This console came out a week and a half before my 14th birthday, but I still couldn't manage to convince my parents to get me one. I did, however, get to rent it from the local video store a few times with Darkstalkers and Street Fighter Alpha. You have to understand that I used to play Capcom and SNK fighters on the SNES religiously, and constantly pause to find missing frames from the originals, as well as try and decipher different voices reused for other characters (which happened a lot with SNK fighters). Home ports before that were so off-point that it was almost a project in itself to see all the differences I could find. When I first rented the PS1 with SFA and DS, my world was flipped on its head. That was technology I wasn't used to being able to get inside my home, and it was games that I drooled over the demo screens when I had no quarters but wanted to walk to the arcade just to see them in action.
I was so fucking impressed, and I remember taking in the crystal clear voices, hit sounds, cd-based music, and rich, vibrant colors. I remember looking at the tv and saying "fuck, this is all happening on my tv!" I no longer had to go to the arcade to just watch a demo, nor was I relegated to staring at Gamefan screenshots for hours, imagining what it looked like in action. This was a far cry from the expectations the SNES gave me when it came to ports.
However, I happened to be the one that rented one of the ill-fated launch systems that were plagued with overheating problems. You can't imagine how frustrated I was looking forward to spending my weekend with this system that was delivering the previously-impossible dream of playing near perfect arcade ports in my house, only for it to just not start come midnight. I remember being devastated - I wanted to play those games so bad.
I was bummed I couldn't get the system, but I still had my SNES. I remember helping my brother in law roof some houses, and he said he'd give me $50, or we could hit up game stores in Dallas and I could get a SNES game. I was fucking DYING to play Street Fighter Alpha 2, so we searched all over town and we couldn't locate a copy anywhere. I told him we could look for it some other time, because I knew getting a $70 game that I really wanted to play was a better deal than $50 cash.
I sort of just forgot about it, until a year later my brother in law came to visit with my sister, and asked me if I thought I could beat him in Street Fighter Alpha 2, in which I replied of course. He handed me a bag that had a Playstation, SFA2, and Tekken 2, and then shit proceeded to tumble out of my ass. I wasn't big on 3d fighters, but I always thought Tekken 2 was pretty cool. I asked him why he got that, and he said that he loved the game and wanted to have something to play when he came to visit, because he hates Street Fighter.
I put in so many fucking hours on that system. That was one of the few awesome memories I have that I'll never forget. I remember grabbing the last King of Fighters 95 at Toys r Us when it was clearanced for $20 shortly after I got my system. I didn't care that I had to stare at load screens. It was a small price to pay for the quality I was getting then.
The Playstation was a fucking awesome system, and I remember feeling bad for my neighbor who had a Nintendo 64, because he would always try to trade systems and games for the weekend.
I only fell for that shit once, btw.
