We all have that one game that holds a special place in our hearts. What game is it for you?
For me, it's Metal Slug. Growing up, every Monday, my parents would drag me to the laundromat after work. As a kid, it was a pretty boring, but I had my toys, origami books, and coloring books to keep me entertained. However, my favorite thing to do was playing the Metal Slug arcade machine with my dad.
My dad was great at the game, and he taught me how to play. Though I improved, I could never keep up. When I'd inevitably die, he'd let me take over his side to let me have a bit more playtime. My favorite part was when he'd share stories from when he lived in another country and would go to the local arcade.
Those moments are cherished memories, and even today, whenever I visit an arcade, Metal Slug is the first game I play, despite still being terrible at it haha
Honorable mention goes to Mario 64, another game that holds a special place in my heart. I got an N64 from a garage sale, and playing Mario 64 while at home, with my mom's "chore" music in the background ignited my love for gaming
It was the first game I remember playing solo without help, I really sunk my teeth into it. I was 8 and it had been released a few years prior, so it was also the first game I bought with my own money when I found it in a bargain bin at a computer convention show in the late 80s.
My Dad was busy and couldn't install it for me right away, so it was also the game that got me started using MS DOS (everything I ran prior was installed by my Dad and launched via [IIRC] WordPerfect Shell).
haha that damned wizard, I always thought it was just bad luck but apparently KQ3 has some really squirrly RNG that causes a lot of grief. DOS games were my gateway to learning the command line too, bad command or file name? a youth wasted brilliantly.