Just curious.
Feel free to skip over my memories if you’d like. I’m more curious to hear yours anyways. 
Here are a few of mine:
1-Finding Mortal Kombat II in an arcade when it was still in the testing phase. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about the game yet, so finding an actual arcade cabinet didn’t even feel real. I practically drooled over the attract mode, wondering who the guy in the hat could be, the guy with the crazy blades, etc. I couldn’t believe Reptile and Shang Tsung were on the select screen. I didn’t want to stop playing, I was so excited!
2-Killer Instinct’s reemergence at E3 2013. I mean, that type of stuff just doesn’t happen, right? A niche fighter in a now niche market? I’d hoped for years until I finally gave up hope, and then that logo appeared and the music hit. I still didn’t believe it until the announcer said Jago’s name and I saw him on the screen. I practically jumped out of my seat and cheered, and I wasn’t even AT E3 lol.
3-After an entire summer of saving every dollar, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood that including painting a chain link fence and pulling tile, I finally had enough money to buy my first video game system. Maybe the Sega Saturn wasn’t the best choice in retrospect, but I still loved it at the time, and as a fighting game fan, that console was a dream come true.
I still remember playing Virtua Fighter, the pack-in game, for the first time and feeling like I had an arcade in my house. Too many other good memories to name here, but suffice to say, even though PSone came out and crushed the system in short order, I still found tons of great games to play and enjoy.
4-Staying up all night with one of my college roommates and playing video games. Usually it was Tekken 3, where we’d play match after match. But we also played a ton of NFL 2K1, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, and House of the Dead 2. I was a good deal better than him at the latter game, but I still remember getting to the final boss and dying, and he was the only one left alive. Somehow, several of our dorm mates had wandered in and by the time my buddy was the end, people were yelling and cheering him on. His eyes were wide as saucers, mashing buttons, trying to beat the boss. It was an absolute blast.
5-Playing Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for the first time. I was absolutely enthralled by the intro, and apparently my next door neighbor in college was as well. He’d come over every day after class just to watch me play, help with puzzles, watch the story unfold. He was hooked. He wasn’t a big gamer, and every time I tried to hand over the controller so he could play, he’d decline. But there was something so cool about sharing a game like that, so rich in story, with someone that wasn’t much of a gamer at all, and seeing them absolutely love it.
6-9/9/99. For Sega fans, such as myself, that day held a ton of promise for the future of a somewhat beleaguered company. I actually started college that year, so my preorder wound up being two states away. Thankfully, one of my close friends was able to pick it up with the games I’d ordered and drive it up to me. That weekend, we played the crap out of Mortal Kombat Gold, Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead 2 and Soul Calibur, which made my jaw drop the first time I saw it.
But even more than that, it was all the hype and celebration surrounding the system. It was all over the MTV Music Awards that year. The games looked so amazing, everything about it, from the VMUs to the online potential… It just seemed like such an amazing experience in the making. I sold it a long time ago, but a few years back I got a used system and started collecting games again. For being out for such a short time, there are some really amazing games!
7-Hanging out in my buddy’s basement and playing Atari Jaguar. Ultra Vortex, Alien Vs Predator and Kasumi Ninja… No, it wasn’t a great system, but I loved playing those games at the time, and it also helped me get to know someone that grew to become one of my closest friends.
Sure, his tool of a dad would come down and yell at him for this or that, but it was still fun, after being the new kid in school, to be able to head over someone’s house and zone out while playing some games. The fact that he enjoyed fighting games was even better.
8-Embarassing myself at Tekken3. I can look back on this and laugh, but at the time, it was kind of my wakeup call to get my gaming rage under control. I’d been playing a buddy in our dorm room and I was using Heihachi, my main. He normally used Hwoarang, but decided to switch to Eddy. I was not good at defending against Eddy. As good as I was with Heihachi, he crushed me three matches in a row, openly mashing the kick buttons.
I picked up the PSone and threw it on the ground. The system was fine, but the game actually shot out of the system, hit the wall, and broke in to pieces. The same buddy that beat House of the Dead 2 had that same “holy ■■■■” look on his face, but for a completely different reason. Everyone laughed. I had to laugh at myself too. It was ridiculous. I bought another copy of Tekken 3, and that was the absolute last time I raged while playing a video game.
My favorite memory though: Playing Crash Bandicoot: Warped, back in high school, with the lady I’d been attracted to since the moment I first met her. She’d drive me home from school and we’d immediately start playing. We’d switch off on the controller, and every level seemed to bring a new adventure.
There’s something truly awesome about bonding with your future wife at such a young age over something so fun. We still game together, usually Ratchet & Clank, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, etc. But we were both psyched for N Sane Trilogy when it came out on PS4 and we played the crap out of it.
TL/DR: So yeah those are some of my favorite memories with the hobby most of us have thoroughly enjoyed for years. What are some of your memories?
