Humble Beginnings of the Leftover Culture Review
See how it all started
I started my young life with an Atari 2600, moved onto the Sega Mega Drive, got a Gameboy silver, then moved onto the Playstation 1, then 2, then 3. It was a simple progression that introduced me to four different videogame giants (Atari, Sega, Nintendo and Sony) and gave me plenty of great memories, but to be honest, there’s a lot of strong nostalgic feelings for those systems that were just out of reach, amazing games and franchises we read all about and heard about, but missed.
I have used emulators since 2000 and I’m not going to lie, they’re a fantastic way to enjoy some great games without the outlay costs or space.
I first discovered emulation during the release of the Dreamcast (2000). I wanted one badly, really badly. I downloaded everything Dreamcast related (software demonstrations, posters, wallpapers, sound effects), and I managed to find an emulator that let me play around in the menu system (no game software support). While doing that research, I discovered Super Nintendo and Megadrive emulation projects (ZSNES and Kega Fusion specifically). I owned a Sega Mega Drive myself a few years previous and suddenly I could play all my old games again, all their sequels that cost a mint (at the time anyway) and discover some real hidden gems that I never even considered before.
Emulation only goes so far. I still haven’t picked up a Mega Drive Enforcer since I first owned one and when it came to systems like the Nintendo 64, I was truly stumped on how to control the thing. The unique controller shape really highlighted the limitations of a keyboard or a standard PC controller.
As a kid, I never owned any Nintendo consoles, we all had Gameboys but in Australia the Sega and Playstation definitely felt more prominent. My mother did promise a Nintendo 64 (alongside our Playstation) but it never happened. It wasn’t until I met my wife who wanted to play the Pokemon games on N64 that I received my first console that wasn’t current generation.. My first retro console.
It was really nostalgic firing up those old games I missed the first time (due to money/parents) and having someone to play them with. It was nearly too easy collecting N64 games, titles like Mario Kart 64, Turok, Mortal Kombat 4 and Killer Instinct Gold.
Playing these games, some for the first time, was fun and I started to truly understand what I missing when I was solely playing emulators, you miss the interaction. I was always a Sega fan, brought up on the Megadrive, so that was obviously my next console. Then I decided to tackle consoles where emulation was atrocious, systems like the Sega Saturn and Gamecube. Eventually the collection grew with the Master System, Atari Lynx, Dreamcast, NES, Atari Jaguar and Atari 2600.
Even though there have been friends donating old games to me, there have always been rules around the collection. When it came to purchasing games, I never wanted to own every game available for any particular system, nor did I want to horde and collect valuable ones, the goal was always to have games I like, games I enjoy to play.
The two-player element was also an incredibly important factor behind owning a physical collection. Emulation is fine until you bring in a second player, and growing up on Beat em ups, fighting games and sports titles, I wanted a collection designed to accommodate two-player games.
And of course, emulation isn’t perfect. Systems like the Sega Saturn and Atari Jaguar generally suffer from a really poor emulation scene due to the hardware being complicated. Those systems definitely aren’t must haves for everyone, but for me the Saturn was a big deal. It always felt the cooler, less mainstream console. Ever since seeing that last, battered Sega Saturn box on the bottom shelf alone in Big W, marked down multiple times, I knew I wanted to own a Saturn. The Saturn encompassed the era perfectly. Suddenly, the Playstation was everything and everywhere, systems we thought were stayers were going out of fashion, Nintendo were sitting on their hands with the Nintendo 64 and the games we started playing, the platformers and beat em ups were instantly outdated next to Crash Bandicoot and Tekken 3. The Saturn was a raw console and even though the Playstation was great, I felt the Saturn with it’s short lifespan really summed up the mid-90’s for gaming. The Playstation lived on into the new millennium and matured, the Atari Jaguar never made it to our shores and the Nintendo 64 really seemed to boom with the popularity of Pokemon and Mario making it feel like a kids console.
After getting my hands on the Nintendo 64 and Saturn, I really let my nostalgic muscles go into overtime. The Master System was easy to emulate, as easy as the Mega Drive, and there were less ‘must have’ two player games, but it was around the time I purchased my Saturn and Master System that I discovered these internet reviewers, trashing some of my best childhood memories alongside some games from this generation that I felt had real merit. This is where I admit that a friend turned me onto The Angry Videogame Nerd when he found out I had started a serious retro addiction (first nerd video I watched was the Atari Jaguar and I was super jealous). I had a pretty tidy collection, I enjoyed the other guys videos but I wanted to hop in, bringing with me years of Sega fandom.
I was in primary school when the Dreamcast came out. After 11 years of emulating systems, I had a pretty fair idea of what we missed out on over here in Australia. One console that bugged me was the Atari Jaguar. The emulation scene was horrible, the games… also pretty horrible in a really charming way. Atari’s Australian penetration after the 2600 was pitiful. I didn’t see another Atari console until 2010 when my friend picked up a Lynx. That single handheld, with his one Batman game made me the drive to finally invest in both the Atari Lynx myself and the Atari Jaguar and in a lot of ways, these reviews became some of my favourites. It was a system I could feel excited about because I wasn’t there firsthand in the early 90’s USA to feel the sting of disappointment.
The Atari games and system reviews feel like that point in the LOCR where we truly start finding our own groove. We tried to position ourselves in the first season with episodes like Dick Tracy, talking up the Sega Master System version whereas the Angry Videogame Nerd trashed the Nintendo version but it all felt a little forced.
Needless to say, there were plenty of stepping stones from when the show first aired to now, two years later (a pretty long time for a web series). The Leftover Culture Review has been featured on Blip, we are content contributors to Pat’s awesome website, the Punk Effect and we even have advertising on the Atari Times website. We’ve had our first videogame donation from the United States and even though we haven’t managed to break 400 subscribers, the Leftover Culture Review has some great fans and we’re constantly growing and reaching more people.