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What A Gamer Would Have Gotten For Christmas In 1993
1991 was a big year for ten-year-old Helen. I started high school, my mum and dad both got remarried, and my family expanded dramatically as a result. However, the biggest change was that I gained an older step brother, Dave, who came to live with us and brought Iron Maiden music, Stephen King novels, and video games into my life.
This was my first real exposure to the medium, since my mum was not a fan. But that Christmas cemented games firmly into my family, thanks to the absolutely stellar line up of titles on offer and the introduction of instant gaming.
When Dave first moved in, he had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. He was 17 at the time, I was almost 11 and my youngest brother John was just five. The age gap was large, but we bonded quickly over endless hours of Gauntlet, Trap Door, Daley Thompson’s Decathalon, and Dizzy.
While we enjoyed video games together, every session began with ten minutes of loading games on a tape. It wasn’t an instant high in those days. You’d have to sit and listen to the horrific screeching of the computer loading and hope it didn’t crash before it finished. Then came Christmas 1991.
Enter Sega
I have no idea what I got for Christmas, but I remember very clearly that Dave got a Sega Mega Drive, a Genesis to our American readers. This was an absolute game changer, literally.
Grab a cartridge, put it in, and bam, instant Sonic the Hedgehog.
We lost at least the next two days to a controller swapping marathon as we powered through the game, where John ‘helped’ by using the spare controller which wasn’t plugged in, a classic sibling trick which has been passed down through generations.
We also had Quackshot to power through, which is an Indiana Jones-inspired platforming adventure where you play as Donald Duck. The side-scroller had obstacles to overcome, puzzles to solve, and most importantly, Donald had a gun that shot plungers, popcorn, and bubble gum.
However, this pair of platformers weren’t the only classics found under the tree in 1991.
We Have Street Fighter 2 At Home
During the summer, gamers the world over had spent hours funneling coins into arcades to beat the crap out of each other in Street Fighter 2. Capcom’s classic fighter was a vast improvement over the first, and remains hugely important and influential to this day. However, not only did you have to scrounge some money to play, but you also had to go outside. Until, Streets of Rage.
Two-player multiplayer for us meant Dave now had the job of carrying me across these dangerous streets, where you could grab pipes off the wall and hit people with them. Did I know what I was doing? Absolutely not. Did I thoroughly enjoy hitting buttons and seeing my little pixel cop do all kinds of random kicks, headbutts and backslams? Absolutely yes.
Others may have got Golden Axe 2 instead, which has fewer cops and more shirtless barbarians. I suspect the reason we never did was due to the scantily clad amazon Tyris Flare, pictured riding a dragon in a bikini on the front cover.
A New Kind Of Fight
As well as the battle of the fighters there was another match up on the Genesis, Out Run, which had been ported from the arcades, and Road Rash, which added combat to the racing genre.
Out Run was chill music, beachside roads, and good vibes, as you raced to the finish line in a snazzy red car. Or at least I always did. To this day, I don’t understand the differences between the cars, so I picked the one that looked good. If you’re going to suck anyway, you might as well look fabulous while you do it.
In contrast, Road Rash put you on a more perilous motorcycle and allowed you to punch people who got too close, giving you a new way to win. This was the kind of hybrid game I was all about. If I couldn’t be faster than Dave, at least I could hit him in the face with a chain when he lapped me.
Family Rivalry
While at home we had the Mega Drive, my step mum favoured Nintendo, and 1991 was the start of her life-long love of Zelda. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was always on when I visited my dads from that Christmas onwards, yet rarely would we play.
Instead, we’d watch the joy in my step mum’s face as she explored every inch of the world. This Zelda love would last a lifetime for her, as between us, the family kept her in Nintendo consoles and Zelda titles from that day onward.
When Zelda wasn’t dominating, we had Super Mario World, which we loved, and Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts, which we were all terrible at. Gamers could also expect to find F-Zero, Final Fantasy 2, Paperboy 2, or Super Castlevania 4 amongst their gifts in families where variety was more common.
1991: A Truly Classic Year
Many other titles that came out in 1991 that I would come to play and love, mostly several years later. These included SimCity, Populous, Lemmings, DukeNukem, Bomberman 2, and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge.
Any gamers old enough to have sat by a Christmas tree in 1991 were sure to have picked up some absolute bangers, no matter which platform they favoured.
