The Games that Made Us: Simon 

As lifelong gamers, the staff here at Overclockers UK will jump at any excuse to talk about the thing we love most. Gaming. Throughout the year, we’ll be bringing you our nostalgia-fuelled series: The Games That Made Us Gamers. This month, we’re with Simon, covering a range of games from the last five decades. 

Gaming has been a major part of my life for a long time now. I’ve seen the evolution of the hobby from simple 8-bit graphics using a basic colour palette, to the technical marvels you can get now. So today, I’m going to cover a game from each decade that had some influence on my life. 

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80s – Gauntlet 

This is where it all started, the first computer game I ever played, and the root of my love for the fantasy genre. With the last game in the series releasing back in 2014, there’s a good chance you’ve not heard of Gauntlet. What you may not realise is how much influence it has had on the gaming landscape, with many dungeon crawler games, such Diablo, Enter the Gungeon, and Minecraft Dungeons all tracing some influence back to this venerable title. 

Gauntlet is a multiplayer hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, originally released as an arcade cabinet in 1985. Four friends could work their way through multiple levels, killing monsters, collecting treasure, and exploring the maze to find the exit. Two years later, the game was ported to the ZX Spectrum, letting two players explore the dungeon in all its 8-bit glory. This is the version I played with my older brother. 

Gauntlet is set in a fantasy themed world, where you can play as a Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, and Elf. As the annoying kid in the equation, I was relegated to the classic role of younger brothers, Player Two. I’d pick the Elf as my character, because he was the fastest, and just zip around the screen. My brother carried us through the levels, while I just held down the fire button, shooting arrows here, there, and everywhere. Thankfully the game didn’t have friendly fire, otherwise I’m sure I wouldn’t have been let play at all! 

Unsurprisingly, we never did manage to finish the game. I wonder why…  

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90s – Sonic 3 & Knuckles 

My Mega Drive was the system I played the most during childhood. My Dad picked me up my Mega Drive 2 second-hand, it came with two controllers and three cartridges: Altered Beast, Moonwalker, and Mega Games 2 (which had Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Revenge of the Shinobi on it). All this for under £100! 

I came to the Sonic series a bit later than most. I had played the OG game, as my other brother had a copy, but the first Sonic game I owned was Sonic and Knuckles. The innovative cartridge with Lock On technology. This game cart offered a full Sonic adventure, and some unique interactions with other Mega Drive titles. From playing hundreds of the Blue Sphere Special Stages to breaking Sonic 2 as Knuckles. However, if you popped Sonic 3 into that top slot, you would unlock the true Sonic 3, a game so large they had to split it in two and stick it on two separate carts. 

This had everything you could want from a Sonic title, blistering speed, imaginative zones, three different characters to play as, and a killer soundtrack that I still hum to this day. Unsurprising, really, as Michael Jackson worked on it uncredited. Sonic 3 & Knuckles was my first 100% game. I simply had to play it through multiple times as each character, making sure to collect all seven Chaos Emeralds and the seven Super Emeralds. 

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00s – World of Warcraft 

What else could my pick for the 2000s be, other than the game I’ve been playing for the last 20 years? Excuse me while I take a minute and have a small existential crisis. 

World of Warcraft has been a major part of my life for half the time I’ve been on this earth. I picked up the game a couple of months after it released from my local Blockbuster (remember them?) at the insistence of my friends. It may have taken many hours to install all eight discs and download all the patches, but I was ready to adventure with my friends. They had each chosen to play as Human Paladins, whilst after some thought and discussions, I rolled up a Night Elf Hunter. Little did I know that months later they’d both drop WoW, and I’d move on to be a Gnome Warlock. 

From those simple beginnings, I joined a guild, left a guild, and joined another guild which I’ve been a part of ever since! We’ve battled the biggest bads the game could throw our way, enemies like Moam, The Lich King, Alysrazor, Durumu, G’Huun, and The One-Armed Bandit.  

But it wasn’t just our adventures, this game helped me make some of my oldest friends. I’ve met people from all across Europe, and we’ve had many guild meets together, with the most recent being just this year. I’ve even seen people I know from online get together and are now, years later, married.  

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10s- DOOM 

DOOM (2016) brought me back into the FPS genre. Up until it came along, I had become very apathetic to first person shooters, as it was all the same old stuff. The only unique take I can remember from around this time was Left 4 Dead, which is a game I still play with friends. As such, when DOOM hit Steam, it was a breath of fresh nostalgia scented air, and it was glorious. The simple, fun, classic run-and-gun gameplay was just what I was craving at the time.  

Surprisingly, the game does have a well laid out story. I just didn’t notice when I was playing, as I was too busy introducing the hordes of hell to the business end of my shotgun! This is part of what made the game so fantastic in my eyes. It didn’t take itself too seriously, you could just ignore the deeper story and just go wild blasting through levels at Mach Kick Ass.  

DOOM is a masterclass in game design, with every level crafted to perfection. You won’t spend massive amounts of time exploring, unless you’re looking for secrets, as the primary path is easy to understand and navigate. This simplicity is such a boon to the gameplay. You can easily advance through the game, even when you’re contending with countless demons.  

There is also, of course, the soundtrack. The joke is DOOM is a soundtrack that comes with a free game, it’s just that good! Just to show how Mick Gordon is such a crazy genius, when you pass certain tracks through a spectrograph, you’ll see Pentagrams and 666 visualised in the music! 

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Honourable Mentions 

Restricting myself to a game a decade certainly narrowed my choices, as I’ve played so many different titles over the years. For some honourable mentions, I’ll start with Super Mario Land on the Game Boy, which was the first game I ever completed. Then there’s Final Fantasy 7, which is the game that got me hooked on RPGs. Dungeon Keeper deserves a place for its perfect blend of humour, taxing level design, and atmosphere. Finally, there’s Phantasy Star Online, my first taste of the MMORPG genre before I lost myself in WoW. 

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20s- Yakuza: Like a Dragon 

We’re only halfway through this decade, but there’ve been some classics already. For my final pick, I’ve got to go with my boy Ichiban Kasuga, and his insane adventures through Yokohama.  

I’ve played several of the Yakuza games and really enjoyed them, a standout being Yakuza 0. But Like a Dragon shifts to one of my favourite genres, the RPG. No longer is it one badass force of nature punching his way through all obstacles. Now, we’re a team of eclectic characters trying to solve a political mystery. 

Playing as Ichi, you work your way through a classic Ryu ga Gotoku storyline, full of twists and turns, side content, and high jinks to keep anyone hooked for days.  

Moving from the action brawler style game, synonymous with Kazuma Kiryu, to a turn-based RPG was a genius move. What’s more, Ichi being an old school gaming dork, with an overactive imagination, means fights can get weird. Instead of fighting a drunken salaryman, you’re battling a non-copyright-infringing version of Pinhead, with the team dressed in unique costumes that reflect the job each character is currently playing. 

It’s so dumb that it’s genius, and I love it. There is so much in this game that shouldn’t work, but it just does. From the insane side quests you can get caught up in, to the mini games that have no reason to just be as good as they are. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to pick up the game, just to play Dragon Kart. 

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The PCs that Make Us Gamers 

Although some of these games are relics of the past, all of them are still playable in some form or another on modern hardware. Explore an extensive range of gaming PCs and laptops perfect for playing these games and more at Overclockers UK.