schnuth.com

For the longest time I was always a generation behind when it came to technology.  I used my Commodore 64 computer for several years until getting a new PC in 1997 from my grandfather.  I love the looks of disbelief I get from people who I tell that I used to surf the internet with my old C64.  But the Commodore is a story for another time.  This generation (or two) behind also extended itself to video games.  It’s not that I didn’t want the latest and greatest games, it’s just that I couldn’t afford them when they were new.  I played my Commodore and tried to find solace in the fact that I got games for free, but deep down I really wanted to play Super Mario Brothers.  Around this time I even dug out my old Atari and started buying all the cheap games I could find at garage sales.  Little did I know this bargain game shopping would eventually blow up into an all out addiction.

I bought whatever video games I could find for cheap.  As time wore on this included the NES, and then 16 bit consoles such as the Genesis and SNES.  Until eventually I got my hands on my first Sega Saturn when Blockbuster dropped the console from it’s stores.  But being a generation behind used to mean that it was hard to find out about games that were no longer the latest and greatest.  This was back in 1996 or 1997 and the internet was a little different from what it is now.

Web forums didn’t exist so you spent all your time on newsgroups.  I loved chatting on the classic gaming group but at that time classics were considered to be stuff like the Atari and Intellivision.  The NES was finally beginning to achieve classic status since it was mostly gone from stores.  On the other groups people were talking about their shiny new Playstations, Saturns, and Nintendo 64s.  It was hard to find anyone wanting to chat about the bountifully cheap Genesis and Super Nintendo games I was finding at garage sales.  For the longest time they were the red headed stepchildren of the gaming world, thrown out to make way for the new hotness.  This was about the time that I picked up issue 100 of Electronic Gaming Monthly in the drug store one night.

As a part of their 100th issue EGM the editors of the magazine compiled a list of the top 100 best video games.  The ignored anything older then the NES which was a shame, but it shed some light on games I had never heard of.  I was pretty well versed in the NES because my brother had one and the Genesis since a couple friends had those.  But I was pretty much in the dark when it came to everything else.  This included the Sega CD which a friend of mine had, but the only worthwhile game we ever played on it was NHL ’94.

This issue of EGM basically became a road map or sorts for me.  I noted games that sounded interesting, and picked them up when I found them cheap.  Whenever I finally picked up a “new to me” system I always dug out this issue to see what was good for it.  This helped a lot in finding those worthwhile Sega CD games like Snatcher and the Lunar series which are still favorites of mine.  When I got my hands on the most disgustingly dirty and yellow SNES you’ve ever seen complete with a cigarette burn (I always wondered about that) I found other good RPGs besides Final Fantasy, and other great games like Tetris Attack which turned into an obsession in itself for quite awhile.

This issue was especially useful when I found my first Turbografx 16.  I only ever knew one person who owned one.  By the time I started hanging out with him, he has already sold it off to fund a Genesis.  So I literally knew nothing about the Turbografx except those old screen shots of Ys I used to see in magazines.  Thanks to EGM 100 I discovered such great games like Blazing Lazers and Military Madness which later started to command higher prices.  Of course once I got that discounted Saturn from Blockbuster, this list once again became a great source of what to buy.

This issue of EGM is still interesting to look at today, and recently I found another copy of this magazine which prompted this post.  When this issue came out the Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 were still early in their product cycles.  Even so 26 of the 100 games are Saturn or Playstation ones with another 7 going to the N64.  This was November of 1997 and Castlevania Symphony Of The Night and Saturn Bomberman were the highest reviewed games in this issue.  They also both made it into the top 100 interesting enough.  But most of the games covered were older games that people were selling off to get new systems, and I was there like a bottom feeder buying them up.

Sure I wasn’t able to afford new games but I eventually got to play them when they got cheaper.  Plus I’m glad I was as broke as I was.   I got to play a lot of stuff I would have probably missed in the days before new systems had backward compatibility.  In a sense this issue of EGM may have very well shaped me into the gamer I am today.  I’m sure I would have found a lot of these games on my own, but it was sure nice to have that road map.

If your interested in checking out the top 100 list, you can find it here.  Apparently in issue 150 (published in January of 2002) they did another top 100 list to include games that had come out since their original list.  It’s nice to see that some games stayed on there such as Decathlete for the Saturn, a underrated game if there ever was one.  But Tetris getting dropped to number 2?  Come on guys…