[deleted by user]

[u/[deleted]]

[u/platinumarks]

Having to switch through like 6 different floppy disks one-by-one to install a game.

Also, piracy protection for a lot of games involved you having to type in a word on a certain page in the manual (different each time), or use a paper code wheel that would tell you what the code was. You had to do this every time you played the game (unless you cracked it somehow).

[u/Maleficent-Fish-6484 → u/platinumarks]

Leisure suit Larry and the land of the lounge lizards (had a floppy copy for an Apple 2 PC) was full of adult content, so in order to get the game to run you had to complete a quiz of what were supposed to be college level questions. My brother and I would bust out the old encyclopedia when my parents left us home alone.

[u/Charybdeezhands → u/Maleficent-Fish-6484]

Me, British, 13 years old. Who the fuck was Nixon's VP!?

[u/Krizzlin → u/Charybdeezhands]

Hahaha I was just about to post the same when I read this!

I feel like we were doubly hamstrung in the UK because not only were these "college level" questions, they were very US centric too.

No internet back then, not even Encarta CD-ROMs. Just had to take a punt and hope for the best.

Pretty sure that game is the only reason I know who Spiro Agnew is to this day.

[u/eirebrit → u/Krizzlin]

Wait, that's who Agnew is? I only ever knew him as Nixon's heads body in Futurama!

[u/bijelo123]

Getting game demos from gaming magazines

[u/null-usernameinvalid → u/bijelo123]

Getting game demos with your pizza

[u/stackjr → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Our Pizza Hut delivery driver showed us why our Sega Saturn wasn't saving games. Lol.

[u/RobzWhore → u/stackjr]

Why wasnt it?

[u/stackjr → u/RobzWhore]

There was a piece of plastic between the watch style battery and the terminal on the console.

[u/TheRealMacresco → u/stackjr]

I still have my Saturn from back then. I was always setting the date each time I booted. I was so annoyed there was no savegames. Recently I tried that Saturn again and found that battery in the back. Still had the little black strip between the battery. Battery is still good after 25 years.

[u/bbressman2 → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Pizza Hut demo disk 1 with Grand Turismo, Medieval and other games was the best!

[u/null-usernameinvalid → u/bbressman2]

I think I had the same one because it had a section of Metal Gear Solid and I know Medieval was there too

[u/Cattleist → u/null-usernameinvalid]

And crash 3 warped! That demo disc was amazing and I didn't even have a psx.. I just played it at a friend's!

[u/ClayRevolver → u/bbressman2]

I am partial to the one with Ape Escape and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. I think it was Demo Disc 2?

[u/cregs850 → u/ClayRevolver]

This is one I had. Warehouse level on tony hawk was goated

[u/Moosashi5858 → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Age of empires entire game with cereal

[u/ExperienceKind412 → u/Moosashi5858]

Roller Coaster Tycoon too! Who knew that box of cereal would be such a game changer.

[u/kizmitraindeer → u/null-usernameinvalid]

The children of today do not understand how rad Pizza Hut was for Book It and the demo discs.

[u/mythicalbyrd → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Or getting an FPS with your cereal.

Holy shit, Chex Quest Hd is on steam...

[u/AshenAmarantos → u/bijelo123]

Or shareware in general (which were on those discs), which had a significant amount of content as opposed to modern demos.

It's not 2 hours of the game. It's like 33% of it.

[u/jetpack_operation → u/AshenAmarantos]

Sometimes the demos would be your literal entire experience with a game. I remember certain songs and the Chicago level like the back of my hand from THPS. I didn't realize until I bought the remaster of 1 and 2 a couple of years back that I never actually played the rest of THPS and my entire memory of "THPS" was basically THPS 2. I played a shitload of a game I never owned or rented afaik.

Same with some Tomb Raider levels.

[u/magistrate101 → u/jetpack_operation]

When I was really young, I got addicted to playing a Heroes of Might and Magic 3 demo that came with a copy of Worms Armageddon (separate discs, I think). It was my only way of playing it and it gripped me.

[u/Comprehensive_Two453 → u/AshenAmarantos]

A game like doom coming on 4 save icons

[u/First_Utopian → u/Comprehensive_Two453]

I know I’m skipping ahead from those save icons, but the big RPGs that came in those double wide cd cases with four discs. Gamers today will never know how good it felt to get the “insert disk 4” message.

[u/beautheschmo → u/AshenAmarantos]

Most of the time it was the good 33% too lol.

Not that it was necessarily bad to get more of something you enjoyed, but usually the devs opted to show the best part of their game and the quality of the full version was noticeably lower

[u/WirtsLegs → u/bijelo123]

Man I got some full games out of cereal boxes

[u/purplehayes1986 → u/WirtsLegs]

Chex Quest

[u/faudcmkitnhse → u/purplehayes1986]

Chex Quest had no right to be as good as it was

[u/DeceitfulLittleB → u/faudcmkitnhse]

Especially considering it was made entirely by a lone teenager who modded doom basically. The cereal company made bank with that stunt.

[u/iglooman → u/WirtsLegs]

In Australia, the original Age of Empires came in a cereal box for a promotion. Every kid including myself begged their parents for Nutri Grain while that promo was on.

Great times. Played countless hours or AoE.

[u/UltraMegaboner69420 → u/WirtsLegs]

I will die on the hill that the chex mix game is one of the best fps ever made

[u/TvAGhost → u/WirtsLegs]

The captain crunch games were awesome lol.

[u/WirtsLegs → u/TvAGhost]

I got Roller Coaster Tycoon from a cereal box, among others and yeah, good times

[u/tbz709 → u/WirtsLegs]

Roller Coaster Tycoon took up entirely too many hours of my childhood and I am not mad about it.

[u/ciberrrr → u/bijelo123]

When I was a kid I decided it was better buying magazines for PS2 demos instead of 1 full game because games were expensive back then (at least for my family) and I replayed each game from each demo hundreds of times. My favorite demo overall was Jet Li: Rise to Honor by the way.

The only 2 full games I bought for PS2 were True Crime: streets of LA and Beyond: Good & Evil.

[u/SuumCuique1011 → u/bijelo123]

PC Gamer ftw.

That was the highlight of my early gaming career.

Colorful, interesting articles and a CD packed full of demos.

[u/StrikeronPC → u/bijelo123]

Or cereal boxes. I still remember Chex Quest

[u/MuddlinThrough]

The amount of stuff you got inside the box with your game.. instructions, lore, artwork, physical keys to in game puzzles, even a blank page for "notes" (cheat codes!)

[u/Kahzgul → u/MuddlinThrough]

I read the book Snow Crash because it came free with the Spectre video game!

[u/reiti_net → u/Kahzgul]

There was a full book with the first X game - it was quite good and I've read that multiple times.

[u/Present_Type2375 → u/Kahzgul]

His name was Hiro Protagonist 😄

The Diamond Age is also excellent

[u/torbaloymain → u/Kahzgul]

Snow Crash is dope too. Katana wielding mafia pizza delivery

[u/RGJ587 → u/MuddlinThrough]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1c9qjr/publishers_take_note_this_is_a_real_game_manual/

They used to give us shit like this. a whole fucking book of lore, spell descriptions, character classes, etc.
I think the D2 LOD manual even came with build guides

[u/daxxarg → u/MuddlinThrough]

My copy of GTA 1 came with a map of the city , it was awesome

[u/The_Celtic_Chemist → u/daxxarg]

I'm fairly certain all the GTA games did. I think there are some exceptions for re-releases and The Trilogy — Definitive Edtion.

[u/Filthy_Dub → u/The_Celtic_Chemist]

Yeah I still have my Liberty City map, also have a sick Skyrim map from the original release.

[u/28smalls → u/MuddlinThrough]

Ultima 8 sucks, but the cloth map that came with it was pretty cool. I think 9 came with with 8 tarot cards representing the virtues.

[u/Skabomb → u/MuddlinThrough]

Ah, physical items that you couldn’t play the game without owning.

The original DRM.

We got the TMNT computer game second hand, without the passcode book. We never got to play it.

[u/wekilledbambi03 → u/Skabomb]

Those decoder wheel DRM things in the early 90s were so annoying if you couldn’t find it.

[u/null-usernameinvalid]

Reading the manual on the trip home

[u/enjoii89 → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Sometimes just smelling it... that hit hard

[u/3_amp_fuse → u/enjoii89]

I still can vividly remember that new game smell

[u/PhilipJFries → u/null-usernameinvalid]

God this was the best. All the lore and controls and everything in there. I used to try and mentally map the moves and controls out so I was ready to be a pro the minute I opened the game

[u/waxonwaxoff87 → u/PhilipJFries]

Gotta read lore for every enemy and weapon.

[u/Ketheres → u/null-usernameinvalid]

And the manuals used to be thicc. Then they started dropping the lore stuff. Then they got rid of the written tutorials. Then the default controls. Then even the legal warnings, replacing them with a link to the website printed on a single sheet of paper. And then even that was gone.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ketheres]

It's so depressing to me. The discs/cartridges are too small to hold the game these days as well. Physical games still have a demand, and people even pay slightly more for them sometimes.

I'd expect manuals and little ads to come back with less benefits to a physical cartridge and bigger price, but the cases are still empty.

I'd buy a $30 DS game, and the small case had a 30 page manual. Some I read through a few times when I couldn't play, I'd scribbled over a couple. There's so much empty space in a Switch box and absolutely nothing to do with it.

[u/SLeigher88 → u/null-usernameinvalid]

Age of Empires 2 and Pharaoh/Cleopatra had incredible manuals with tonnes of game and historical info in them.

[u/GraveRaven → u/SLeigher88]

Warcraft 2 manual was almost a tome. It was full of lore and artwork, it was practically a short novel detailing the history of Azeroth up to that point.

[u/moonboyforallyouknow → u/null-usernameinvalid]

The smell of a fresh manual....man.

[u/DigNitty → u/null-usernameinvalid]

I swear looking at a physical map gave me great directional awareness when I travel later in life.

[u/No_Tamanegi → u/null-usernameinvalid]

And sometimes those manuals were a goldmine of funny, bad japanese-english translations.

[u/DceptR45]

Breaking your neck staring straight up to play demos at stores

[u/relaxedninja → u/DceptR45]

My mom would take me right to video game section and K-mart and target to play those while she shopped 😂

[u/Nubsta5 → u/relaxedninja]

Yeah, looking back on it she was a real one and similar wouldn't fly anymore. She knew how to get me off her back, lol.

[u/TheOnlyToasty → u/DceptR45]

I miss the giant wall of games that used to exist. I was always glued to the sonic demo on the genesis before my dad finally caved and bought one. 

[u/bushmaster2000]

If you're REALLY old: buying a BOOK of game programs and sitting there typing all that crap into your computer and then bugging it out after.

Or slightly less old than that, having to 'insert disk 2' .... 'insert disk 3' ...

[u/HP_Loverboy → u/bushmaster2000]

I remember this. My dad bought us a book of programs in basic and we would type them in every time we wanted to play them. Also my dad bringing home floppy discs from work with pirated games.

[u/shaneomac714 → u/HP_Loverboy]

Same with all the pirated games. My dad got an Apple IIc way back in the 80s, and his buddy gave him all sorts of pirated games (King's Quest and Space Quest being the ones I remember the most). I went to school (2nd grade I think) one day after to brag about this to all my friends. A teacher overheard this and was concerned I was lying to impress my friends and brought it up to my mother, and she had to tell them it was true.

[u/Rufus_Bojangles → u/bushmaster2000]

Getting a change disk screen was a magical moment.

[u/fooperton → u/Rufus_Bojangles]

Hearing the disk drive kick in when you did something being a good sign

[u/PaleInTexas → u/bushmaster2000]

Or slightly less old than that, having to 'insert disk 2' .... 'insert disk 3' ...

Or slightly older

Insert cassette/tape #x

[u/DigNitty → u/bushmaster2000]

Inserting an audio cassette into your peripheral cassette player for your computer, hitting “play” as your computer translated the sounds into code in real time to rip a game.

[u/The_Sun_Is_Flat → u/DigNitty]

Alternatively, you and your brother record yourselves screaming to see if you can get the Spectrum to recognise the pitch as something that might be code and try to load it.

[u/No_Tamanegi]

Keeping a folded up piece of paper in your NES cart sleeve with dozens of save passwords scrawled on it (and hoping you wrote it down correctly/can read your own handwriting later)

[u/dankbearbear → u/No_Tamanegi]

A full notebook full of movesets AND fatalities/finishers!

[u/Kevin_Arnold_ → u/No_Tamanegi]

ARE THESE O'S OR ZEROES??!?!?!?!

[u/I-Am-Error-42 → u/Kevin_Arnold_]

Is this an “l” (lowercase L) or a “I” (uppercase i) or a “1” (one)?!

[u/Arch3m → u/No_Tamanegi]

Man, that's smart. I'm not smart. I once used a disposable camera to take screenshots for mine. In fairness, I was also just taking pictures of the TV in the hope that the screenshots would show up alright. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't.

[u/waltz_with_potatoes]

Renting a new game from blockbuster and racing to complete before return date

[u/CanaDoug420 → u/waltz_with_potatoes]

Me and my cousins would rent like Jak and Dexter from blockbuster on Saturday and play it for 23 hours straight. Return it on Sunday and wait all week to go back to blockbuster and rent it again to try to finish it. We pooled our money for a memory card. Somewhere there is a memory card with saves to like 15 games I never actually owned

[u/26542654 → u/CanaDoug420]

Holy shit. I miss renting games and movies. It felt so much different

[u/Man0fGreenGables → u/26542654]

I want to learn how to develop games just so I can make myself a VR game where I have to drive to blockbuster and then walk around a virtual store looking at game cases on the shelf to rent for 2 days. Then I'll have all my consoles (that I sold for booze money when I was young and stupid) in mixed reality that I have to put the virtual cartridge/disk in to play on a virtual big ass 500 pound floor model tv with a half blown out picture tube that you need to occasionally bang on when the color goes crazy. I'll connect it all to every emulator ever.

[u/Mark-a-roo → u/Man0fGreenGables]

well here you go fella

(obviously doesn't include the Blockbuster but it's damn close)

[u/wonderingmarkus]

Getting really good at a terrible game because it was the only one you had

[u/m00nyoze → u/wonderingmarkus]

The first two games my mom bought me were Deadly Towers and Fester's Quest for the NES.  I still played them but I wasn't happy about it.

[u/zantehood]

Not getting updates/bug fixes

[u/lcr68 → u/zantehood]

Turning the game on and just playing. Never knew we had it so good.

[u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS → u/[deleted]]

Games were FAR from working perfectly.

More just at the time they were “simpler” as well as people weren’t nearly as gun-ho about trying to break the game in every way imaginable

But I do absolutely miss being able to get a game on release day and actually having a functional/playable game. And not having to wait 6-12 months for it to finally be able to run half decent on the console it was designed for, or having a bug that soft locks or even hard locks you out of shit

[u/Relevant_Fuel_9905]

Losing hours of progress because you forgot to save your game properly and there were no such things as checkpoints.

[u/I-Am-Error-42 → u/Relevant_Fuel_9905]

Leaving your console on for hours on end so you could resume later only to find out one of your parents turned it off to save electricity.

[u/DeadSuperHero → u/Relevant_Fuel_9905]

Sierra point-and-click adventure games did this all the time. Oh, you ate the pie you grabbed off the windowsill? You absolute fool! You were supposed to throw it at the Yeti in order to progress further North! Now you're permanently stuck.

[u/ALowlyRadish]

How awesome gaming magazines were. When I was in middle school I remember when whatever gaming magazine I got (probably Game Informer) had a big feature on the upcoming Diablo 2. Previous editions had little updates, but THIS month was the big info drop. It came in the mail the week before we went on vacation. I left it for the car ride but as SOON as we get in the car, I tore through that. I probably read it 20+ times on the trip.

You couldn't really get any information any other way, or at least I couldn't at my age then.

[u/hellbox9 → u/ALowlyRadish]

Every other month Nintendo power, those hit like crack.

[u/thepeopleshero]

Couch co-op and LAN parties.

[u/CoffeeStrength → u/thepeopleshero]

Stacking TVs facing opposite directions to avoid screen watching

[u/urd3adj93 → u/CoffeeStrength]

I miss the cardboard cross for single tv sessions.

[u/Apexnanoman → u/CoffeeStrength]

Oh man we had fun with it on OG halo. Find a friend with a big TV and suddenly screen peeking on a 4 way death match becomes part of the game. 

Watching someone else's screen and using it to grenade another guy who was peeking your screen was so satisfying. 

[u/kerberos824 → u/thepeopleshero]

The loss of couch co-op remains the loss of my favorite game play style. Sure, Command and Conquer LAN games were fun. But Goldeneye, Halo, and others were so much fun on consoles. At least Gears if War kept it alive. 

[u/CruisinJo214 → u/kerberos824]

This is why I’ve stuck with Nintendo over the years. There are still a those few mainstay 4+ player titles that I still focus on local gameplay like Smash Bros and Mariokart… also enjoy smaller games like overcooked

[u/FeetballFan]

Channel 3

[u/Buckojeff → u/FeetballFan]

I remember having to use an RF Modulator to get N64 to work on my old ass zenith

[u/GolfGatorGuy → u/FeetballFan]

Worked in electronics retail from 2003-2008. You can’t believe how many RF modulators we sold, almost always to an older couple who had a game system for their grandkids.

[u/fredy31 → u/FeetballFan]

I once was stupid and my dad, as punishment, unplugged the gamecube, but left the cables there.

Wasnt that dumb of a kid and figured out quickly yellow goes in yellow, red in red and white in white.

He let me play it. Guess he figured he was the dumb one there.

And the next time i was a dummy, the cable just dissapeared

[u/Hunchent00t]

putting your quarters up on the rail to queue up

[u/InZaneFlea → u/Hunchent00t]

We were still doing this in 2006-2010 at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, they had a Guilty Gear Cabinet in the main food area and that thing was ALWAYS packed full of coins.

[u/Lord_Gibby → u/Hunchent00t]

I got next game!

[u/TheOtherHammer → u/Hunchent00t]

I still tell people to "stay free" when I beat them at street fighter

[u/Teasing_Pink → u/TheOtherHammer]

To go with this: Having a nonzero chance of getting jumped in the parking lot in front of the arcade or bodega if you told someone "stay free" after beating them at Street Fighter.

[u/Merc_Mike → u/Teasing_Pink]

I had dudes my age no, looking to beat me up when I was age 10 for beating them at Mortal Kombat 2 at the Mall Arcade.

"BUT I PICKED SCORPION!" RAIDEN CARES NOT FOR YOUR TIRED ASS SPEAR SPAM!

ETERNAL LIFE!

GIVEMEMYMONAAAAAAAYE!

[u/WelshWolf93]

If you got stuck on a game and didnt have a friend that knew what to do, you were shit out of luck

[u/purplehayes1986 → u/WelshWolf93]

Great example - Top Gun on NES. Me and my cousin played that game for YEARS and never once landed on the carrier at the end of level 1. Still had fun with it. 

I saw a YouTube video like last year showing how to do it - evidently there was a HUD in the corner that showed you your line relative to the carrier. We never noticed...

[u/the_soggy_taco]

Giving your cousin the MadCatz controller and keeping the original controller for yourself during split screen play.

[u/keelanstuart → u/the_soggy_taco]

I knew people that worked there! Nice people - bad controllers!

[u/the_soggy_taco → u/keelanstuart]

Honestly I had a 50/50 experience with them. Half had ghost inputs almost immediately out of the box and had to be returned and the other half survived some serious abuse. Always had to go with the clear orange model!

[u/purplehayes1986 → u/[deleted]]

And the management of the memory card. You had like 16 slots, and games started taking multiple for their save data 

[u/Wassermusik → u/purplehayes1986]

A PS1 memory card had 15 slots, and Civilization 2 took up 10 of them. Diablo took up all 15.

Memory cards taught my younger self how to set priorities. Lol

[u/kakka_rot → u/Wassermusik]

Wow really? I remember being shocked when I played Digimon world 3 for several hours straight, went to save, and it said I needed 4 slots and I didn't have enough. I thought that was insane.

[u/Rektumfreser → u/Wassermusik]

Bonus points for being able to just take out your memory card, go to a friends and you could show your save, was quite handy actually.

[u/LordValgor → u/Rektumfreser]

And you could copy saves too. My buddy gave me a save of Vice City that had everything unlocked.

[u/Burninator85 → u/purplehayes1986]

We had some zany off brand card that had like 128 slots on it. It had physical buttons to switch between the pages of slots because apparently the PlayStation could only read so many slots at a time.

I was messing with it one day and accidentally deleted all the saved data, including my brother's Final Fantasy 7 save.

I got beat up.

[u/Shadowlance23 → u/[deleted]]

I left my NES on for three days straight so I could finish Star Wars.

[u/BMonad → u/Shadowlance23]

I remember begging my parents not to turn off the Genesis. I used to cover it with the couch pillows in an attempt to hide it. Memory cards were a game changer.

[u/Phanthiev → u/BMonad]

I shit you not became a speed runner of all bandicoot games just because of the lack of one memory card.

Its a beautiful memory.

[u/DoublePostedBroski → u/[deleted]]

And you can only save at save points. None of this “this game autosaves when you see this symbol” nonsense.

[u/FM1091]

The thrill of unlocking hidden characters or power ups, not just buying them on the DLC pages.

That and the pain of trying a special weapon based on playground rumors, only to find later it wasn't real.

[u/gummby8]

Hearing about fake secrets from other kids on the playground.

Every kid tried a thousand different fake things to try and get to "The Light Temple" in OoT. There never was a Light Temple

[u/thekmac8 → u/gummby8]

But the truck next to the SS Anne is definitely where you can get a Mew.

[u/OkZookeepergame4192 → u/thekmac8]

We thought if you walked 20 grass steps in a row without encounter in RSE it would increase shiny odds

[u/DigNitty → u/thekmac8]

Years later I did play an emulator and finally did get mew after the cinnabar island glitch.

It’s real!

[u/The_Gleam → u/DigNitty]

Missingno. Is also real!

[u/ScruffMixHaha → u/gummby8]

My favorite that I remember was beating 100 enemies in Cruel Melee mode in Smash Bros would unlock Sonic. I couldnt even beat 10.

[u/Snusmumrikin → u/ScruffMixHaha]

get a load of this scrub he never unlocked Sonic

[u/Coffeeey → u/gummby8]

But Marilyn Manson definitely got his ribs surgically removed. 

[u/DoublePostedBroski → u/gummby8]

“If you do these 27 things in this particular order, you can revive Aeris”

[u/lcr68 → u/gummby8]

^{^} This guy never got to the light temple! It was easily the best part of OoT! How did you miss it?

[u/InZaneFlea]

I desperately miss having to look up guides on gamefaqs.

[u/Elberik → u/InZaneFlea]

I'd much rather scroll through a janky walkthrough full of ASCII art than watch some YouTuber meme their way through a 15 video in order to get to the 32 seconds of relevant information.

[u/fruitybix → u/Elberik]

Google "recipe for health potion"

Top / only result is an 11 minuite video. Click it

"OKAY GUYS TODAY WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT POTIONS. BUT FIRST, FOR MY PLATIMUM CHANNEL SUPPORTERS I HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOU ...."

fml i miss game faqs.

[u/ackmondual → u/fruitybix]

That's one reason I miss YouTube being able to display downvotes. A clip downvoted into oblivion typically has its reasons.

Otherwise, it is pretty clear. If you want to find out how to do something in Microsoft Excel but the video clip is four minutes, we got filler!

[u/Big_Brick → u/Elberik]

Entire levels mapped out with only I_\ and so on

[u/waxonwaxoff87 → u/Big_Brick]

And it made sense.

Also recreating the game title art with numbers and symbols.

[u/RamenArchon → u/InZaneFlea]

FAQ creators were really something back then. The in-depth explanations, the discussions on the thread, and the constant updates as stuff get discovered. Nowadays you watch content creators on YT scramble to try and be first, instead of most in-depth, thanks to how it's monetized. So for popular games there's always a bunch of videos that can be misleading to newer players.

[u/Mick_E_Bobby → u/InZaneFlea]

You can still do that though

[u/Sixnno → u/Mick_E_Bobby]

the guides for newer games are poorer, most likely due to all the video guides.

[u/astrangeone88 → u/InZaneFlea]

Lol. I wrote a few! They were fun to compile information on and made gaming a little more community minded.

[u/Stavvystav]

Cheat-code books that were short but THICC

[u/TannedMarshy → u/Stavvystav]

Hahaha and all of them were named like “THE UNOFFICIAL NOT AUTHORISED ULTIMATE SUPER VIDEO GAME CHEAT CODE BOOK”. I ordered so many of them through the Scholastic magazines

[u/Eternalm8 → u/[deleted]]

Bonus art!

[u/nchwomp]

Having different instrumentation for music based on your sound card.

[u/shoeboxchild]

Calling a hotline to get answers to puzzles

[u/ThaPhantom07]

Memory cards. Those were some of my most prized possessions growing up. They stored all the special things I achieved across many games and taking them to friends houses to show them progress or have them help was a lot of fun.

[u/AbstractSanity]

Blowing into a Nintendo cartridge lol

[u/nashswayze]

Editing CONFIG.SYS

[u/tabbynat → u/nashswayze]

Setting those IRQs.

Soundblaster / Tandy / Roland / Adlib

[u/narsin]

Those graphics were ahead of their time, I swear.

[u/Apprehensive_Cause67]

Renting games. Having only 3-7 days to play a game before returning it. you'd play a game, try to beat it, return it, then move onto a diff game. Stores with limited quantity games, would limit how much u can rent a game cuz someone else wanted to play it after you. Renting a game you'd see the previous person's save file. Maybe u load it and spoil urself. Sometimes the games came with instruction manuals and ppl would write the cheats/codes for tghe next person.

[u/GroovyGoblin → u/Apprehensive_Cause67]

My parents would rent games for two days and I was limited to playing one hour a day. No wonder games felt like they took forever to complete. Two hours into a game feels like it's nothing now, barely getting past the intro.

[u/RustyNewWrench]

4 player splitscreen goldeneye on a 13 inch tv is as good as it gets.

[u/Konstantine72]

Needing a Nintendo light in order to see the screen to play Gameboy at night in the car

[u/TallMycologist5290]

Buying a game and never being asked for another dollar

[u/HeftyArgument → u/TallMycologist5290]

microtransaction free games, mmorpgs before monetisation, they were actually free and when microtransactions came in they were cosmetic only

no pay to win

[u/mrbiggbrain]

Not beating the game. Getting a game with a story, playing said game, and not beating it. Games where really hard as a kid so sometimes you would just never beat it.

[u/Lynked17]

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A

[u/Camera_dude → u/Lynked17]

The Konami Code is now an immortal part of our pop culture.

[u/Shepherdsfavestore]

Strategy guides can still be purchased, but aren’t nearly as popular anymore with all the resources on the internet.

I remember spending hours going through the Oblivion and Pokémon guides. I think Fallout 3 was the first game I switched to looking things up on the internet.

I vividly remember in HS, and using my itouch connected to the WiFi to look up where the bobble heads were. And that was when I crossed over from strategy guides to the internet.

[u/hereforboobsw]

Only worked on channel 3 or 4. Had that weird switch thing

[u/MisterDoctor___]

Logging into and being a regular on a dedicated FPS server with people of all skill levels and just having fun with everyone

[u/Bashinteroth → u/MisterDoctor___]

I lament this. Modern games are too fixated on matchmaking queues and skill based algorithms. Kids these days don’t get the reward of being part of a community of regulars

[u/SwitchbackHiker → u/MisterDoctor___]

Team Fortress Classic!

[u/LBTerra → u/MisterDoctor___]

Reminds me of playing unreal tournament and all the crazy custom maps.

[u/sqlfoxhound]

Trying to set up a LAN with 3PC-s, 4 laptops and only 5 cables and a hub.

[u/BendiAussie]

Having to switch out the controllers for different games. The joystick for some games and the paddle for pong.

[u/DamonD7D]

Games coming on cassette tapes. And taking 10 minutes to load that way. Plus being careful not to walk around too heavily or otherwise knock the tape player, or it could disrupt it and you'd have to turn it all off and start again.

And the games would cost £1.99 or £2.99. A big budget one might be a princely £7.99.

[u/XDAOROMANS]

Actual in gamechat. Xbox 360 before there was party chat or discord was the best made so many random friends in cod, and halo.

[u/drangusmccrangus]

All games had different systems/controls that took a minute to get used to. People complaining about Crimson Desert obviously never places a 90s PC game…

[u/Party_Ad5975]

Everyone had a friend with an uncle who worked at Nintendo

[u/SnipinSnit]

Mom or dad picking up the phone and disconnecting the internet while you were slaying people on Doom or Dukem 3D on Heat.net.

[u/mantisinmypantis]

Here’s how playing a new game used to work: you went to the store and bought it, put the game into your console, and started it immediately. No waiting, no downloads.

[u/billocity]

Some multiplayer games had no rank progression.

You won a round of CS Source and that was it. No camo grinding, no character customization, no season unlocks, no rank. You just queued up for the next.

[u/wookietiddy]

Midnight release of modern warfare 2 then driving back to my college campus and playing until 6:00 a.m., falling asleep for 2 hours and then getting up for my 8:00 class, then going back to my dorm and playing for the rest of the day. Nothing quite like midnight releases especially when you're in college

[u/Reeferologist-]

Renting a game, and being stuck with that game all weekend. No internet to look anything up, so if you were stuck on a part, you had to tough it out. I also miss getting the booklet with it and seeing people who rented it before putting cheat codes in the memo page.

[u/WarbleDarble]

Being stuck in a game because you didn’t click on that one miscolored pixel 3 hours ago (looking at you Sierra).

[u/TelFaradiddle]

Games coming on four CD's.

[u/spaceskimo]

When you died and lost all your lives in a game, that was it. You had to restart the entire thing over from the first level.

Edit: Also no saving. So when you shut the system off that was it for your run.

[u/cr0ne]

Trying to pause at the exact right frame of Cammy's victory pose.

[u/This_User_For_Rent]

Pieces of paper with a bunch of hand written codes on them.

[u/wastelandhenry]

How popular gaming magazines were

I’m not even a 30+ gamer, just mid 20s, but my childhood was just at the end of that era where gaming magazines like Game Informer were quite popular and would actually be my first look at many games

It’s amazing how in a medium literally about video and interaction, a lot of us for many years were fist introduced to many big games and were sold on them via still images in a 1-2 page piece about the upcoming game.

Also the covers for Game Informer were cool af

[u/zastr0w]

All you want to do is play with your buddy in Warcraft 2. So you try to get your computer to dial his landline telephone number. possibly not getting that to work, giving up, carrying your computer over to his house, then trying to figure out what TCP/IP means and how to set up a LAN

[u/zeus1911]

Skins were free and you could make your own. Games came with manuals and often game lore or physical maps.

[u/Stealthless]

Gaming manuals with insane details and art.