This is a list of most of the games and machines I have loved over the years since I first discovered computers and the games you could play on them. I’m sure if you are a more recent gamer you will look at many of these and think they look and sound completely rubbish and judged by todays standards you would be right. Way back then however, when all you had was a one button joystick and a beeping tape drive that took 10-15minutes to load a game, they harnessed my imagination like nothing else.

Commodore Vic 20

My Bro's first Computer.

Blitz – Drop bombs onto buildings to clear enough space to land your plane. Miss a building on a fly by and risk crashing into it next pass. Level all the buildings and be treated to a nice little landing finale. The controls on this game required you to just push space bar to drop a bomb. Sounds simple and by todays standards it was, but back then I spent many hours playing it with my brother, I also remember the space bar being sloped to the left where my brother insisted on smashing it every time.

Unknown – A game where you tried to stop bottles or beer (or maybe glasses) from sliding off the end of a bar. I forget if you caught them or shot them but the objective was to do something before they crashed off the end, the bar man would slide them across the top of the bar at intervals. If you have any more info or know what this game was called let me know!

Commodore 64 

My Bro's second computer.

Football Manager  – I remember spending many evenings sitting next to my brother watching him play this. I also remember bugging him to set his computer up for me to play it. I always played Blackpool, probably because when I was little we went to the seaside town and I always thought the street lights were magical on the drive home when it was dark. Anyway I did the manager bit as best I could but secretly I just loved watching my team score goals…there were probably only about 6-7 set animations but I didn’t know that at the time so each shot was a potential winner!

Pole Position 2 – This was awesome, for many years racing games copied this formula from the original but this was my first ever racing/driving game and I loved it. I was rubbish at it, but that didn’t stop me, I still remember the wheel screeching sound and the “gudug-gudug” when you went on the grass.

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon – The single game most responsible for the death of joysticks, the primary control method was the left/right waggle as fast as possible for everything. You could play two player and I often remember playing with my brother and wiggle waggling as fast as my ickle hands would go, the final head to head race was a killer of wrists!

Beach Head – Watching the youtube video I realised I must never have made it to the actual beach because I only remember the aircraft shooting and the ship sinking with the battleship guns. I did love that bit, you had to judge for yourself where to aim with your turret and I got pretty good at shooting the aircraft down although evidently not too hot at sinking all those ships after.

Raid On Bungeling Bay – I remember playing this game many times, I didn’t fully understand what I was supposed to be doing and frequently failed the objectives but I loved flying around and occasionally blowing up a factory or damaging the battleship being built-in the dock. I just loved the relative freedom to fly about, sinking boats and dodging AA guns.  the minimap was never that useful to me, I rarely found my aircraft carrier and often it was sunk or I ran out of bombs and got lost.

Nexus – OMG a real digitized voice! This was some kind of secret agent game, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing (a common theme at that age)  and was forever dying or getting captured but the game spoke to me which was all that mattered.  I mostly ran about imagining I was cool and getting lost.

Ghostbusters – Most amazing game ever, customise your car, drive your car, bust ghosts, set traps, drive about a city, get slimed, upgrade your car, get stamped on by Mr Stay Puffed because no matter how many times me or my brother tried, we could never get between his legs to meet Zuul. Which also sounds far more disturbing than I intended.

Kung Fu Master – Most rubbish combat sounds ever, and the walking up stairs noise sounded like he was wearing high heels but it was hugely satisfying to kick the crap out of bad guys and pretend you were some awesome ninja.

High Noon – Loved the music on this one.  I seem to remember you could walk into the buildings and shoot from the windows if you wanted. Those shootouts at the end of each wave were tricky!

Amstrad CPC 464

My First Computer yay!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Batman – This movie tie in with Hollywood retraced the steps of Michael Keaton as Batman, Part platformer, part driving, part puzzle game I loved played this, I really sucked at combining the chemical elements though, had no clue what I was supposed to be doing and it was on a timer so I always panicked and clicked randomly eventually failing and having to start the whole game all over again. That first level was the best anyways. :p

RoboCop – Another movie tie in, this time the metal guy that eats baby food and calls people creep. Anyway I had lot’s of fun with this one, although I remember being disappointed I killed the female hostage when shooting between her legs…not movie accurate!

Ikari Warriors – This was awesome! my first co-op game, I remember walking home from school with a friend and us loading this up and playing two player until dinner time. Required two joysticks but it was totally worth it to be dual Rambo and drive tanks.

Rampage – Hilarious fun, pick a monster, get your friends to pick monsters, climb buildings, bash windows, people, destroy buildings, dodge helicopters, punch your friends for fun….fantastic.

My Gaming Love Affairs Pt. 2 (not linked yet)