Summer Days of Old - Rouchicus's Blog

Rouchicus's Blog

Summer Days of Old

Posted on June 8, 2011 at 09:17 AM.

Summer. Summer was, at one point, something I looked forward to for all kinds of reasons. Most of which are very obvious reasons that we all have (No school, fun in the sun, hanging out with friends). You know, all the normal stuff that a teenager looked forward to when it came to summer vacation.

Yesterday, I was thinking about something that I took for granted back then. Something that I never really thought about until yesterday for some reason. Now, I'm sure that it has crossed my mind here and there but I mean REALLY put thought into it. One of my favorite things about summer vacation was the amount of gaming I got to do.

Sports gaming, replaying old games, renting new games (before we had Gamefly) scraping together money with my friends to get a game for all of us to play together (Gauntlet Legends was a mainstay in '99). Just spend all kinds of time not worrying about anything but what game to play.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I was a hermit who just stayed inside all the time gaming. My gaming time was mainly reserved for early morning while I was waiting for my friends to wake up, rainy days, or crazy hot days. When we weren't gaming, we spent most of our time playing football in the street or building a fire in my backyard. Just hanging out.

I didn't realize how nice that time of my life was at the time. Looking back, I would kill to wake up tomorrow and not have to work or worry about bills or anything like that. Just wake up, walk down the street to wake my friend up then spend the day playing our Madden franchise.

Comments

# 1 mac8204 @ Jun 8

This makes me sad.

# 2 Eski33 @ Jun 9

I found myself reading your blog and flashing back to my days as a kid in the 80's. Hot summer days meant, for me anyway, Tiger baseball. It also meant wiffle ball in the back yard (or street and pickup hoops in the park).

I have been gaming since 1979 and the early 90's while in college, I spent my summer nights playing a ton of video games. Like you, I reserved my video game time for down times and late nights. I remember playing all types of games until 3 or 4 a.m. and then waking up at 7:45 to go to work. Weekends were mine so I spent time with friends and much time on video games with friends....Back when talking trash wasn't through a microphone....

# 3 cgalligan @ Jun 9

100% agree... I'm 29 now, been married for almost 3 years, and have a newborn 6mo old son... My days of playing video all day are long gone... Now I struggle to get time to play 1 game of Madden per day in my 2 online franchises... My gaming time now is pretty limited, and I yearn for the days of just "hanging out" all day with no real life responsibilities

# 4 cgalligan @ Jun 9

@Eski33
totally agree... there is nothing better than playing against another person that IS IN THE SAME ROOM as you are... I play Madden, NCAA, and COD only and all these punks that talk trash through headsets make me laugh... But when someone is in the same room, you get that tension in the air, and there really is nothing like it.

# 5 Rouchicus @ Jun 9

It's nice to see other people have the same feelings on the matter. cgalligan is right, IMO, about nothing like playing with someone in the same room. Heck, back then, I didn't even have to be playing with my friend when it came to the franchise. It was just fun watching each other play and build our teams.

I know that it's all part of "growing up" but out of all of the casualties of getting older, gaming is something that I'm worried that once I lose it, I'll never get it back. At least in terms of sports gaming.

# 6 Eski33 @ Jun 10

@cgalligan...Nothing like a GW kick on the line and taunting to make the other guy nervous. Not sure how many times we hit the upright in Tight situations.

I turn 40 tomorrow and I will be a gamer for life. Although I cant play as much as I did years ago I still get excited to see the new games that are shown at E3. This year's Madden and NCAA have me pumped. Love the feeling of anticipation. Keeps me young.

In my opinion if you are a gamer you will forever be a gamer regardless of the amount of hours you can or cant devote.