My first memory of gaming was back when I was about 6 years old and my Dad had a Commodore 64. Since he hated me playing his "precious" he ended up buying me a NES and it was there that my passion for games really begun.

I only had the Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt pack for the longest time till we found a second hand gaming shop in L.A. somewhere. There I got some of my all time favorite games such as Contra, Castlevania II: Simons Quest, Excitebike and Zelda. Then one day I got Super Mario Bros 3. My all time favorite game. It simply blew me away! I couldn't believe games could be that good. And the music, amazing! Koji Kondo is a huge inspiration to me. I never had a stereo as a kid so I used to just turn the Nintendo on and the telly up and listen to the great Mario themes while I cleaned my room!

Soon after, my brother moved to America to live with us and he brought his Amiga with him. What a fantastic computer! He had hundreds of games, I was in gaming heaven! Around that time the Super Nintendo was released. My brother being a proper geek at the time too had to rush out and buy one. After playing Super Mario World I don't think I ever went back to playing the Amiga. Sadly I lived in America at the time and had the rubbish looking Snes. So cheap looking and square, what was up with that lame eject button. I moved back to England about a year later and got a real Snes! The Snes was an absolutely amazing machine, apart from shoot em ups, they sucked compared to the Megadrive. All that graphic lovelyness held back by the worlds slowest processor!

I got a TurboGraphix 16 shortly before I left the country. I took it with me back to England but blew it up straight away by plugging it into the mains. I was stupid. So I never got to experience much of that system, thank god for VC, now I can go back and see what I missed.

When I got to England I was in gaming Heaven. My other brother has a SNES, a Megadrive/MegaCD and an Amiga 1200! I had never played the Megadrive before but always wanted one simply because it was black and looked cool. I loved it! Streets of Rage was my favorite game and the Mega CD version of Final Fight was near arcade perfection.

I eventually got myself each of those systems. I came to England with a GameBoy and ended up with a Megadrive/MegaCD through some aggressive trading. I swapped my GameBoy with my cousin for a MegaDrive then got the Mega CD from a friend selling his cheap. I then swapped my MegaDrive with another cousin for a Snes with 4 lousy games. Then I managed to swap the Snes with a Malaysian girl in school for an Amiga 1200. A friend of mine wanted it so bad he gave me his MegaDrive and a Snes with about 24 games for it. I don't think I even got to play the Amiga. So I got my MegaDrive connected back up to my Mega CD and a Snes with tons of great games, all from a GameBoy.

The Mega CD may not have been the greatest machine but it had one must have game, the english translated version of Snatcher. This was Kojima at his best, great story, innovative gameplay and support for the lightgun, not to mention Metal Gear, your computer friend who appears to make an apperance in MGS4. Cool!

For some reason or another I had great desire to own a 3DO! Think it was the crazy asking price for one, it must be good if it costs 500 quid, right? Wrong, it was turd. I managed to finally get one after it totally flopped. I got it for 100 quid with about 6 games and a couple pads. One game was special though and made it a worthy purchase. That game was Return Fire. A blinding game if you ask me, played 2 players of course. The stirring classical music as you get in a helicopter to search for your opponents flag made it worth the admission price. Oh, and the conversion of Syndicate was brilliant and the Need for Speed game was pretty revolutionary at the time too. Other than that though, it was a completely rubbish machine! I got a 32X too which was pants apart from Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. All the other games were poo.

Then came the Saturn and PSX. What, arcade games in your house? Yes please! The lure of playing Sega Rally and Daytona without chucking loads of pound coins down the drain was too much to resist. I had to get the Saturn! What an amazing, underrated machine. Tons of now classic Sega games such as Virtua Fighter 2, the Panzer Dragoon series, Shining Force III, Nights into Dreams, Virtua Cop, and many more. Sony done well targetting the clubbing generation and making a mass marketable machine, it revitalized the games industry. It also brought cool to gaming, gamers weren't just dorky nerds anymore. The Saturn was for hardcore gamers, PSX was for everyone. I eventually got a PSX from a friend for 50quid. I didn't play it for months, I was too hooked on the Saturn. Sure the graphics were poor compared to some Playstation games but as any real gamer knows, it's not graphics that make a game great, it's killer gameplay. Of course the Saturn died rather quickly and so I had to start buying games for my Playstation. So many games to choose from, so many rubbish games. But then decent games started coming out. Driver, Tony Hawks, Final Fantasy VII, Pro Evo, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, the list goes on. It turned into an awesome games machine. Then I went to a friends house. He had got an imported N64 from Japan. I remember seeing Mario 64 and Mario Kart. Those solid, beautiful graphics. Put the Saturn and PSX to shame. We were finally able to play high quality Nintendo titles again! I got a PAL N64 as soon as they came out. Pilotwings was utterly awesome. My friend and I used to make up lyrics to all the songs while we floated around the skies. Then, dun dun dunnnnnn, came Goldeneye! One of the best games ever made. Then Ocarina of Time, the best game ever made came out. My Playstation never came out to play again. The N64 will always be fondly remembered by me. Home to some of the best games ever created. If you never owned an N64 you must hate video games!

Then rumours of a powerful new machine by Sega came about. I love Sega, this was great news. Again the lure of playing arcade games in the home was too much to resist. This time near arcade perfect translations. Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Ferrari 335, Sega Rally 2. It was released and didn't disappoint. Well, Sega Rally 2 was rubbish but we'll let that slide. In my eyes it was up there with the N64 with classic games. I absolutely adored the Shenmue series, Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online, all the arcade translations and the wonderful Jet Set Radio. Beautiful clear graphics, great sound, online capabilities, great library of games. It had it all. The Dreamcast was way ahead of it's time. But couldn't compete with the mass market of the Playstation or the Playstation 2 that was on the horizon. People just waited for the PS2 and ignored the Dreamcast. The fools! The Playstation 2 launched and like the PS3 had no decent games, didn't look any better than the Dreamcast but hey, it had a built in DVD player. A feature that would make the PS2 the console of choice for many people. Screw the rubbish games, you could get a cheap DVD player! Eventually good games did turn up and it became an amazing console. Apart from it being made by Sony, so it only lasts a year before it breaks like all of Sony's products. I always thought that is why they made the PS2 stand on its side, cause that was the only way of getting the original PS to run after you had it for a year! I don't have a PS2 anymore due to them being of such poor quality. MGS series and RPG's are the only real reason to own a PS2, and some quirky Japanese games(you sure as hell ain't gonna find them on Xbox!). Saying that, I will probably get one again when Okami gets released and I'm dying to play Shadow of Colossi. I loved Ico.

I loved my Xbox as it seemed like a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast, hell, they even stole their pad. It had amazing graphics for a console and well, it had Halo and was the only console to go to for FPS games as the PS2 pad is absolute dog turd for games like that. The Gamecube was Nintendo's worst console. It's only innovation was being a cube and erm, having a handle. The systems does have some quality games but nothing compared to the N64 days. I think the Gamecube was a real disappointment, but only because it's Nintendo and you expect much more from them.

Now we are into the next generation. I got a 360 the day before the Wii launched, big mistake. My brother (who I live with) got his Wii on launch and well, I don't play the 360 too much at the moment, the Wii is just so much fun. After playing games since the NES and C64 you see that the industry needs shaking up. New pretty graphics aren't enough anymore. Nintendo had balls to pull off what they did and they done it in style. But then who would have doubted them after the amazing success of the DS. For the first time it finally feels like arcade games are in your living room. The immersion factor is there, you can really get into the games. No other games make you feel like an idiot like Wario Ware Smooth Moves does. Don't get me started on Wii Sports. When your girl friends want to play video games as much as you do you kinda know Nintendo has hit the nail on the head. But now I have played the Nintendo to death and patiently wait for Nintendo to make more games I have gone back to the 360. A fantastic console no doubt. Amazing graphics, lovely pad, Xbox Live, HD compatible and Dolby Digital make for a superb console as do the handful of AAA software. However, it still feels like I'm playing the same games I've been playing for the last 10 years, just prettier and with physics. The PS3 won't be out for a few months here yet but with the crazy price tag and average games I don't think I'll be picking one up. Since I have the 360 it will be like buying the same thing twice in my eyes. I've never been a fan boy. I buy consoles for the games I want to play, PS3 doesn't have any games I want to play yet and being forced to buy a Blu-ray player is kind of a piss take. Only time will tell with the PS3, right now though it seems like a great big waste of money - if you already own a 360.

My pc is a bit dated now so keeping up with pc gaming is a bit tricky. My brother has a top of the range XPS gaming rig that I can always play but the system seems to be in a rut at the moment. It's still nothing but cookie cutter FPS's and RTS games, oh and WoW of course!

Well that is my history of gaming, give or take a few details. Sorry it was such a long read but it's been a long road getting here and I've loved every minute. Here's to another 20 years of gaming!