If you're a gamer of a certain age, it's likely you remember what an exciting decade the 1990s was.
Those were the years where video games became the major industry we recognise today. They saw the rise of the PlayStation, the fall of Sega, and saw the dawn of Internet gaming.
Here are ten things that everybody who played games in the 1990s will never forget.
Those were the years where video games became the major industry we recognise today. They saw the rise of the PlayStation, the fall of Sega, and saw the dawn of Internet gaming.
Here are ten things that everybody who played games in the 1990s will never forget.
10. A FRIEND FROM SCHOOL COPYING A LOAD OF GAMES ONTO ONE OF THESE FOR YOU.
In the 1980s games were so simple that it was possible to put over 1,000 of them on one C90 cassette tape. By the mid-90s, games had become so complicated and advanced that cassettes were no long big enough to store even one game. Most schoolyard pirates instead bought one of these machines, and reeled off copies of the hottest new games on request.
However, they had to be careful to conceal them beneath special foil sheathes, so that they couldn't be picked up by the Federation Against Copyright Theft detection vans.
However, they had to be careful to conceal them beneath special foil sheathes, so that they couldn't be picked up by the Federation Against Copyright Theft detection vans.
9. SHOOTING SOMEBODY BECAUSE THEY HAD A DIFFERENT CONSOLE TO YOU.
Video game-inspired violence became a hot topic in the 1990s - and little wonder given how many of us shot somebody in the face or leg, simply because they owned a different console to us. Few computer fairs between 1992 and 1999 didn't end in some manner of bloodshed. Looking back, it seems somewhat ridiculous now!
8. BECOMING A WRITER FOR CVG.
CVG famously recruited its writing staff from the illiterate ranks of its readers, and with everybody reading CVG, it was only a matter of time before you got the call. Most of us remember our time at EMAP fondly, though a few of the longer-running staff were right arseholes.
7. TOPPING UP YOUR CONSOLE BEES
These days, consoles no longer need to be topped up once every month or so with bees. Not so back in the day, where many of us would spend our weekends foraging for bees, or visiting a bee shop, to ensure we never ran low. Of course, you had to be careful not to accidentally fill your console with wasps - otherwise it would start to work in reverse.
6. JUSTIFYING VIDEO GAMES TO THIS SOFTLY SPOKEN MAN.
Nobody knows who he was, but he went door-to-door in 1997, eventually asking every gamer in the UK to justify video games to him. Whether he ever had them justified to his satisfaction isn't known, but few of us will ever forget his kind face, softly-spoken voice, and the way in which he'd thank us with a slightly creepy stroke of our hand, whilst mewling.
5. COMPARING THUMB DAMAGE WITH FRIENDS.
Thumb damage has been a thing of the past ever since they invented Finger Paste(tm), but that wasn't the case in the 1990s - when thumb damage was an occurrence for most gamers. At one point, entire hospital wards were dedicated to ailments as diverse as thumb epilepsy, thumb rot, and "thumby".
4. TAKING YOUR CONSOLE TO BE WASHED.
Of course, modern consoles are self-cleaning, due to being filled with armies of little robotic nannies. In the 1990s, the machines would become so gummed up with that foul-scented yellow spume - for which scientists never came up with a pronounceable name - that we'd need to take them off to be professionally washed every couple of weeks.
3. FOAMING AT THE MOUTH BECAUSE YOU PLAYED TOO MANY GAMES SIMULTANEOUSLY.
These days, we all wear special anti-brain-damage spectacles whilst gaming, but until 2001 most gamers could've said to have belched up litres of pink foam after playing several games simultaneously. Fortunately, the Special Reserve catalogue offered a line of attractive gaming bibs, emblazoned with cool slogans like "Foamin' Empire!" and "Totally Foamin' Dudes!".
2. WHEN DAVE PERRY REMOVED HIS BANDANA ON GAMESMASTER LIVE.
We all used to watch GamesMaster, so few of us will ever forget the late-night live special edition where Dominik Diamond's co-host Dave Perry removed his trademark bandana, to reveal a living colony of miniature Turkish mayors inhabiting his scalp.
1. WHEN SEGA AND NINTENDO REALLY WENT HEAD TO HEAD.
After more than five years of corporate rivalry, the bosses of Sega and Nintendo decided to settle who was best once and for all at the 1995 E3 trade show. Executives for both companies fought it out in a special ring in front of thousands of braying attendees. When the dust had settled, six people from each company had been decapitated, and judges declared no overall winner.
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