Topic: So what games were you playing / loving when you were 14? Have your tastes changed?

@RogerRoger Roger Moores the best bond. Everyone will disagree but I prefer my Bond ridiculous, cheesy and comedic.

@CountFunkula78 not much more you needed than Monkey Island, Street Fighter 2, Desert Strike and Pirates back in the day if you didnt play sports games.

@Kidfried whats strange is splinter cell was mind blowing on xbox, one of only a handful of must haves on the original console. Its legacy now is kind of crap and I cant put my finger on it (maybe a bad version when I was at sea?). Where did it all go wrong? No one talks or mentions it at all.

Mainly what I was playing when I was 14 was RPGs like Final Fantasy VI (III back then) and Chrono Trigger.

Yes my tastes changed because the games changed. Final Fantasy's use to be good but once they went 3D they lost their substance, they became all flash and graphics with mediocre stories and no character development.

I was 14 back in 2009-10, and I was mainly stuck replaying PS2 games because my first PS3 croaked a year prior. Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Jak (mainly II), Devil May Cry 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Tekken 5, Star Wars Battlefront II, Kingdom Hearts II, and Final Fantasy X took the majority of my gametime.

My tastes haven't changed much. The only difference is a better appreciation of RPGs. I used to play them once in a blue moon since I wasn't that good at them (I basically blundered into a decent setup on FFX) and had my share of grievances with them. Now I like them a lot more. Which is good, since I'm playing 5 at once.

It was 1997 when I was 14 and I had an N64 so it was Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, Wave Race 64 and Star Fox 64 most of the time with a bit of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, NFL Quarterback Club '98, Diddy Kong Racing and WCW vs. nWo World Tour mixed in (didn't actually get GoldenEye 007 until 1998). I wouldn't say my tastes have changed that much. I still enjoy FPS, I still play sports games and I'm as big a fan of Nintendo's games now as I've ever been.

@themcnoisy Once I'd been introduced to a digital Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies (and his human inspiration in the cutscenes, which were clips from the film) I asked my parents about this James Bond fellow. We dug around and found a recorded-from-television VHS tape of A View To A Kill, so whilst my first Bond (and the Bond of my generation) was Brosnan, my first full Bond film starred Sir Roger Moore, and I was blown away.

He's my favourite alongside Brosnan; both of them captured everything I love about the franchise. There's a famous quote that Moore used to answer critics of his style: "Well, you look at the script and it says that James is a secret agent, and yet he walks into any bar in the world and all these gorgeous women, not to mention the bartender, knows his drink order. You've got to play it tongue-in-cheek because it's so ridiculous!" Brosnan's era had the same attitude because whilst the scripts were serious on paper, Brosnan himself added nudges and winks to the camera and the over-the-top action setpieces gave everything a crazy edge. I never connected with Sean Connery or Timothy Dalton; they're good, but they're bland. Daniel Craig is fine for the current era, but I really appreciated the moments he was allowed to be funny in SPECTRE (the car chase was the highlight for me; the tone made it feel as though it were ripped from a Moore film).

Have you ever watched the Moore films with his audio commentary? He provides off-the-cuff alternate one-liners. He's brilliant (and sorely missed).

I was crushed when EA lost the Bond game licence in 2006, because they'd just done From Russia With Love and dragged Connery back to provide his voice. There were very strong rumours at the time that, after they'd done a Casino Royale tie-in, they'd also be doing a game of either The Spy Who Loved Me or Moonraker, with Moore back in the digital tuxedo. I was utterly gutted that it never happened.

hmmm...
Well - I had a PS1 and still had our shared MegaDrive and Amiga 500 (+1MB RAM expansion!!)

Comix Zone was probably the very last MegaDrive game I got until later in life.

A lot of PS1 stuff. We were very well served by local game shops and trading/returns/swaps were like for like - so not all of these were in my collection at once! (EDIT: wow, looking back it seems like I had quite a lot - we were actually rather poor growing up!)
From what I recall, though maybe not all '96 - Warhawk, Krazy Ivan, Die Hard Trilogy, Thunderhawk (Firestorm I think), C&C, Tomb Raider, WipEout 2097, Bust A Move, Die Hard Trilogy, Tekken/Tekken2, SFA2, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Air Combat, Diablo, RayStorm, Resident Evil, F1.

We had the Amiga still running then - so still plenty of Rick Dangerous and Rick Dangerous 2, Stunt Car Racer, Speedball 2, Gods, Moonstone, Kick Off 2, RoboCop 2, Cannon Fodder, Turrican, IK+, Xenon 2... probably others.

My mate's older brother had brought a Saturn at launch (£500!) and we loved Guardian Heroes when we were allowed to touch the thing.

My gaming tastes have largely remained the same. I find I don't bother with RPGs much, never really have. Final Fantasy 7 was the only one I really got in to beyond Link to the Past - and then it was largely that everyone at school was playing it.

Burnout 3: Takedown. I was 14 when I received it for Christmas and I don't think I ever truly stopped playing it until I moved on to PS3. I'd still play it now, if I had the means. One of my favourite games of all time.

Other games I was playing around that time would've been Tony Hawk's Underground 1 or 2, Ace Combat: Squadron Leader, Spider-Man 2, Sonic Heroes, whatever the latest Pokémon was... There are probably a bunch I'm forgetting.

It's hard to say whether my taste in games has really changed. Back when I was a lazy 14-year-old, I only really played what I received for birthdays and Christmases, but this was about the time my interest in games started to skyrocket. Basically, once I had a PS2, I began reading the Official PlayStation Magazine, and this really opened my eyes to the industry as a whole; I could read about games before they came out! I could play demos! Interviews with developers! It was magic. But I've gotten sidetracked — I suppose my point is that I began to discover a much wider variety of games by at least reading about them. My taste has expanded to include games of all shapes and sizes. Gigantic, over-complicated RPGs and horror games are my only major hang-ups, but that hasn't stopped me from trying them. For example, I never thought I'd play Bloodborne, let alone enjoy it.

Games are great.

When I was 14 it was Amiga for me - mainly Sensible World of Soccer. If there is a football game that ever tops that I will be amazed!

@tomassi Did you ever try the PS4/Vita football game that looked a lot like Sensible? I forget what it was called... (not the Dino Dini abomination).

@KALofKRYPTON Yeah, there is a game called Active Soccer DX but, alas, despite kind of resembling Sensi, it doesn't come anywhere close. The guy who made Sensi back in the day is currently working on 'Sociable Soccer' which should release on PS4 at some point. You can check it out on Youtube. Again, it's not the same as the classic SWOS, but may be OK for a bit of old school fun. I remember XBOX got the classic old version of SWOS on their Arcade series, but I'd love it if PS4 did!

@tomassi That was it!
Can't argue with a bit of Sensible!

If you're interested in the studio and the period - check out readonlymemory.vg. Excellent editorial content. I have a couple of their books (the MegaDrive and Bitmap Brothers ones). I'm planning on their Sensible book next.

Back then I was playing lots of final fantasy. I feel that my tastes haven't changed... Final fantasy has changed... Alot more fps nowadays. Borderlands, destiny, overwatch probably eats up the most time.

@KALofKRYPTON Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look! Sensible were great, not only Sensi but the glorious Cannon Fodder as well!

@tomassi Indeed! They did crossover games. There were (I think on Amiga Power) discs sent out with xmas crossovers with Sensible and Cannon Fodder. Never played them, but they were meant to be crazy.

@KALofKRYPTON yeah I remember those, they were great! There was one where you played on the Moon, there was a recreation of the 1966 World Cup in black and white, there was a SWOS/Cannon Fodder mash up where the ball was a grenade that randomly blew up. I think there was even a 'fruit' based one whereby you played as a team of oranges v apples with a walnut as a ball! Sensible were great because of their humour. They also always had those custom teams you could play as such as Bag Ladies with Margaret Thatcher in goal etc!

Playing games such as Final Fantasy 9, Tekken 3, Armored Core, Castlevania SOTN, Rollcage Stage 2, Tomb Raider 2, Xcom Terror From the Deep, C&C Red Alert, etc. Had a lot of free time.. still do!

A fair bit of variety then, I think my tastes haven't changed much but I'm a bit more fussy, more likely to skip mediocre stuff. Story, atmosphere & characters are often a big thing for me. But I'm not as forgiving as some. If a game is not even half finished and doesn't make much sense like FF15, then it's not something I'd recommend to anyone. Witcher 3 is where the bar is these days.

I'm fairly certain that I was playing Kingdom Hearts 2 when I was 14 (2007), PES6 and NFS Underground 2.
I played PES religiously and Need for Speed was the go to couch co-op game.
It took me like half a year to beat KH2 as I got stuck for ages (damn gummy ship part) & actually had to ask the friend I borrowed the game from for help.

11 years later...
-I still love PES, buy it every year, but I don't play as much
-I haven't bought a Need for Speed game since Most Wanted (2012)
-I am still waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3

My gaming tastes have 'evolved' over the years. I value story a lot more than I used to- maybe even more so than gameplay & I don't play Sports games as much.

After backing the wrong horse with the Sega Saturn (Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Nights are just three of the reasons why I don't regret it) I finally got a PS1 for my fourteenth birthday. I didn't get any games with it though - so I borrowed Tomb Raider II from my mate, and bought Abe's Exoddus when it came out towards the end of the year.

Good times.

Feeding my newly formed appetite for JRPGs with Kingdom Hearts & Final Fantasy X (and got Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for Christmas). It's an appetite I still have, though Dragon Quest & Tales have taken over as my go to series, and I've been trying some others (I've recently played my first Xeno game, and am currently trying my hand at Atelier).

Oh, I also did a lot of goofing around in whatever the newest Dragon Ball Z & WWE games were at the time with my best friend (nothing like a Battle Royal between the Burger King, Incredible Hulk, George W. Bush, Vegeta, Peter Griffin, and Sora, lol).