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Growing Up Gaming – Our Favorite Gaming Memories

From traumatizing levels to tender family moments, we look back at our favorite memories from a lifetime of gaming

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Who amongst us doesn’t have fond memories of long summer days spent holed up in a bedroom playing through level after level of whatever the current favorite game is? Of fighting that same boss over and over again until you finally win and realizing it’s actually well-past midnight now? Of bartering with your friends over Pokemon trades and plugging in your fancy new cable between your GameBoys to complete the trade? Oh to be growing up gaming again – those really were the days.

Of course, we didn’t have the super-smooth graphics or VR gaming back then that we do now, but there’s something beautiful about the simplicity of the games of the past. So, we wanted to take a look back at some of our favorite gaming memories to bask in the rosy glow of nostalgia.

Not all of us grew up as PC gamers. For me, I’ve always been a PlayStation girl, ever since my brothers handed down their Playstation when they got a PS2 for Christmas along with a shoebox filled with games. I paired that with a classic GameBoy (which I still have AND it still works) for all my Pokemon needs and I was set. An Xbox 360 did appear at some point, but I never fully made the switch and it’s now sat gathering dust somewhere at my parent’s house. But, for some of the team, our gaming memories go back even further than gaming PCs themselves. So, it’s safe to say we’ve got quite the range of platforms in our pasts.

I mass-messaged the team over the work Slack to see what came to mind for them when I asked them about their favorite gaming memories.

growing up gaming doom

Danielle – WePC’s Editor (And The Person Writing This Article…)

I come from a gaming family, both of my older brothers and my Dad were all gamers when I was younger as well. One of my favorite gaming memories was when we were all gathered together in the living room playing DOOM on the Playstation. My Dad had brought in a chair from the dining room table so he could sit closer to the screen and see it better. Now, my Dad is one of those people who physically dodge bullets in games and turns his body when steering in Mario Kart – even though it makes no difference whatsoever. In this particular moment, he dodged a little too far and ended up ass over teakettle onto the floor. I have never laughed so hard. He carried on playing lying on the floor though, that man is as competitive as I am, and he was not going to lose.

growing up gaming lich king

Jack – Our Social Media Wizard

I still remember facing off against the Lich King with my guild for the first time back in the WoW: WOTLK days. It still stands as one of the greatest, if not the greatest raid experience the game has ever given players. From the “don’t look at him” mechanics to that collapsing cave corridor, it felt like you were playing out the final act of a movie. I’d say it laid the groundwork for me ending up so addicted to both the cinematic and mechanic focus of Destiny all these years later.

growing up gaming portal 2

Mike – Left WePC For PCGuide But We Still Love Him

I can remember playing through Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga with my brother years ago, and even though it was quality bonding time I can also remember a deep-set rage whenever he would die, or drag ass behind me meaning that I wasn’t able to progress any further in the story until he moved out of whatever corner he was parked in, struggling to move.

The same story can be told about when we played Portal 2 together, however this time we were both older, wiser, and we both knew a lot more ways to insult each other. We did finish the co-op missions, but the verbal abuse we hurled at each other as we played was so immense that I was genuinely surprised and impressed with the different ways we were able to insult each other.

Basically, any game with a co-op element we both enjoy is a brilliant way for us to spend some time together in a setting that allows for (virtual) violent outbursts, like a video game form of therapy. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and we get to enjoy video games together.

We are going to play through the Master Chief Collection on PC soon, and I can’t wait to get my feelings hurt.

growing up gaming cod 4

Mitch – The Intern

One of my earliest gaming memories is playing the COD 4 campaign mission ‘All Ghillied Up’. My older brother and I had just got our PS3, and we would sit in front of the TV and take turns completing a mission each; my turn happened to fall on this mission. The mission is stealth-based and very atmospheric, which I was massively impressed by at the time as I’d never experienced that in a game before this. I was around 11 years old at the time and hadn’t played any FPS games other than Medal of Honour on the PS1 (which I was far too young to play/understand).

This particular mission is what I credit for my gaming addiction in my teens and, in particular, my obsession with making YouTube trickshot montages. The majority of my time between the ages of 11 and 16 revolved around playing COD online with my friends and I don’t think I would have had the same passion for the game without playing that mission.

growing up gaming alpha centuri

Lewie – The J. Jonah Jameson Of WePC

A crucial formative moment from my early gaming years was playing Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. During the late game stage, I developed the Planet Buster long-range missile, initially intended just as a deterrent against my rival factions, but eventually, the power went to my head. One of the rival factions was threatening military action against me, so I preemptively launched my missile towards their headquarters, in a clear breach of the UN Charter. After the impact, there was nothing left but a crater filled with dust. All the surviving factions declared a vendetta against me, and I was ultimately forced to confront the true horror of nuclear warfare.

growing up gaming ffx

Jay – Permanently Has A Camera Strapped To His Hand

Surprise – it’s a Final Fantasy X memory! The main character Tidus has a celestial weapon (legendary weapon) called Caladbolg. To get it, you have to race a Chocobo against the Chocobo trainer and not get hit by these stupid birds, but the PS2 controls were so awkward that it made it disgustingly difficult. Anyway, completing that and getting the weapon is the most satisfying thing that’s ever happened to me.

growing up gaming gears of war

Elliott – Over A Foot Taller Than Me

How Gears of War made me scared of both bats and the dark: No, my name isn’t Bruce Wayne, however, the original Gears of War game made me physically have a lifelong fear of bats and a short-term fear of the dark. If you’ve played Gears you probably know the mission I’m talking about.

Well, I was 9 years old when the first game came out and my older brother had just finished it so I thought I’d give it a go. I loved it up until the point where it was 11 pm at night and I was playing through the car mission where you have to escape with the junker. I played through and was loving it when, due to the fact I couldn’t hear anyone, as it was 11 pm and out of courtesy to the people in the house I put the headset on and played just through that, I got the holy-bejesus scared out of me by a random noise. The sort of noise you hear whilst playing games but it usually has no effect on you. Then I started to hear a small tapping and in the pitch-black bedroom I was playing in, and I could swear on my life I saw a bat clawing at my window. God knows if I hallucinated it due to lack of sleep or if it did really exist, combined with the slightly scary nature of the level of gears for a 9-year-old, I refused to leave the house past 9 pm most nights for a good few weeks as I was under the assumption that Kryll were real and if I didn’t move into light quick enough I would physically die.

growing up gaming spy hunter

Dan – The Coolest Guy At The Company (And, Unrelated, My Boss…)

As WePC’s resident old man, I was around when those new-fangled first “computer games” first began to appear in our homes in the early 80s. So I’ll lean into my prehistoric nature and go with the first time I actually got to plug something into the TV – a Sinclair ZX Spectrum – and control what was happening on-screen. That was a genuine novelty at the time and the whole family gathered round to gaze in awe at a rudimentary sprite of a teddy bear climbing up ladders. The one that really sticks in my mind, though, is the afternoon I spent playing the home version of 80s arcade classic Spy Hunter. I was absolutely killing it, totally in the zone, and being a sweet, naive young thing I honestly thought that if I kept going I’d reach the end soon. Eventually, my mother demanded to have the use of the TV back and my surely record-breaking run came to a sulking conclusion. To this day, I still believe Spy Hunter has an ending. Don’t disillusion me, please.

growing up gaming astrosmash

Paul – The One With The Best Stories

I don’t know if you can class it as a “favorite” memory but I once played Astrosmash on the Intellivision, sat cross-legged on the floor on our dodgy nylon 80s’ carpet, for so long I developed patches of hard skin on my ankles that I still have today.

Other than that, my brother and I once sneakily stayed up really late on Christmas Eve designing, in our heads, a gladiator type game we were going to program the very next day because we knew we were getting a computer for Christmas (it was 1984, an innocent time). We had levels sketched out, characters, and everything. Turned out that was a little bit beyond us so we just played Commando instead. I can still remember how it would look. Which is weird because I can’t remember what I did two days ago.

What a trip down memory lane that was! But, it’s not all about us, we want to hear your favorite gaming memories as well! Be sure to tell us in the comments below or over on Twitter what sticks in your mind from childhood gaming. Do you have a favorite in-game moment that you’re still proud of to this day? Or do you have fond memories of family moments huddled in front of the final level of a game? We love hearing what made you fall in love with gaming!

Editor AT WEPC

Danielle Hayes

Danielle has been in love with video games ever since her older brothers handed down their PS1 instead of buying her a Christmas present. She grew up fighting her way through epic JRPGs. Now, you're more likely to find her destroying her Sim's lives, causing absolute mayhem over in Azeroth, and slowly paying off her debt to Tom Nook.