Around 4 years old I became fascinated with this pinball machine in town. Then a neighbor had a Colecovision, but all of this video game stuff was still just this weird magic thing. From there my father showed me his IBM PCs in the late 80s, very early 90s. I logged hundreds of hours on amber phosphor Flight Simulator. Once I learned how to read, I played some text adventures on them too. Loved the amber. It was hypnotizing and felt futuristic. I didn't know DOS wasn't a game, so I had fun figuring out the various commands to make the computer do interesting things. Cousin showed me his new original Nintendo that blew my mind because it had colors and it was on the TV. The first system I owned was the original Game Boy in the summer of 1989. Then I moved on to graphical adventure games on my father's new PCs in the very early 90s. Then for Christmas 1993 my parents got me a Sega Genesis with Sonic 2, and I was completely hooked for life. The speed, the precise control, the animation, the colors, the sound, the design... it was all pure magic. Made me a Sega fanboy for life. Upgraded to a Sega Game Gear the next Christmas, although I never stopped playing Ren & Stimpy's Space Adventure and Tetris on the old Game Boy. By then, the next generation of console gaming was heavily underway, and while the Saturn and PlayStation looked incredible, by the mid-90s my interests had gravitated back to PC primarily. The only thing that brought me back to console gaming was the N64. When I saw Mario64, I was completely blown away. Then I really REALLY became obsessed with the impending Dreamcast release as the 90s closed out, but that is beyond the scope of this thread, and it's the same story with all of us. We're all here because the Dreamcast and everything it stood for was awesome. I also loved the GameCube after the Dream died. Now I retro game and emulate everything on my PC. End of happy rant.
