Back in my day, we bought games based on the back cover. (Nostalgia thread)

[Lufia Erim]

Nostalgia thread time. This is a semi-joke thread so please don't get all bend out of shape and yell "Nostalgia googles!" Please.

Okay so this is going to be a two part thread:

A)what was the last game you bought based SOLELY on the back cover. I know you've done it. We all have!

B) come up with your own " back in my day" gaming habit that you no longer do.

I'll go first.

A)The last game i bought based solely on the back cover was Metro 2033. I was out of games to play and i went into gamestop with the mindset that i am coming out with a brand new game. I also wanted a game i haven't heard about. Luckily for me it was a very enjoyable and obscure (at the time ) game. I liked metro 2033 before it was cool (+10 hipster points)

B) Back in my day, we chose games based on how cool and intetedting the back of the cover was.

 

[Elfgore]

A). Warriors Orochi 3: Ultimate. Spent sixty dollars on a game with no research and just because the back cover looked cool and stated "175 playable characters!". Best buying choice of my life, as it invited me into the one of the greatest video series I've ever played. This was about a year ago and was something I hadn't done in years.

B). Back in my day, I had to play the "trade-in game" just to have new games to play monthly. Constantly trading in and buying as cheap games as possible, even if they didn't interest me all that much. I don't miss it.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

A) I honestly can't remember which one it was. I do remember buying Galactic Civilizations that way.
I still buy my games in local stores though, but I have either heard of them already or researched them first/after seeing them.

B) Back in my day you didn't have to have internet to game.

 

[Recusant]

Nostalgia thread time. This is a semi-joke thread so please don't get all bend out of shape and yell "Nostalgia googles!" Please.

While I am deeply nostalgic for the time before Google- when the core of the internet was the content providers, not the advertisers- I'm pretty sure you mean goggles[/]. A rather important distinction, that.

Anyway, A: no; I, at least, have never bought a game solely based on the back cover; I never had enough money to do that (long-term unemployment sucks).

B: Back in my day, we brute-forced our way through Sierra-style adventure games, mocking those who had to turn to the internet to solve the ludicrously contrived puzzles (yes, we did have an internet back in the '80's; it had much nerdier arguments (on average) and a LOT more ASCII porn). We'd spend twelve hours getting Graham 80% percent done with his great quest, then the bridge would collapse and we'd find the game had become unwinnable. We took great pride in finding the boot in that patch of trackless desert, totally like all the other patches of trackless desert. We grinned because deep down, we knew we were smart enough to not eat the pie, though we were starving. When King's Quest faltered, we played Leisure Suit Larry 2, and when even that proved insufficient to sate our gluttony for punishment, we played Leisure Suit Larry 4.

Thankfully, we did eventually come to senses. Today, I look back on that time with faint embarrassment- but I can still take comfort in the knowledge that I am, in fact, a bad enough dude to rescue the president.

 

[Catfood220]

I think the last game I bought because of the back of the box was de Blob on the Wii because it looked like it was fun. I was right.

As for gaming habit that I no longer do, its one I don't do anymore and that is reading the instruction booklet. I used to love buying a game and then reading through the instructions on the way home on the bus. Fun times.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

The last game I bought solely on the back cover was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. The first Star Wars game I can remember where they gave you a light saber. Such great times.

Back in my day we didn't have steam, the pinicle of online gaming was Starsiege: Tribes, finding good servers was hard, sometimes you need a third party program to find servers. God help you if you wanted play Jedi Knight online, you had to contend with MSN Games, and seas of griefing spoil sports who couldn't respect people who wanted to have a good old fashioned saber duel. When free mods had their own websites, but you had to download from gamespy, or other sites that hosted game files, hidden in almost unsurfable obscurity. God those were the days. Each good mod you found was a gem, and you were happy to have it.

 

[DementedSheep]

That was a long while ago, probably VTM:B (and not because of whats-her-names tits, it was because I wanted to play an evil vampire), I got it form the bargain bin and store clerk was nice enough to warn me it would need fan patches to work.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's odd. I can't go back 6-7 years and remember browsing games in EB Games or what not, and I've probably not bought a game based off "box covers" for at least a decade if not more.

I *do* remember buying games based off the FRONT cover when I was really quite young. That's what lead me to buy both the original Bard's Tale and Wasteland. Loved those old album cover "boxes".

 

[Maximum Bert]

A) Was not solely on the back cover (just mostly) price had a large part in that I found it for 20 pounds and that game was not really a game as such but a VN called Steins Gate and its one of the best titles I have ever bought so I guess it pays to take risks and be impulsive sometimes although I have bought a load of crap in the past because the back sounded good or the cover looked nice.

B) Back in my day games had real load times.

 

[McElroy]

Solely based on the back cover... I must go back at least ten years when I bought Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader. It was a good purchase.

Back in those days we watched gaming-related tv shows and actually got half of our recommendations from those.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

1) I bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma on PS3 for a fiver about four or five years ago? I knew about the franchise already, knew there were NES games followed by the Xbox ones but I'd never played them, didn't know what they were like and had no idea what Sigma was. It looked like it could be fun, so I tried it. Turns out it's like a HD remaster of the first Xbox game. Very fun to play.

2) Back in my day, we ran roleplay servers on FFA deathmatch games (mostly Jedi Academy)

 

[Steven George Jeffrey]

Ah the back of the box. I remember it fondly.

The last game I remember buying because of the back was... You know, I don't actually remember.

I do remember when there were cheat codes for games. Oh and you had to turn to physical game guides if you were stuck because the internet didn't really exist in its current form (and when you had to get off when someone wanted to use the phone, which was frequently because mobiles weren't really very common).

Wow now that makes me feel old (just turned 25 btw).

Oh and I also remember when you went out and bought a game and that was it. There was no extra payments down the line or DLC released at a later date.

Holy shit I even remember when 3-D was a big deal!

Think I might be going grey just writing this. Now if you excuse me I have to put on my slippers, go back to my rocking-chair and complain about the youth of today.

 

[sanquin]

It's been like 13 years ago since I did that. Maybe a bit more. So I don't remember what game was my last. But back in those times, I've bought several games just based on the back cover. Usually I went off of a combination of commercials, the few magazines I managed to read, and friend recommendations.

As for my own habit. "Back in my day, to play multiplayer we brought our PC's over to the other guy's house." (Lan parties! They were so awesome...)

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Heck, 14 year old me bought "Krush, Kill, n' Destroy" based entirely on the name (well it did look pretty cool too).

 

[FalloutJack]

{1} Christ, man. I'm 34 years old. I don't remember. I have alot of games.

{2} You want some gaming nostalgia? I'll give you some. Back in my day, I was subscribed to Game Players Magazine, where I got my serious gaming information. It wasn't just a GOOD video game magazine, it was FUNNY. The team made the effort to be entertaining as well as informative. During that time, I witnessed the advent of Great Gazuga and The Cleansing, who led the Army of the Undead and Possibly Brain-Damaged with the dancing and the skullbats of doom.

 

[Xeros]

A)Good lord. The last one I remember buying on the merits of what the back cover promised was Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. A side-scrolling beat-em-up with the gameplay mechanics of Mortal Kombat as everyone's favorite H2O badass? Sign me up!

Spoiler: It ...it's awful.

B) Back in my day we actually had time to devote to gaming.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I miss old-fashioned PC game packaging.
Big boxes. Heavy manuals.
Piles of floppy disks...

I'm not sure I've ever bought a game based solely on the back cover though. Way too poor most of the time.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

A) I really couldn't tell you. Probably sometime around 1990.

B) Back in my day, we used to 'it each other wi' rocks for fun. Then we'd smoke 'em an' play games 'til t' wee hours. Great days, great days. I miss 'em.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

This had to be honestly pre-1999-ish or so because all my game buying from about that time on was through internet resources and word-of-mouth with little-to-no back cover judgments.

So probably... Starsiege: Tribes. I had to really go over the release schedule for 1998 because I couldn't rightly remember a game I didn't buy because of friends or any other source. Then I saw Tribes on the list and remember driving up to Miami from my hometown of Key Largo (60+ miles) to get to a Best Buy, which were new and pretty cool in those early days, to check out their selection. However their PC section was bare for new titles so I drove over to one of the many shopping malls in the area and hit up good old Electronics Boutique (later to be called EB Games) which had a much larger selection of games for PC at the time and an awesome bargain bin. I saw Tribes and picked up the box, checked out the back and immediately tucked it under my arm, checked the bargain bin and picked out a few older and still awesome games (a few Sierra titles I didn't yet own and a copy of Wing Commander II), and bought the whole set right there.

I have that memory because later a few friends and I met up at the same mall and had one of our last get-togethers as a group before we all split for college or the real world as we'd pretty well graduated at that point. We went to a LAN party and I brought Tribes with me and it so happened that I was playing around with it and a mass exodus of about 30 gamers went to the nearest game selling emporium and bought Tribes. We basically featured that game as the game of the LAN. Great times. I miss those days sometimes actually. It was a lot of fun.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

Dai Senryaku VII - Found it at a local game shop for a dollar. Have yet to really play more than a few minutes though.