I would do something a little special and give you guys my own personal gaming journey, from my first game, right through some of the big landmarks in my own personal history. It's important to remember when you read it that up until the Playstation came out I hadn't bought a single console/computer on its launch day, the main reason being that I was a child and couldn't afford it.

It all started with the Amstrad CPC 464, my grandfather had a friend who was an accountant and because the Amstrads where so cheap he had bought a surplus of them for his office, unfortunately they weren't what he was after and he was keen to get rid of a few of them and so long story short my grandfather purchased me one.

This was the beginning of my journey and because the games came on tape and Amstrads software division Amsoft had discovered games sold really well they had made literally hundreds of them and they were purchased as a box set.

This introduced me to the joy of home video gaming, the games I had included such greats as Harrier Attack, Rowland on the ropes, Galactic Plague, Oh mummy and Bridg-it just to name a few.

One game from this era stood head and shoulders above any others and that game was Treasure Island Dizzy, this game was a mix of exploration, platforming and puzzle solving.

After the initial Amstrad packed up my grandfather bought me a newer version of the system the Amstrad PC1512 DD, the new computer had a built in hard drive, DOS operating system and had two 5.25" floppy drives. The main problem was that the system was built for business users so for me it was hard to get games and if I could they were too expensive for a kid to purchase so it was pretty much a bust.

However there were a few key moments with this console, games like Prince of Persia and Monkey Island made the computer worth playing. This was also the system that introduced me to the world of RPG's, near the end of the computers life my father brought home an RPG that to this day I don't know the name of. I've been looking at screenshots of the RPGs from that time and I am almost certain the game in question was Ultima 3, though I could be wrong.

Up until this time in my life video games had been on the sideline, I was more interested in sports than game but that all changed the day I came home from school to find that we now had a NES, only 2 games Duck hunt and Mario Bros, to this day I still have nightmare about that dog and its incessant chuckling.

This generation of video games changed my life and introduced me too many of the big names in games such as donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Metroid and the Castlevania series.

Although I loved the NES and all of the games I had I eventually swapped it with my friend for his master system, a decision I would later come to regret, the reason for the swap was simple... Sonic the hedgehog though because the master system was great, many of the stores where I would buy video games didn't actually sell Master system games and I suffered from a lack of games at this point.

The drought ended when I finally got a Mega Drive for Christmas, games like columns, world cup Italia 90 and super Hang-on came in the included bundle and later I was able to purchase the original Mortal Kombat, After burner and each subsequent sonic the hedgehog game. The joy was short-lived however and unfortunately the console was broken when my dog at the time Sultan (named after the Amstrad game sultans maze) urinated in the cartridge slot and broke it.

This was the start of a bad run of video game related problems which I will just list for simplicity

SNES – Had it for 2-3 months before it got stolen when we got burgled.

Gameboy- screen cracked after a few months.

Game Gear – got mugged for it after getting off a bus.

Eventually I did get a Mega Drive 2 and a mega CD though I never actually owned a single game on CD and therefore found it too be quite useless.

Then one of the biggest changes in Home video games since its inception all those years ago happened, September 29th 1995 and I am standing outside of a HMV in a queue which I can only describe as never ending waiting to purchase a Playstation.

3d gaming was now in the home, I got such greats as Tekken, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo and for the first time I wasn't that weird kid who plays with video games as console began to make its way into the mainstream.

Needless to say this led on to the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 and into this current generation, there have been some exclusions from the list here including the Atari jaguar, commodore 64 and my PC which i simply didn't include for length reasons.

My challenge to anyone reading this is too write up a blog post giving your own personal gaming history as I'm interested in how everyone got started and what experiences they have had along the way.