Remembering when

[Gunstar]

A time of my life from about 15 years ago has been on my mind recently, memorabilia found, old friends contacted, that time of my life brought to the forefront of my consciousness lately. As a part of my recall, the Jaguar, reletively new and shiny, has it's 15 minutes of fame, a last gasp of greatness while Atari itself was crumbling. Set the way-back machine to late '96, early '97. I was fresh out of college, and ended up following a couple of college buddies to Southern California. We were staying at a hostile in Huntingtion Beach, meeting people from all over the world, from Europe and Australia and New Zealand, even Israel. It was a surfer's paradise, with individual surfers and teams from around the world coming to compete in the world-wide surfing cometitions held annually in Huntington Beach, CA. I already owned the Jaguar at this time, in fact, the PSX and Saturn were already out as well. But, I showed off my Jaguar one night to these guests of the U.S., most of whom had SNES's back home still, and all the new tech of the Jaguar was more than they had yet seen. I remember a couple of the Australians, among others, who were truly shocked by the Jaguar. I started with Doom, too which one of the Austrailian girls commented that the graphics were incredible and how they had nothing like it in Australia. Her boyfriend commented that the graphics, while impressive looking, wasn't what shocked him, but the way they moved (3D 360 degree, 1st person). I said "you haven't seen anything yet." Next I showed them AvP, and one of the girls said "It's like playing a movie!", then came Iron Soldier and Super Burnout and so on. They were mezmorized for an entire evening. I introduced Jaguar to representatives from around the world.

 

I don't beleive I've ever told this story to anyone before now, regarding the Jaguar and foreigners, or even about the situtation and time of my life I had In SoCal at the end of a millenium. But it wasn't something I remembered until I started search the old brain recently. I've got a million stories of my life and travels, enough to write a book about, like my experiences with friends in a band and Hollywood Blvd shows and partying, except for the fact that I can't remember all the details or know when I'll remember; I was not sober very often in that time of my life...

Edited November 11, 2012 by Gunstar

[+save2600]

Cool story, thanks for sharing!

 

Funny how the Australians were so impressed by the 3D graphics and how they moved though. They must not have really been into gaming at that point in their lives I take it? To have missed seeing the PSX, Saturn and N64 in action by then...

[Gunstar]

I think down under it takes a while to get U.S. and Japanese tech on the market, after the rest of us have it. Also, I think this might have all happened within '96 the more I think about it, so it's less than a year since U.S. releases of PSX and Saturn, and the N64 was still in development, or just released, I think it was still in the summer of '96 when this occured.

 

But, while we are talking about a bunch of Dope smoking surfers, who enjoy videogames, they enjoyed surfing far more, the reason they were in the U.S. even, so being behind on the gaming scene from a country a bit behind gaming-wise shouldn't be a shock. They did a lot of surfing, and taught me how to as well. They had been traveling around the world, I imagine for sometime, some for surfing competitions, some just to surf around the world. Chasing and endless summer...like in Point Break, without the robbery and death.

 

Actually, Point Break was only a few years old at the time, and gives a real good idea of what SoCal was like when I was there in the mid/late 90's. Later on I was managing an news stand called Taxi Taxi news just off Pacific Coast Highway in H.B. when Princess Diana was killed. Other than her death, it ws a fantastic time with a lot of very interesting characters and places in my life. I had a boss named "Jinx" who told me he was a taxi driver from N.Y. and he ran several businesses in the town, All starting with Taxi. I was the door man at his bar as well, called Taxi's. We (a small group of friends and associates) used to play bocce ball in an empty lot (which no longer exists) next door to one of his businesses. But I guess I'll stop ranting and save it all for the book.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Gunstar

[Isgoed]

Nice story!

 

It's amazing how fast time flies.

[Amstari]

I think this was because they were dope smoking surfers, not because they were Aussies.

 

Although the Jaguar was not well known here but it was sold in Australia in some games stores. But other consoles were sold in department stores.

 

Video games and computer games have always been popular here but during that time I think the surfing culture would have considered gaming a bit nerdy.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Amstari

[skip]

Indeed, the Jag was never officially sold here, so it probably shocked them that a 'toy' could produced relatively good 3D games.

 

I remember taking mine to a party in about 94ish and bunch of attendees who may or may not have ingested LSD played AvP and Doom (in a darkened room) for a while. I did laugh a lot at them

[+GroovyBee]

When I was at Play Expo (UK's largest retro game event) held in October this year I got talking to an Australian guy who came over to our stand to check out the homebrew's on display. He'd flown over especially for the event (and a C64 scene party) and it was the first time he'd seen a jaguar outside of a magazine. Its a shame I only had Duckie Egg to show him .

[Zerosquare]

Could have been worse. Imagine if the only thing he saw was Supercross 3D