Natalie Degraffinried

It was dark and dusty in my parents’ basement, and with an abiding fear of spiders that endures to this day, it took a whole hell of a lot to lure an 8-year-old me down there. That whole hell of a lot was the PlayStation resting in the basement’s bowels, attached to the only TV that my parents would suffer me to use while they were trying to watch television. Sunk deep into a puke-green chair that was several decades older than me, I played game after game. I was terrible at most of them, but it was character-building, I think.

Advertisement

I rented Heart of Darkness from Blockbuster, got to the very first swimming section, and quit permanently, my small hands clammy with fear. I played Monster Rancher Battle Card: Episode 2 almost to completion but got stuck with a deck that couldn’t win me the last card I needed and no recourse to fix it without waiting several in-game cycles. I wouldn’t touch the Final Fantasy series until X, but I fell in love with Square’s lesser-known Threads of Fate, which has remained one of my favorite games to this day with its memorable characters and outstanding soundtrack. I played Crash Bandicoot, was buns at it, and later played Crash Bash against my friends with a shameless fervor. I played Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage and threw my first controller on one of the time trial challenges. I played Digimon World, hated it, then played Digimon World 2, and hated it. I learned a valuable lesson about doing the same thing and expecting different results: Thanks, video games.

This song is definitely not appropriate for kids, but whatever.

Most importantly, the PlayStation cultivated in me a love of rhythm games, starting with my friend’s copy of Bust-a-Groove, which would produce heated battles as we promised each other we wouldn’t antagonize each other with our attacks (we lied) and also somehow created a strange spinoff fanfiction between sentai superstar Kitty-N and disco dude Hiro. It extended to my first home DDR purchase, Dance Dance Revolution Konamix, along with a dance mat that was about as durable as a sack of paper. After playing Parappa in a store and hating it because I was stupid and didn’t understand how to play, I later poured hours and hours into Um Jammer Lammy and can still recite every word of every song by heart to this day.

Advertisement

Good looks, PlayStation Classic, for giving me rhythm, bops, and exercise. Eat your heart out, Nintendo.


Image for article titled Our Best (And Worst) Memories Of The PlayStation, 25 Years Later
Advertisement

Chris Person

The PlayStation remains one of my most cherished consoles, but it’s also one I got accidentally. As a kid, I really wanted a Genesis Nomad. If you’ve never heard of the Nomad, that’s a reason for that. It was a big, awkward portable version of the SEGA Genesis that came out late in the system’s life-cycle and was sold exclusively in America. The concept of having a full console experience was very cool. The reality was not. That thing ripped through 6 AA batteries in less than one car trip, making the experience of playing it on the go extremely expensive and unreliable.

Advertisement


After a month we returned the cursed thing to Toys-R-Us (RIP) and they took it back for store credit, no questions asked, as if to say, “Yeah, that’s fair.” With a bunch of store credit, I bought the only other thing there that made sense. I got the relatively new PlayStation and what I assumed were two good games: Beyond the Beyond and Bubsy 3D.

Reader, these were not very good games.

The situation did not improve until I bought Bust-A-Move Arcade Edition, a game with the most needlessly weird box art I’ve ever seen.

Advertisement

Image for article titled Our Best (And Worst) Memories Of The PlayStation, 25 Years Later
Screenshot: Sony (OldsXCool)

Gita Jackson

When I was around six, my older brother had a PlayStation and the game ESPN Extreme Games. Because it was a two-player game, he allowed me to play this one with him. For the most part, what you did in this game was race, either against the computer or against another player. It offered three modes of transport: rollerblading, mountain biking, and street luge.

Advertisement

For my entire adult life, the phrase “street luge” has crossed in and out of my mind. What is street luge, and why? These were the questions that my brother and I asked each other upon playing ESPN Extreme Games, and they are the same questions that I ask myself today.

Street luge, as depicted in ESPN Extreme Sports, involves laying on what appears to be essentially a skateboard, strapping yourself in, and screaming down a hill. As a child, I wanted nothing more than to try this. It looks absolutely hilarious. When my cousin came to visit from California he brought his Game Shark, and he and my brother changed the parameters on the street luge racers, making them go well over a hundred miles per hour when racing. I can still hear their laughter echoing into the night when I visit my parents’ home.

Advertisement

Mike Fahey

Image for article titled Our Best (And Worst) Memories Of The PlayStation, 25 Years Later
Image: Sony
Advertisement

After giving up console games in favor of PC games and dating toward the end of the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis era, I decided to give TV-based gaming another try in late 1996. Unfamiliar with the year-old PlayStation or the brand-new Nintendo 64, I found a local comic book store that was renting the consoles so I could try before I bought.

I tried the N64 first, putting down a massive security deposit for the console, Super Mario 64, and Pilotwings 64. I was impressed but not won over. I needed more games. I transferred my deposit over to the PlayStation and fell in love immediately with Jumping Flash, the 3D robot rabbit game. It had robots, rabbits, and 3D. Futuristic racer Wipeout was everything I’d ever wanted. Plus I could play music CDs on it. MUSIC CDS!

Advertisement

That’s how the PlayStation won my personal console wars. Well, after the guy at the comic book store told me the 3DO had already been discontinued.


Image for article titled Our Best (And Worst) Memories Of The PlayStation, 25 Years Later
Image: MobyGames
Advertisement

Joshua Rivera

I used to play this game called Pandemonium! Not a lot of people talk about it these days. It was a side-scrolling 3D platformer about two pals, a jester named Fargus and a young sorceress named Nikki who accidentally cast a spell that ruins their hometown; the bulk of the game is spent trying to get to a wishing well in order to undo the spell. It was fine, a friendly game with goofy characters for all ages. It wasn’t a PlayStation exclusive, but I didn’t put much stock in that. We had a PlayStation, and that was pretty cool.

Advertisement

It was my dad’s console, mostly. The switch to games on CDs made him skittish about the kids using it too much, so I spent most of my video game time on the Genesis. But sometimes, I’d play Pandemonium!, a good game for bridging generations of more than one type, as my dad would watch me play and I in turn would watch him play Resident Evil 2 or Metal Gear Solid.

At some point, a sequel to Pandemonium! came out, also for PlayStation. Aesthetically, it was almost unrecognizable. Nikki, the intrepid young sorceress, was sexed up with a halter top and biker pants. Fargus was now, uh, twisted—kind of insane and leering over Nikki. The game itself was still a solid 2.5D platformer.

Advertisement

The PlayStation would be the last console I played for some time; I skipped the next generation and returned to games in the middle of the one after that. I came of age largely away from video games but acutely aware of what was happening when I left, as Lara Croft became a weird video game sex symbol and video game marketing exclusively for young men reached a fever pitch.

Now we’re all older and a little embarrassed by all that, as we should be. It would be folly, though, to think that there are no lingering effects from juvenilia of games’ coming-of-age. Happy 25th birthday, PlayStation. Growing up isn’t always pretty, but it’s a good thing to do—and you never really stop doing it.