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Deleted member 8468

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,109
No, my parents wouldn't buy me videogames after I was about 14. Saved for over two years of working odd farm jobs for cash to get an N64, and it's all been self funded ever since.
 

Makkah

Member
Feb 9, 2018
225
The only video game that my parents have ever bought for me was one of those brick game handhelds with a million variations of Tetris on it. They would have bought more if they had the money, but we had other priorities.

My uncle got us a PS1 with Tekken 2 though, which was awesome. An older cousin also got us a genesis with Sonic 2, and later Terminator 2 and Super Street Fighter 2: TNC.
 

ClearMetal

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,314
the Netherlands
My grandpa one day saw me fawning over Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door while reading Nintendo World (Brazilian Nintendo Power) in a car ride to school.

When he picked me up later in the day, the game was waiting for me on the backseat of the car.

It's honestly one of my favourite gaming memories and favourite games of all time
Sounds like a great memory indeed.

Actually surprised he knew which game to get, because my own parents were kind of "video game blind".

To this day we still give each other presents for our birthdays, but I have stopped asking for video games a long time ago. I can write down the entire title, I can even include a high res picture of the cover, and my mother would still claim she wouldn't be able to recognize it in the store and that I just should ask for a book or dvd. (Because of course she's able to tell those apart just fine.)
 

Eros

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,668
games, no. my mom knew better than to show up with a random game hoping it was the right one. she'd just ask.

she did surprise us with consoles, though. that was dope.
 

Zaied

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,564
My dad randomly bought me these:

PS1_-_vigilante_8__79481.1557527471.jpg

mFz1YhmrrfryE0_87ud-B1MuO56efcbKUHfBPhwNXyM7Go7ZXkYGnjPWQU_MxEfDM4leEmKPb48PNLGyHzgSK-j16cwl6i4dM4K8DQ0CZ472QF-Pe1SvgyAi72NebkIz2k6QbtblJzvqNge1vVmMDrCWPZRg


And my mom randomly bought me these:

232260-disney-pixar-toy-story-2-buzz-lightyear-to-the-rescue-playstation-front-cover.jpg

Jak_and_Daxter_The_Precursor_Legacy__78979.1527722373.png


I would say they were pretty good at judging a book (game) by its cover. Damn, forgot my dad also got me Vice City for Christmas. I didn't even know what GTA was, and I was super young at the time. Needless to say, it blew my mind, as the closest thing to 3D GTA that I knew of was Driver 2.
 

BigHatPaul

Member
May 28, 2019
1,670
I remember one time I asked my mom to buy Madden and she came home with Blitz. So yeah, she has good taste.
 

Birbos

Alt Account
Banned
May 15, 2020
1,354
I played the games my older brother got for the most part. That's how I found Halo 2.
 

ss_lemonade

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,659
No. We had an older brother though who lived in the US and would come visit during the holidays, usually bringing a new console with him. It's how we got a Saturn, N64, Dreamcast and OG Xbox so I was like that Nintendo 64 kid every Christmas.

Piracy was very rampant where I lived though and retail video games were extremely expensive, so getting access to pirated games was very common unfortunately.
 

TheGhost

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
28,137
Long Island
My dad rented me Mega Man and Castlevania from Funco Land for the NES

They bought me double dragon and sold it to another parent once they heard that you have to kill your own brother at the end


They replaced it with Contra, which started my life as an Alien killer.

The very first game they purchased me was ET for Atati....it wasn't that great. My uncle purchased me Atari boxing and Pong. Those were amazing
 

Soulflarz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,807
Nah, but I had family friends who were 15ish when I was 6 who basically sold me on jrpgs so I was set.
 

TimeFire

Avenger
Nov 26, 2017
9,625
Brazil
Sounds like a great memory indeed.

Actually surprised he knew which game to get, because my own parents were kind of "video game blind".

To this day we still give each other presents for our birthdays, but I have stopped asking for video games a long time ago. I can write down the entire title, I can even include a high res picture of the cover, and my mother would still claim she wouldn't be able to recognize it in the store and that I just should ask for a book or dvd. (Because of course she's able to tell those apart just fine.)

Oh, he's pretty video game blind, but I left the magazine in the car when I left and I think he just found the three or four pages I read and re-read 100 times before arriving and asked a clerk for that game.

And yeah, I feel your struggle, my mom is exactly like that too lol
 

Rizific

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,951
nope. only when i begged and pleaded for whatever the cheapest game in the display case was. birthdays too, but that was with the help of my brother who knew what games i wanted back then.
 

andresmoros

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,468
Houston
It happen very little times, but when it did, it was pretty damn awesome.

My mom has impeccable taste, as she got me Mega Man Legends for PSX, the game that hooked me back into gaming. Later on she got me Mortal Kombat Trilogy. When I got my Game Boy Color, she got me Tarzan. That game was surprisingly good. Finally, my dad got me Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike, which had Rogue Squadron 2 as a co-op game, and that was a blast. Those were the only games I can remember.
 

rustymonk

Member
Oct 28, 2017
167
They did when I was younger and they were often great and I really appreciate it, but I also remember the time in 1996 when my dad got star trek and hard drivin' for the snes, and he thought he got a great deal! but they were so unbelievably bad it was physically depressing. I was 8.

I feel sad thinking about those games sometimes LOL
 

Cow Mengde

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,720
My dad bought me Wario Land Super Mario Land 3 out of nowhere.

I loved every minute of it. One of my favorite Gameboy Games.
 

Kharnete

Has Hecht’s Number
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,946
They never bought any game "for me" unless I asked for it, and I can only remember 4 videogames that they accepted to gift me: TMNT (yeah, that one), NBA Live 95, Full Throttle and Warcraft 2, all for PC.

But we had plenty of games around, as they always liked to play. I mean, they decided to buy a Phillips MSX2 in the mid 80's, and a regular PC in the late 80's, keeping it updated for a while until my older brothers (and me later) started to share (or "share", *wink* *wink*) games with their friends for both, MSX and PC, so the need to buy games was usually quite low. By the mid 90's my parents got a bit alienated, as everything was starting to be too complex for their taste, and they just kept playing old games in both machines.

So yeah, their taste on their own was quite good. The pile of Konami cartridges for MSX I have around say so.
 
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eosos

Banned
Dec 21, 2017
603
Sometimes, and it was always great! Well sometimes mediocre, but great intentions haha
 

Kuyth

Member
Jan 15, 2018
18
My father gave me this game when I was a kid. I didn't understand it that much because I was 5, it was hard for me with some complicated mechanics at the time, plus the language barrier, but I kept playing it so my father won't get sad. Despite that, I fell in love with the series, and it helped me to learn some English. I don't even think he chose the game, he only asked for a new NES game at some Sears and he got it, so accidentally, my father had good taste.
images
 

taro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
626
My dad bought Zelda (NES) soon after it was released and my mom bought RC Pro-Am on a whim. Great taste on both counts.
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,371
My dad got me Digimon World one day apparently on a whim. Just came home from work one night and handed me the game. I'm forever grateful for that.
 

BloodHound

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,007
Parents got me mortal Kombat on the SNES when I was 5. They had no clue what they were doing and I am forever grateful for it haha
 

lord_of_flood

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 1, 2018
1,743
No. My parents knew literally nothing about video games and had no desire to interact with me about them, so they'd ask me what I wanted if it was video game related.
 

Deleted member 54073

User requested account closure
Banned
Feb 22, 2019
3,983
My very first console, which I don't even remember asking for but I probably saw the advert on TV and said I wanted it, was the Sega Megadrive with Sonic. I think I got that when I was about 4 or 5 and that was the first game I ever played and finished. By that time my Dad already had an Amiga and Atari which I then started playing on. I played his games which consisted of Monkey Island, Chuck Rock, Lemmings and lots more. Since then my dad bought me video games and got me the SNES with Super Mario All Stars and got me games like Donkey Kong Country and Super Metroid which I'm pretty sure he chose.

I only really started choosing my own games around the first Playstation. He brought that home and each weekend I used to stay with him (my parents were divorced) and we would go down to the local rental shop and rent a game and a couple of movies. One of the ones I distinctly remember asking for was Resident Evil, I had to do alot of asking for that one though as I was only about 10 at the time lol.

To this day we still have pretty similar taste in video games and I'm often the one buying them and lending them to him after so he can play them :)
 
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Vervain

Member
Oct 27, 2017
291
My parents were always pretty pointed about asking what I wanted, but my grandmother with absolutely no idea about video games never checked and picked out some absolute bangers when I was growing up:
  1. Wild Arms
  2. Disney's Tarzan
  3. Final Fantasy IX
  4. Pokémon Silver
  5. Pokémon Gold
Edit: Actually, it occurs to me that my mum literally bought me Luigi's Mansion 3 with no consultation for my birthday last year and presented it as a gift from my toddler. She definitely remembers the type of games I used to pick up.
 

Deleted member 49770

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 20, 2018
146
I remember coming home from school one day to find my Dad playing a newly purchased copy of Pac Man 2 for the SNES. That's that weird adventure game where Pac-Man is a dude you control by telling him where to go and to look at stuff and sometimes shooting him with a slingshot to piss him off. When I found him in my room, Dad was stuck in a loop where Pac-Man kept tripping on a skateboard and dying.

To this day, I don't know what possessed him to, not only buy a game I didn't ask for, but to be playing it when I got home. He never had interest in video games. Still, I have fond memories of that moment and that game.
 

LiK

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,099
Parents never bought games for me. I picked them or bought with Chinese New Year money.
 

BuckRogers

Member
Apr 5, 2018
774
I remember Christmas 1991 vividly. I wanted computer games, though I don't actually remember which ones (I was really into Sierra adventures, so probably one of those). My dad struck out on his own and bought me something I didn't mention.

I didn't play that game for a week out of spite, then read a review of it calling it a masterpiece and decided to try it out.

29 years later and I'm still playing Civilization games, so thanks Dad, and sorry I was an asshole.
 

Delphine

Fen'Harel Enansal
Administrator
Mar 30, 2018
3,658
France
My parents never bought me any video games, because they didn't have a good opinion on video games, to the point we didn't have any console. The first time someone bought me a video game, it was one of my older brothers buying me The Sims 2 when I was a teenager. Otherwise, it was me mostly playing whatever games my brothers had on their computers, until I got one of my own.
 

Zippedpinhead

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,739
There were only three games my parents bought me unasked.

1: burger time (with my NES action deck)

2: Vegas Stakes GB

3: Earthbound (my parents had borrowed money against my college fund to move, when we recovered and had a place again they got us this game as a thank you)

to this day I don't remember asking for earthbound (though I know I had wanted it fierce). And I am amazed I got it way back when big box and all.

Vegas stakes was a hidden gem of the game boy and probably geared me too well for gambling
 

abellwillring

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,937
Austin, TX
I had to save up allowance/leftover lunch money for months at a time to get games mostly. Other than bundled games, they rarely ever bought us any. I think as a kid I had about 4-5 games total for both the NES and Genesis. I'd rent a lot.
 

Illusion

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,407
My Dad surprised me by buying Pokemon Snap cause he knew how much I loved Pokemon. That game became one of my Mom's one and only game she ever loved. (When I shared the new game announcement, she came up to me just yesterday to ask when the game is coming out LOL).

My step-dad got Twilight Princess for me for Christmas once.

Outside those two moments, my family always asked what games I wanted.
 

turbobrick

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,085
Phoenix, AZ
When my parents bought me my SNES games, I'm pretty sure they asked my cousins who where all older than me, because I never got a bad game. Though then again I only had 8 SNES games and they were all big well known games.
 

Dekuman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,026
The only ones they 'bought' were the ones that came with the system.
I got Super Mario Bros with a Famicom. Then I got a bunch of handme down Famicom games form my cousin who 'upgraded' to the NES.

After that they let me pick my Famicom games from an import shop, which also sold some clone games (30-1 stuff) I never did own an NES growing up.
Was nice playing SMB3 nearly 2 years before it released in NA though :P
 

Yoss

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,680
Canada
My parents only ever bought games if I game them a list. Aunts and uncles came through with Donkey Kong, Wario Land, and Kirby's Dream Land 2. Some of my all-time favourites.
 

Pein

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,235
NYC
My mom had excellent taste, she got me killer instinct, crash bandicoot 3, phantasy star online, Mario 64 and star fox 64 and street fighter 3rd strike.

I had shit taste when picking up my first console with my dad, I got a ps2 and street fighter ex 😭
 

bounchfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,663
Muricas
They did at first, when I was too young to really be aware of what was out there. I feel like they must have had some advice though because they are not techies at all and I got some good shit. My dad bringing home donkey kong country when it came out and that shit was amazing, and my mom got me super mario rpg as a surprise. I got really lucky.

You know what I think I'm gonna ask next time I speak to them. Assuming they even remember lol
 

slorelli

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,150
Ohio
My parents never did but my older brother bought be Army Men Sarge's Heroes and Sniper Ghost Warrior.....we don't talk much these days....
 

Koppai

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,417
nah they always specifically asked what we wanted. But I mean I started buying all my own stuff once I was able to work. Now I have too much lol
 

AuthenticM

Son Altesse Sérénissime
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,085
The only two games I remember my parents buying me without my input were Christmas gifts in '96: Jurassic Park Rampage Edition and NHL '96 for the Genesis. I was initially disappointed in NHL because I was never into sports, but when I started playing it, I couldn't stop myself. That game was amazing and provided me with dozens if not over a hundred hours of playtime. I loved it.
 

Fantastical

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,370
My parents bought me SSX3 for Christmas after it came out because they knew I loved Tricky. Had no idea a sequel existed at all. Best gift ever, one of the my favorite games of all time.
 

linkboy

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,690
Reno
I got this for Christmas in 1988 from my parents

TLoZ_NES_NA_Box.png


That was really the only video game they bought for us without them asking. I think they nailed it. This game is one of the biggest reasons why I'm a video game fan and a fan of the fantasy genre.

After this, they bought us game consoles for Christmas (SNES/N64) and they were with us when we got games.
 
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JigglesBunny

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
31,135
Chicago
My Dad bought me the original pre-director's cut Resident Evil and Wolfenstein on the SNES. Proud to call him my old man.