three starter games, one of them being, naturally, Super Mario 64. I thought my time with Sonic 2 was an obsession, but Mario 64 had that experience beat by a country mile. It was my first forray into 3D gaming, and this ambitious title knocked it out of the park. I certainly have...opinions on the game nowadays, as it really shows its age after so many great 3D platformers emerged from its wake. But I'd be stupid if I said it was never influential. Along with that game, I also got Mario Kart 64 and Crusin' USA, both extremely fun and laying the foundation for my interest in racing games.

The previously mentioned whirlwind was still churning. I ended up with a huge library of N64 games that took over the entertainment center shelf. Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Party...damn, such good memories. There were a couple big ones, too. The first one was Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a game that I wasn't super interested in getting at the time, but ended up getting anyway after feeling FOMO well before FOMO was a thing. For my first Zelda game, as well as my first legit adventure game as a kid, this game was an EXPERIENCE. It's a pretty linear game by today's standards (especially after something like Breath of The Wild) but it was still such a huge, grand adventure for me at the time. Ocarina also goes down as the first ever game I used a strategy guide for. The paperback kind, not these newfangled "online" guides littered with intrusive ads. Kids nowadays will never know the joys of having a Prima or BradyGames guide by there side while grinding out a game. The second big title, Super Smash Bros, was a game I never thought would happen. All of Nintendo's biggest and most treasured characters together in one game...and they beat the shit outta each other?! "Wow! Incredible!" Having a slew of fun characters, easy-to-learn controls, and an unconventional fighting game format, Smash was an absolute blast, and yet another obsession I developed as I used Fox McCloud to pummel Pikachu with Koopa Shells and, for some reason, paper fans (I was uncultured at the time).

Speaking of Pikachu, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Pokemon. Like c'mon, OF COURSE I was into Pokemon back then. I'm an obnoxious '90s kid, what do you expect? It paired well with my Game Boy obssession, starting with Pokemon Blue on both my Game Boy and my newly obtained Game Boy Pocket. That eventually led me to getting both Red and Yellow, allowing for some solo Pokemon trading shenanigans with my multiple systems and a Link Cable that came with my Game Boy Printer (trading with myself...eh, I was a loney kid). The Game Boy Color came out, which is just the Game Boy but cooler, and eventually ended up with Pokemon Silver and Crystal. On the N64 side of things, I got Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 and had some 3D fun with my Pokemon teams using the Expansion Pak. Playing the Game Boy games on TV and at triple speed using the Dodrio GB Tower was mindblowing as well. Me getting into the Pokemon craze is nothing special, but it kept my little "gaming journey" going nonetheless. While my interest in Pokemon waned and waxed throughout the years, I do still enjoy the series, as you'll see in the future.

The next generation of gaming would be on the rise at this point. This would lead to a big paradigm shift in both my gaming hobby and my personal life, as a lot of big changes would be happening. The optical media generation was upon us, and what an exciting time it was...but I'll save all that for Part 2 of this I-don't-know-yet-part series of my personal history of video games. For now, I'll just savor these memories from a more simpler, more cartridge-centric time. A time when my hobby wasn't intermingled with raging hormones, a changing body, and a massive shift in personal and family life. It's been pretty fun looking back on my own history here, but the fun has only just begun.

Now where's that old 8 MB memory card?