people keep remaking games from my childhood and i feel old now
The 90's! Denim! Crop tops! The Spice Girls! Um. Chokers! Sunny D!
I was a painfully stereotypical 90’s kid. I liked the Lion King. I had an impressive collection of Beanie Babies. I made my Dad take my Tamagotchi to work in case it died while I was at school. (He is a dedicated sort of father.)
But a huge part of my life in the 90’s was spent playing videogames. In the early nineties I spent a lot of time playing the Gameboy, but at the end of the decade, we got our first PlayStation, and that’s when it really took off for me. Games were GOOD back then. And I spent many hours just sitting, slack-jawed, in front of my TV, sitting on the dining room floor so my parents could watch soaps uninterrupted.
Recently they’ve started remaking my favorite games from that era. When they announced the Crash Bandicoot remake, I was excited. I loved Crash. I played Crash constantly. I said to Chris, ‘this is great, but imagine if they remake Spyro?’
AND THEY DID. SPYRO. Probably my absolute favourite game as a kid. Spyro 2 and 3 (we never got the first one) was my go-to comfort thing. It was the one thing I sunk more hours into than anything else.
Except Crash Team Racing.
AND THEN THEY REMADE CRASH TEAM RACING. Aaaaaaah. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about a remake of anything ever. I mean the shine wore off a little bit when I realised my own daughter was becoming better at it than me, but still. Joy. Utter joy.
And then we read the reviews for Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 & 2.
And we decided we must have it.
Basically anything that is remastered by Vicarious Visions is now going to make it into our house whether or not I originally played the games or not. As it happened I sunk a lot of hours into Tony Hawks back in the day. And I am doing so again.
It’s occurred to me that I must be getting on a bit. Marketers, they like to hit you square in the nostalgia gland. And now they’ve decided my generation is old enough to really appreciate that now, so it’s our turn.
Combine the human tendency to think ‘my-childhood-era-was-the-best-era-ever-no-takebacks-I.D.S.T’ with the fact that the world is currently going to crap, it’s no wonder people my age want to dust off the things that used to give them so much happiness as kids. TV shows. Games. Books. Just bring it all back (to you.) (see what I did there)
Anyway, I’m all over it. I don’t care if I’m being marketed to. As long as games keep being remastered with such love, I’m in.
Four short memories attached to these games:
- My cousin came over. He wanted to play Crash Bandicoot 2. I watched him try, and fail, to defeat Tiny Tiger, over and over again. He would not take advice from me, a girl. I sat on my hands to stop myself from just taking the controller and doing it myself.
- My friend excitedly told me that her parents bought her Spyro 3, but that she was stuck on a certain area. I made my Dad print off a walkthrough at work, and I wrote her a little intro which I tried to make funny in a nauseatingly precocious, 90’s-child sort of way. We put it in a binder for her. She gave me a big hug. I later questioned if this (the walkthrough making) was a strange thing to do or not.
- On the phone to my friend Rachel after I moved away from Hastings. We were both playing Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1, respectively, miles away from each other. I held the phone under my ear as I replayed the same levels again and again. We talked about our respective tastes in boys. Her: Riley (Buffy), Legolas (Lord of the Rings), Joey (Friends). Me: Xander (Buffy), Frodo (Lord of the Rings), Chandler (Friends). We spoke until 59 minutes into the call, at which point we hung up and immediately called each other back.
- My friends from Hastings came to stay. We lounged around in shorts and talked about Big Brother and dug out the old PlayStation. We played Crash Team Racing and ate Hubba Bubba. For hours into the night, until my parents banged on the wall and told us to stop giggling.
It’s funny how my memories attached to these games are ones that involve other people as opposed to playing on my own, as I did spend an awful lot of time playing them on my own as a happy introvert. And it’s funny now that it brings me so much joy to see other people enjoying them. I like getting whipped up in the excitement in it.
And I love the feeling I get when I see my own kids enjoying stuff that I used to love when I was their age. When you can pass something onto your kids that you loved yourself, and they legitimately love it, it sort of feels like you’re the queen of the world.
I dunno. People think that gaming can isolate you, but I reckon it can do the opposite too.
Anyway, I’m patiently waiting for the remake of the Cool Boarders series. I’ll wait as long as it takes. ❤
