 A reader details why he considers 1986 to be his favourite year in video game history, thanks to titles like OutRun, Bubble Bobble, and Ikari Warriors. I've read the GameCentral pages for many years and often see people state what a great year for gaming it has been. In many cases this has been the year that we were in, and I have often wondered with hindsight, if that year was as good as that person thought. It was also the subject of a letter in a recent Games Inbox, along with some good arguments in the Underbox, from Floyd Hamilton, that 1998, amongst others, were also strong contenders. I'd say 1998 is a good call too, Floyd. It also got me thinking as to what year I would choose as my own greatest gaming year and after some consideration, a little bit of heart searching, and some help from Google I'm going to give that accolade to the year 1986. Please allow me to give some context to that decision. 1986 was the year of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and the fear of radiation contaminating large parts of Europe; the space shuttle Challenger exploding shortly after take-off above Cape Canaveral; Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev discussing nuclear disarmament; the signing of the Nuclear Forces Treaty by the USA and USSR; and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opening the final stretch of the M25. I was 14 years old, technology was advancing at a rapid pace, people had computers in their homes and what you could experience in an arcade was lightyears away from what a Commodore or Spectrum could offer. This still didn't stop us forking out our hard earnt paper round money on arcade conversions for our home computers. It was usually the case that the arcade conversions sold you the dream of the arcade game through the box art but the most you could hope for was a conversion which captured the spirit of the gameplay and bore a passing resemblance to the original source material. This was an exciting time,){kind=link}
A reader details why he considers 1986 to be his favourite year in video game history, thanks to titles like OutRun, Bubble Bobble, and Ikari Warriors.
I’ve read the GameCentral pages for many years and often see people state what a great year for gaming it has been. In many cases this has been the year that we were in, and I have often wondered with hindsight, if that year was as good as that person thought. It was also the subject of a letter in a recent Games Inbox, along with some good arguments in the Underbox, from Floyd Hamilton, that 1998, amongst others, were also strong contenders.
I’d say 1998 is a good call too, Floyd. It also got me thinking as to what year I would choose as my own greatest gaming year and after some consideration, a little bit of heart searching, and some help from Google I’m going to give that accolade to the year 1986. Please allow me to give some context to that decision.
1986 was the year of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and the fear of radiation contaminating large parts of Europe; the space shuttle Challenger exploding shortly after take-off above Cape Canaveral; Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev discussing nuclear disarmament; the signing of the Nuclear Forces Treaty by the USA and USSR; and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opening the final stretch of the M25.
I was 14 years old, technology was advancing at a rapid pace, people had computers in their homes and what you could experience in an arcade was lightyears away from what a Commodore or Spectrum could offer. This still didn’t stop us forking out our hard earnt paper round money on arcade conversions for our home computers.