I was born in April 1987 in a city called Nizhni Novgorod, which is home to around a million people on the banks of the river Volga in Russia. I remember my early life being decidedly average. I never attended school in Russia, only kindergarten. I never wanted to go.
There was something however, that I always did want to go to. My dad worked as some kind of computer guy, possibly a programmer, in an ordinary office building somewhere in the middle of the city. Every now and then he would take me to his work for the day. Presumably to keep me from dying of boredom, my dad used to show me games that he and his colleagues had installed on their work computers.
This was to be my introduction into the world of games and gaming.
To a five year old kid who was until then brought up on crappy low-budget Russian kids tv shows with bad puppets of squirrels and badgers singing happy songs, to see a game where a motherfucking barbarian goes around a motherfucking dark fantasy kingdom chopping shit up with a huge sword, is definitely an eye opener.
I would sit on my dad's lap and he would show me these games in his office. He would play them on these old, obsolete-even-by-then computers, on 12" screens.
There are only five that I can remember now, but I'm sure there were more:
Sid Meier's Civilization
This was my dad's favourite, and at the time I could not figure out why. To my young eyes, it was just moving a bunch of little squares around a map. I was always bored when my dad played this game, even though he would try to explain the concept -- that he was in charge of a whole country, or that he was being attacked by the Romans, or that he had almost completed the Great Library.
It all went over my head, but little did I know that my dad's enthusiasm for this game would plant the seeds for my own obsession with the game's sequel, Civilization II, around seven or eight years later.
Barbarian
When I would get bored with Civ, my dad would say something like "Do you want to play Varvar for a while, then?", which was the Russian word for Barbarian. I don't remember a lot from this game, but I do remember being very impressed. My dad never played it that much, he always preferred thinking games, I think he just showed it to me to impress me.
The premise is you are a badass barbarian, killing guys in a fantasy setting. Why? Why not!
F-19 Stealth Fighter
This was my dad's second favourite. Microprose, who developed Civilization, also created this tactical flight simulator. I remember thinking how hard it looked to play when dad used to play it. The game was mission-based, with my dad being sent out on sabotage, recon missions, etc.
One of the things I most fondly remember was the feeling of success and elation the game gave me when my dad completed a mission -- it showed the pilot landing safely, then the hatch opening and the grinning pilot giving a thumbs up, or waving, or something similar. Then it would show him partying in a colourful room with all his friends.
Knightmare
Knightmare was totally badass. The premise was simple -- you're a knight, you enter a spooky castle, and proceed to slaughter thousands of ghouls and gremlins to get through each level. It was essentially a vertical shooter, but instead of being a plane, you're a dude, slowly walking up, and enemies come from the top of the screen. You start off shooting a single arrow, one at a time, but along the way you can change your ammunition by finding powerups -- you can eventually shoot knives, boomerangs, flaming arrows, triple arrows, all with their own strengths and behaviours. Cool.
Each level was themed. One would be a grass-themed level, then the next would be desert themed, then fire-themed. It all defied physics because it was meant to take place in a castle, but whatever, it was cool. Each level would end with a boss fight. The boss would just move from side to side across the top of the screen, shooting various projectiles at you.
My dad showed me this game back in Russia, but he never got that far into it. Maybe the second level or so. I like to think that with this game, he was waiting for me to grow up a bit, because when I had turned about ten or eleven and we had emigrated to Australia, my dad and I revisited this game, but this time we played it co-op! Yes, thats right. My dad and I, two knights side by side, kicking ass. I think we made it to level nine or something.
There were other games as well, but them I don't remember as much. I think there was one game, that was monochrome red-and-black coloured, in which you were a ninja sabotaging a facility of some kind. You had shurikens I think, and could climb walls, and there were attack dogs and other dudes.
I never really played these games in Russia. They all looked so difficult, and my dad was so good at them that I think I was mostly interested in seeing him succeed, rather than trying them myself.
But they planted the seed of gaming passion that would take hold of me later in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment