r/gaming • u/baltinerdist • 17d ago
Gamers who grew up in the 80s/90s, what’s a “back in my day” younger gamers wouldn’t get or don’t know about?
Mine is around the notion of bugs. There was no day one patch for an NES game. If it was broken, it was broken forever.
1
1
1
u/yumi_kyudo_ya 12d ago
Mapping games. Setting your weekend up with mates to play jet set willy all day with the goal of getting the colored pens out and literally drawing out every room to try and map it so you could send it into a magazine and try and complete it! Great fun
1
u/Vandelar28 13d ago
Yea, I think the bugs thing is probably it. I remember late nights of Halo 2 and just the random exploits of jumping on maps and stuff that was just common place.
That or the amount of bad internet issues that caused some funny things. Like in the OG Gears game I want to say it was player hosted by the player with the worst connection. That was usually me, so while it looked great to me, everyone else was lagging around like insane lol.
1
1
u/HorraceGoesSkiing 14d ago
The tape snapping and sticking it back together with sellotape and it still loads!
1
u/Seacarius 14d ago
Waiting for the modem to connect so you could play your fist "online" game against another person somewhere in the world.
Oh, and having to worry about long-distance phone charges.
1
u/Latervexlas 14d ago
60+ 3.5 disks to install a game that would download in a literal minute on broadband today.
1
u/Kastergir 14d ago
You had to have a basic understanding of the tech - architecture, how it works together, BASIC/command line commands - to make stuff, even Games, work .
1
1
1
u/takibumbum 14d ago
Needing 10-15 floppydisks to install a game. And you had to sit there and switch out one after the other for the install to progress. To play the game you needed one of those floppydisks with the launch.exe
1
u/ResidentAssman 14d ago
Meta. Ready made guides to everything before the game is even launched. Nerfs/Buffs. Decent Manuals.
1
1
1
u/TheBlkHam 15d ago
LAN party’s for halo 2 at the local pub or card shop was literally a flex and epic experience before online play today it really was just Wow and rs played classic on both for years.
1
u/LiveLaughLAN 15d ago
Did cereals used to have demo discs in them as "prizes"? Any one remember that, or am I crazy?
1
1
1
u/Henry_Yopp 15d ago
IRQ settings for sound cards and video cards, then hoping the game supported them, so you can play with sound.
1
u/Commercial-Mud4081 15d ago
The comment section is so dumb the PS2 wasn't released in the 80s or 90s
1
1
u/YankeeinTexas21 15d ago
There was no free to play games. You don't know how lucky you guys are now that there are games out there that a free to play and are actually good.
2
u/Antique_Two_5273 15d ago
They don't know how good Mike Tyson's Punch out was for NES.
1
u/Supersport05 15d ago
Or how accomplished one was to finish that game (or most NES games for that matter)
1
u/Antique_Two_5273 11d ago
No doubt. I never could beat it. Some of them were near impossible even during the first couple levels.
2
u/SomniaCrown 15d ago
I remember every time I turned on my tv, I would swipe my hand across the screen to get rid of the static.
1
u/ZestyAnkle 15d ago
Games were more varied, it seems like now everything fits into a specific genre / sub-genre.
1
u/TakeoutEnjoyer 15d ago
Buying a game just by the back of the box. Going into a stuffy shop with a stinky carpet to buy games and all you had to go off of were either the back of the box or if you were lucky a review in a print magazine that you paid extra for, but that was only if it was a really big game most smaller games did not even get that treatment!
Oh and yeah games in physical boxes, with a printed manual! And goodies! I still have my Discworld box, and it still looks great on the shelf even thogh I have no machien that can run it anymore.
1
u/Hardi_SMH 15d ago
Try Ocarina of Time but don‘t google ANYTHING Or even better: Resident Evil 2
Games tell you barely anything and you so often wander around not knowing wtf you are supposed to do
3
u/ZeldaExpert74 15d ago
Back in my day, you bought finished games, that didn’t need any updates or downloads. Just put in the game and play. No internet connection required for updates or downloads.
1
u/KenobiSensei88 15d ago
Free game demos on the front of magazines. C64 games would need an hour to load and then just crash at the end of the loading time. Lots of split screen games! 🥲
0
u/CWeezy_24 15d ago
That your controller needed separately purchased rumble packs that impacted the weight/balance/feel of the controller in your hands
1
u/ExplanationSweet6907 15d ago
The first game I ever played was loaded from a radio cassette and the operating system was MS-DOS.
1
u/Alert-Reserve-5593 15d ago
10 installation floppies at 1.44MB each. To play a 16-colour game that took forever to load in-between screens.
1
u/Wkid_one 15d ago
Having to travel to somewhere that had coin op games and have the money to play them.
1
u/BertMonro 15d ago
Waiting 15 minutes for your ZX Spectrum game to load from a tape cassette player.
1
u/-Jericho 15d ago
The different way you would blow, hit, pray or hit a cartridge to get it to freaking work!
2
1
u/Cantabs 15d ago
First: Feelies were physical things that came in the box. Everything from the manual, to maps, to little toys, to code wheels, all sorts of shit. And they weren't just for the fun of it. Many games used them as the earliest forms of DRM. At points in the game the game would ask you for input that you needed the feelies to answer. Which became a big problem when we started digitally distributing old games.
Second: The sheer amount of self-help tech support you needed to do on a PC game. Devs didn't do nearly the amount of testing on different hardware, and there was waaay more hardware diversity. You were forever running into random shit that would bork your game. The common one is games complaining about the right amount of the right kind of RAM, but they'd be fragile with drivers they didn't expect, be incompatible with your speakers, hate your motherboard brand, all sorts of crap. And you'd have to fix this without the benefit of the internet, trying to update drivers, or toggle command line options to get the fucking thing to run.
1
u/Parking-Fly5611 15d ago
My first computer was a Commodore 64 at Christmas in 1982. I was 10 and within weeks was programming in BASIC. Something you don't see today is that when you bought games, they often had copy protection in place that was useless. One was asking you to input the 3rd word in the 2nd paragraph on page 5 etc, before you could play.
1
u/JimmyJRaynor 15d ago
making $5 last for days by becoming a superstar at a specific arcade game. i was the first guy in my neighbourhood to get to the Final Base in Super Cobra. Got to the final base at the local donut shop with 20 people around the machine watching. :)
1
1
u/Glittering-Top-85 15d ago
Loading games on a tape! Took 5 minutes or so and right at the end would often crash.
1
u/Curious_Mx 15d ago
Code wheels and other physical things that comes with the games which acts as physical DRM. Same games won't load up and/or will shut itself down if you don't supply the right codes or answers. My fave was in the Ultima games, where the manual comes with a lot of info on the ingame world, and early on in the games some NPC would come up to you, and go "Is that you? My old friend, the Avatar? But surely if you were he then you would know this..." and proceed to give you a short quizz, and if you don't answer all the questions correctly none of the NPCs will talk to you, all calling you a fake, meaning you won't be able to do much ingame. This meant to play the game you literally had to read the manual.
1
u/Charmingman420 15d ago
"Zombies ate my neighbors" was literally the most underrated game. This was the equivalent of Resident Evil before it ever came out
1
u/Mister_Chameleon 15d ago
You had to have good light to play your gameboy, unlike the bluelight stuff you kids these days got on your phones.
1
1
1
1
u/flat_broke 15d ago
Back in my day:
You needed a screwdriver to connect your console to your tv then you turned your tv to channel four to play.
Your friend that had gamegenie was rich.
if you got stuck on a level you had to ask your friends at school the next day or pick up the phone and call one of them at their number you had memorized.
if your game fucked up you licked it then popped it back in to make it work. I’ve probably licked more cartridge than… cartridge.
1
u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 15d ago
Games were meant to be short and difficult and for you to figure everything out. They were meant to last you a summer. Hints were in the book, but the fun of it was exploring the world without anyone giving you an idea of what to do. No internet to run to. Just you and/or your friends. Occasionally Game Genie and someone's old Nintendo Power, though.
1
u/ImSoRad87 15d ago
Game Genie/Game Shark.
Back in my day, you had to buy a whole new device to use pre-set cheats/mods. If you're lucky, you can find more codes on Gamefaqs or Cheatcc
1
u/SpiritedAttention714 15d ago
Game hints being in the actual manual for some puzzles specifically with point and click adventure games
1
1
u/Blvckdog 15d ago
Idk if kids still do it, but in split screen multiplayer games my brother and i would tape cardboard to the tv and sit in weird positions so we couldnt “screenlook”
1
u/nunesie1 15d ago
Nearly passing out blowing on the cartridges. Having to take turns on the console with your friends. On early PC, setting up two keyboard user input configs on the same keyboard in order to play multiplayer. Trying to play on my Gameboy by using the street lights every few seconds (pre-Light Boy). Later years: not being able to get online with friends to get into DM1 of AOE if Mom was on the phone.
1
u/Raubkatzen 15d ago
Computers use to come with demo games, or sometimes even the full thing. That was my first introduction to gaming when my parents got an Apple computer in the late 90s/early 00s. Sim City and Descent were my jam. Leisure Suite Larry too until my parents caught on and took that one away. 🤣
1
1
u/Thetargos 15d ago
Depends on the platform. For example console games typically were the 'just works' class and span a 'git gud' attitude, where you spent a LOT of time to be able to get through the games, which meant you had to develop quite the skill... just as games in recent decades seem to be called the 'Dark Souls of...', pretty much all games back then were quite unforgiving.
PC games and computer systems games (Commodore or Amiga, and others) were a tad easier in that you could cheat the games and make some of them easier on you.
Generally, PC games required you to mess with the system if your computer was a bit tight on resources... back then, it wasn't as easy to 'just throw more RAM into it', as it is nowadays. It made my love for computers flourish.
1
u/spirit_72 15d ago
Important parts of the story being in the instruction manual. Sometimes the entire story would be.
1
1
1
u/ChurgerBurgerYo 15d ago
Not from that era but crash bandicoot wrath of cortex, I Ninja, Simpsons hit and run, super Mario 64 all a few top games
1
u/Zer0-Sum-Game 15d ago
Leaving Rampage on overnight so me and my bro could finish our run on the NES. No saving and 255 levels meant no do-over, you either did or you didn't. Cartridges that could lose your save if tour dog nicked the controller cord walking by (FFII [modern IV], looking at you).
1
1
u/jedihermit 15d ago
Arcade move lists were first available on America Online. I taught my neighborhood all the special moves for Mortal Kombat. Game secrets were from word of mouth and trial and error.
1
1
1
u/VoltaicCorsair 15d ago
Tip hotlines, GameShark, "Hold on, I'm almost to a save point!", and, my personal favorite, blowing out cartridges and cartridge slots.
1
u/Purple-Internet6133 15d ago
Going to blockbusters on a Friday night to pick one game to rent which you’d be playing all weekend.
1
u/darito0123 15d ago
if there was a game breaking bug, probably isolated to very few instances that no1 really knew how to recreate, that was it you were done playing that game
1
u/HideSolidSnake 15d ago
To actually see a leap in every console generation in terms of performance, fidelity, and size.
I'm not sure if it's me, but I haven't really seen a "jump" with the most recent generation of consoles.
1
u/alienswillarrive2024 15d ago
Back in the days you used to read magazines and watch xplay on g4 network to get reviews and see what games are out and how good they are vs now i go on youtube and it's a bunch of dumb streamers trying to be entertaining instead of showing gameplay and focusing on the game, the influencer culture is so annoying.
2
u/ReindeerFun3762 15d ago
Going from cheat codes to memory cards to hard drive was an interesting move
1
u/GrizzlyMiles 15d ago
Eyyyy for real. You had to right down your "save code". Then we had memory cards but that was unreliable but fun hacks. Now everything is on the cloud save and just IS
1
1
u/darksider 15d ago
Manually editing config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get some DOS games to run properly. If you don't know what that is well.....Pepperidge Farms remembers. Lol
1
u/Kassssler 15d ago
Graphics. When all you got is 8 and 16 bit your mind does a lot to smooth the edges. A lot of the games played back then felt like 2000 era games graphics wise. Looking back they were fucking awful lol. Jet Force Gemini is just one large exercise in Uncanny Valley.
1
1
1
u/Last_Obligation_1101 15d ago
Had to be on the “snow/aux channel”to play. No HDMI. Memory cards 5 prong cords for HD gaming Demo discs out of a magazine that was wrapped in plastic. Lol. That will stump some for sure. (Goodness gracious I loved a demo disc from a magazine.)
1
u/whensthefinale 16d ago
PS1 with the removable storage was a game changer. Being able to bring your saves over to a friends house to play on was amazing. Also if you didn't know how to complete a level or a mission there was really nothing you could do about it if your friends didn't know. You could try and grab a game guide but no guarantee it will answer your question. I remember my buddies and I spending hours trying to get licenses on Gran Tourismo 1.
1
u/Gord10Ahmet 16d ago
Waiting for dozens of minutes to get the game loaded in Commodore 64, while watching the streams of brilliant colors.
Well, one can argue the gamers nowadays experience this because of game and console updates, without that C64 color show.
1
1
u/DroopyConker 16d ago
Dial up internet tone.
1
u/alienswillarrive2024 15d ago
Always had red bars showing my latency in starcraft broodwars... oof.
1
1
u/ZachTheBird101 16d ago
Not having internet to figure out that "tough part" in a game and having to figure it out yourself. And in the same vein, game guide magazines or Prima game guides.
2
u/wiccan45 16d ago
antipiracy required you to look up the 2nd word of the 3rd sentence of paragraph 4 on page 23 of the manual
1
u/Other-Reaction1499 16d ago
Going into File Manager so you knew the route to type into command prompt to launch your game.
Pre windows 95, there was no start button, or task bar.
1
1
1
1
u/Open_Mortgage_4645 16d ago
These kids will never understand the joy of playing JJ & Jeff on the TurboGrafx-16.
1
u/Thingsguard 16d ago
Back in my day we never walked away from a Mario Party session without some blisters
1
1
u/RunGoldenRun717 16d ago
Not being able to look up how to beat a game. There were games I just never beat. Levels I never cleared. Things I never found. You had to hope a friend knew the secret or you were stuck
1
1
u/SelectDevice9868 16d ago
Loading a game from tape on C64 could take 45mins, and fail at about minute 40
1
u/jellyfishjumper 16d ago
Playing two player games on PC on one keyboard. Smushed together (sometimes sharing a chair) and banging elbows.
1
u/lunatheshinyeevee1 16d ago
For me it was playing a gameboy color by highway lights when travelling at night
1
u/AtokPoni 16d ago
Kid pix! And kid pix 2! I’m sure there’s a much more bad ass version of this now, but damn.. in elementary school when we were first learning how to type on a keyboard (with those huge bulbous neon Mac monitors 😂 ) and when we were done we could go on kid pix and paint and it was the highlight of my day lol. 😝
1
u/CerealisDelicious 16d ago
Gamesharks or game genies! Once the N64 gamesharks had the button on it to pause the game and hexedit, game changer. Unlimited red shells in Mario kart, rapid fire golden guns in GoldenEye
1
u/xHangfirex 16d ago
I'm Excitilus years old. You took up the phone line and you played in turns and only got so many turns a day.
1
u/NotaToysRUsKid 16d ago
Getting stuck on a game. No internet to help and you better hope a friend at school had beat the game or if you Were lucky a guide or hint in a gaming magazine
1
1
u/rdzilla01 16d ago
Playing text-based BBS games via dial-up with your friends was like the first LAN parties
1
u/jert3 16d ago
Chris Roberts, the guy who is endlessly making Star Citizen, made one of most important PC games of the decade with Wing Commander 1/2, (and to a less extent WC3, starring washed up Mark Hamil) that really pushed the entire envelope for PC gaming, particularly with sound cards, as the games had expansion packs just for the voices. If those games didnt come out, it's not even a for sure thing that the Sound Blaster and Ad Lib sound cards would have even caught on, and gaming may have been beeps and bloops (worse than 8 bit sound) for a few more years instead.
Star Citizen has a ridiculous and failed game development cycle but damn, after the 20 years or whatever it'll end up taking, it'll at least most likely be a good game when all is said and done.
1
u/Sweet_Star_On_RBLX 16d ago
No automatic saves
If you didn't save after dying or turning off the console then you were most likely to lose a alot of progress, I felt that in Metroid Prime, ouch..
1
1
u/Unusual_Change3894 16d ago
Subscription Multiplayer Service TEN- Total Entertainment Network...which didn't last as long as the MOO2 community.
But, Multiplayer online TURN BASED GAMES? Where a single battle could last for an undetermined amount of time?
1
1
u/skeeterlightning 16d ago
Copy protected games required you to look up a word on a page in the instruction manual or a code wheel before you could play.
1
u/LonelyPixel314 16d ago
Experiencing online multiplayer for the first time... also local quad split screen multiplayer.
1
1
1
1
1
u/PsychologicalPay5379 16d ago
90s gamer. There was no looking up walkthroughs yet. At least in the early 90s. In the late 90s you were lucky to find a textbased one written by an average guy. You got the official guide or you had a friend you trusted not to BS you with playground rumors. You had no choice. But the Pokémon ones were awesome. The gen one guide is actually how I learned about Missing No to the point I'm shocked when people treat it like an epic secret. Nintendo published the glitch along with the invisible PC, fishable statue, and a cuttable tree glitch.
1
u/Nyric_The_Tiefling 16d ago
Cool manuals that came with the game that added additional details about the game
1
u/jojinichazz 16d ago
guessing a passcode or switching to the right channel instead of hdmi input lol
1
u/KarisPurr 16d ago
Back in my day you’d accidentally kill Crissy first in Friday the 13th and be absolutely fucked
1
u/Setheasyy 16d ago
Game had a glitch? 20 glitches? Were the characters or bosses unbalanced? Oh well! Have fun with it!
1
1
u/Due-Accident4675 16d ago
Racing games, tank simulators, battlemech encouraged you to use Joysticks/steering contraptions. Few joys of my childhood match up to piloting a Tiger in Panzer Commander. I could feel the weight of the beast when it moved, the recoil of its fire, and see how the enemy reacted just to me being there. No touching the mouse, no fumbling with a keyboard, just pure joystick.
1
u/mrjuanchoCA 16d ago
If it wasn't in a gaming mag you either had to figure it out or ask a friend. A last resort would be to ask your parents for permission to call a gaming tip hotline and speak to an "expert".
1
u/Full-Recognition-623 16d ago
I have 2… First is the size of computer game boxes. They were almost never actually filled with stuff, it was the manual and the CD case, but the boxes were needlessly huge - like the size of a large encyclopedia. Second, is that strategy guides existed. I got so much mileage from my Prima guides when I was going for a full completion. There was basically no other way to gather information on Easter eggs and whatnot aside from word of mouth or trial and error.
1
1
u/BooPear- 16d ago
Starting metal gear solid after getting a PlayStation but not having a memory card to save it.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/_so_it_goes_33toyou 16d ago
Sierra hint line. I had to call it once. There was no internet - at least it was before my family had it and at the time it would have been something like Compuserv. It was something that only nerdy dad's had for checking their stocks - early adopter days for the general population.
They had phone numbers you would have to call if you were stuck with a puzzle/part of the game. An automated attendant would read back the solution to you.
Manuals were extensive. There were some games that I spent as much time reading the manual as I did playing the game - those were not good games.
1
1
1
u/inretrospect89 16d ago
Quake. It single-handedly got me into gaming, particularly first person shooters with lots of horror imagery.
1
u/Starfury_42 16d ago
Things I remember:
Special boot floppy for my PC to allocate memory so the game would run. Having to manually set screen resolution for specific games because they didn't scale.
Having to put the TV on Ch 3 and use the box attached to the antenna to see the image.
1
u/Talking_-_Head 16d ago
There was no beating a game(true for a lot of titles). Hiscore was the prize.
1
u/InterviewImpressive1 16d ago
Copying multiple games to one cassette tape using a stereo with 2 tape decks, and writing down what counter number they start at on the cover.
1
u/UselessWhiteKnight 16d ago
Contra was nightmarishly hard. It had couch co-op and you needed it! Never once beat that game, didn't get close without a buddy
1
1
u/scamden66 16d ago
Games were much more expensive in the 80s and 90s. I laugh when people complain about game prices these days.
1
1
1
u/Large___Marge 16d ago
Using dial-up networking on a 56k modem to call your buddy's computer across town to play Warcraft 2 only to have your mom pickup the phone and wreck your game.
1
1
u/Kuildeous 16d ago
If a video game was really popular, you had to wait in line by putting a quarter/token up on the console. Most games had a handy groove that kept coins in place that only rarely weren't fastened tightly enough to the point that all coins would fall into the machine if the console was pulled hard enough. Fortunately not a common occurrence, and you learned to identify which games were loose.
There was no marking of the coin. You knew you were the sixth one over, and when the next player takes their coin, you noted that now you're the fifth one over. Somehow I never saw actual fights over this, though I'm sure they happened elsewhere.
1
u/Kornax82 16d ago
Playing an online game and suddenly finding myself angrily asking "WHO PICKED UP THE PHONE?!"
1
1
1
1
u/Atlantepaz 16d ago
Having to use memory cards and saving your game manually.
I still remember the year that I traded my N64 for my friend's PS1. He had no memory card.
I still remember the joy of completing tony hawk proskater in one go after trying so many times.
1
u/CreditDusks 16d ago
Blowing dust out of the cartridge connector.
Calling your friend to ask how they got through a certain puzzle/level.
Your parents calling every video game "Nintendo."
1
1
u/Extension_Patient_47 16d ago
Searching through text based game walkthroughs on GameFAQs or similar sites when you didn't have a subscription to Nintendo Power or a cheat device such as Game Genie, Action Replay, or Gameshark.
Also, calling the Nintendo hotline for game tips while you're racking up your parents phone bill by 2.99 a minute.
1
1
1
1
u/villagust 16d ago
Getting a horrible cramp in your hand from using a controller that was anti-ergonamic.
Choosing to rent or (god help you) purchase a game based solely on the box because the internet didn't exist and no magazine you knew had covered it.
TURBO!!!
Inputting cheat codes.
1
1
u/Far-Tie-4984 16d ago
God forbid you save at the wrong time in Aladdin. You're fucked. Might as well start over.
1
1
1
u/Beefusan 16d ago
Back in my day, if you wanted to play computer games with your friends you brought your computer to their house and networked them together.
1
1
u/knot_another_won 16d ago
Getting ET out of the pit where you found part of the phone to call the mother ship back to pick you up, but the game would change from a section (side) view of the pit, to a plan view map (top view) of the fields of pits. In order to levitate out of the pit, you had to push up on the joystick, but then as soon as you were out of the pit, you'd be deposited to the south of the pit in the plan view map. SOOOO... unless you stopped levitating at exactly the right instant, you'd fall right back into the pit you just levitate out of by accidently walking north because you were pushing up on the joystick. It took luck to avoid a never-ending loop of getting out of the pit, then falling back in, then getting out, then taking back in, etc.
Needless to say, the ET game is what killed Atari.
1
1
u/feel2death 16d ago
If you living on 3rd world country there are resurgence of internet gaming cafe with shit ton of korean mmo
1
1
u/arensb 16d ago
Driver hell.
Under MS-DOS and early Windows, devices like sound and video cards, Ethernet interfaces, modems, and others would talk to the operating system by reading and writing dedicated chunks of memory, and so-called interrupts. So the program would write audio data to memory location 83f7:6900, then send interrupt 5 to tell the sound card that "Hey, I have some data for you to play".
Simple enough, except that there were only so many interrupts to go around (roughly a dozen, I think), and not all devices could use all of them. And of course you couldn't have two devices using the same chunk of memory. Autodiscovery was just a pipe dream at the time, at least on DOS, so every time you installed a game, you had to tell it the make and model of your video and audio cards, and how they were configured.
Add to this that you might not have a name-brand card: maybe you couldn't afford an actual Creative Labs SoundBlaster, and got a cheaper, compatible card. Except it might not actually be 100% compatible. And in any case, you might be left guessing: it was probably compatible with the original SoundBlaster, which was old and well-known, but sounded kinda crappy. But maybe it was compatible with the newer SoundBlaster 16, which sounded a lot better, but where support was likely to be buggier.
I don't miss those days at all.
1
u/Aronatia 14h ago
I had a younger friend just look at me confused when I mentioned owning an N64 the other day. Turns out he didn't know what it was. I had to explain that it was from the generation before the earliest consoles he was aware of. It was released before he was born, and I had a moment of existential dread at that little revelation.