Master of the Domain

As described in a previous post, the humble ZX Spectrum was my introduction to the fab world of video games. The next step up was the Sega Master System. My childhood best friend* had one and our games of Great Golf and Enduro Racer made me feel envious. Needless to say, I was a happy wee bunny the Christmas Day my parents were kind enough to stump up £99.99 as a present to me. That really was a fair wedge in them days.

As we have now with XBox vs Playstation, the battlelines of the time were either Master System or the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). For me, there was no competition: I mean, look at the faithful Sega below.

Good shape, nice black and red colour scheme. The NES, by contrast, looked like Commander Data's lunchbox. It also was a world away from the Spectrum gaming I'd been used to: no more loading times, lots of colour and better sounds.

Of course, this all came with a cost. I was used to paying £1.99 for a game, a month's pocket money. Even the cheapest games for this cost a tenner, and they tended to be of the atrocious quality of Transbot. Luckily, my Master System had Hang-On and Safari Hunt built in and ma and pa had managed to swing a deal somewhere so that California Games and Chase HQ were in the bundle.

The latter wasn't all that cop, but the former was an absolute classic. It looked great, sounded great and the range of events (Half-Pipe skateboarding, foot bag, surfing, skating, BMX, frisbee throwing) provided plenty of variety, especially if you played with a bunch of mates. I especially liked the BMX event, which allowed me to do tricks that in the real world would have resulted in a lengthy spell in a wheelchair.

But what really gives me a nostalgic tear in the eye is the box art of the early games. Take a look at this one, for World Soccer.

Here we see a disembodied leg, perhaps a distant relation of Thing from the Addams Family, trap the ball with no shortage of skill. The game itself was pretty limited: you could only play one-off games from two of eight teams (from memory: Great Britain (!), France, Germany, Italy, USA, Japan, Brazil and Argentina - spot the two put in for marketing purposes) or have a penalty shoot-out. Still, hours of fun at the time, especially when you pulled off a goal from an overhead kick.

The packaging on these early games was a long shot from the mess of images you get now. On the back, you'd have two screenshots and a brief description of the game. Essentially, you were taking a chance with your money and it wasn't until the 1990s rolled around and stuff like Sonic the Hedgehog put the kitchen sink on the box that it changed. All the same, it has a certain comforting uniformity about it - as I get when I hear that little jingle you got when you fired the console up.

I never moved on to the Master System's successor, the Mega Drive. I lost interest in gaming outside the Championship Manager series (an addiction to which doubtless left my friends and I with no time to do much else anyways) until I went to university and discovered the wonders of Playstation. All the same, the old girl lies in a bag under my bed, almost tempting me to fire it up one more time. Or I would, if the damn controller wasn't knackered...

*A few months ago, our mothers met in our hometown and the news was passed to me that he was living in Kidderminster, had recently got married and was expecting to become a father. That made me feel old.