Let's remember stuff from about 20 years ago...

[Alex79]

I remember when I first got the internet; it was around 2000. I started a college course in '99 and needed a PC for my work and spent about £400 of my student loan on a basic machine but didn't have 'the internet' until about a year later when I found one of those CDs which hooked you up to an ISP. I think my first ISP was Line One, and I was living at my nans at the time and remember trailing the phone line up the stairs to connect my PC online. I also remember the fit she had when the phone bill arrived...

It was so exciting though, really felt like the wild west back then. I remember finding this browser based online game called Netropolis, in which you set up companies and tried to control city maps and earn the most money. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to log on and make sure nobody had bombed all my hot dog stands, and joining alliances with other companies to extort (pretend) money from other players.

I remember the first time I played a proper online game. I'd bought Half Life and connected to a server and my mind was utterly blown when I realised I was playing against other real humans. It became an obsession and I'd meet the same players each night on death match, Counterstrike and Day Of Defeat.

I remember the Barrysworld servers and I remember getting banned from the Jolt servers after going online with a Star Wars mod installed in the game Freelancer. Man, Freelancer was such a brilliant game, I spent hours flying around space, trading goods, smuggling contraband, fighting space pirates.

Sometimes I miss the early days of online gaming, where everything felt exciting and nothing was taken for granted. Ping was king, and playing on US or overseas servers was pointless because you'd be dead before you even saw the other player.

So anyway, join me and remember stuff from about 20 years ago...

[chase210]

I was only 9 in 2002. I remember basically inheriting (stealing) my brothers N64 because he’d got a PS2 and didn’t care about it anymore, and playing a whole bunch of pokemon.

[duskvstweak]

2002 is the year -
-I quit my lifelong Nintendo solidarity and bought a PS2 (with Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Dynasty Warriors 3, and Final Fantasy X).
-Spider-Man came out. The first movie I ever bought advance tickets for. Which was good because our showing was sold out. I saw some kids from school get turned away at the box office. It was also the first year I started going to the movies on a regular basis with my friends.
-I started buying comics weekly. Uncanny X-Men and the Ultimate comics line specifically.
-I started developing my taste in bands. Red Hot Chili Peppers (By the Way) and Gorillaz (Gorillaz) specifically that year.
-I dropped out of high school

On the video game from, as I said, it's the year I switch from Nintendo to the PS2 and it was awesome. It was such an amazing library and so many of my favorite games of all time are on that system. The PS2/X-Box/Gamecube era was an exciting time with all three doing cool things. And what I time to be alive for multiplayer! Halo, Smash Bros. Melee, Double Dash, Timesplitters, X-Men: Legends.

[ColinAlonso]

In 2002 my brother had a PS2 and I had a Game Boy Colour (I think I got the Advance for Christmas '02). We had a 14-inch Philips TV in the bedroom from Christmas 2000 that the PS2 was hooked up to. (Someone put one up on eBay for £80!!! https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/56011537)

I played a lot of GTA3 back then. I was still well below the age rating and was absolutely in love with that game, I already played tons of the first 2, especially 2, but 3 was absolutely stunning to me. I also played Metal Gear Solid 2, a lot of SSX Tricky and more. We were eagerly awaiting the release of Final Fantasy X after I blasted through FF9 in early 2001. I got The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages for Christmas 2001 as well, it was my first Zelda and I loved it.

Online was basically a myth in my neck of the woods. We had seen it in school and I think we got a new PC at home in late 2002 or 2003 and a really long phone cable to run from the PC to the phone to use dial-up.

[stvnorman]

Not sure what this talk of 2002 is about - 1985 is still 20 years ago in my eyes! Anyway, 2002 was the year I got married, so money for games was a bit scarce, but there were some highlights… SSX Tricky on PS2 was undoubtedly what I was still playing most for the first part of the year, probably until Burnout 2 came along. I keep meaning to go back to Wipeout Fusion because I never did get my money’s worth out of that, but apart from that I can only remember playing loads of Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth later on in the year. Quality if not quantity that year, though interestingly none of those would be series favourites.

[bixer]

20 years ago I'd have been halfway through year 6, so that period where you're just starting to get prepared for secondary school.

Gaming-wise I had just been given a PS2 for Christmas with WWF Smackdown: Just Bring it and 007 Agent Under Fire. As an 11 year old I was at the height of my wrestling fandom so moving from WWF No Mercy on the N64 the year before to Just Bring It was mind-blowing.

It wouldn't be long until I was fortunate enough to get a Gamecube that May too once Super Smash Bros. Melee released. Looking back I was incredibly lucky to be given both within 6 months, one of the (few) upsides to having separated parents I suppose!

[T-BirD]

2002 was the year I got my Bachelor's degree in my field at the beginning of summer and immediately started a full time job doing that days later. You could say I continued the job, since I had been working for them during school breaks since 2000. University life was finally over and I moved back home to save money and be with my sick father.

Gaming-wise, the days of frequent multiplayer gaming was over, even if I occasionally still drove to the friday game nights the university gaming club had. My online multiplayer days of Quake had ended in 2000, and Unreal Tournament, as great as it was, was only being played in small LAN games. I'm not sure if I was into any major RTS anymore, as this was the time between Age of Empires II and Rise of Nations.
I do have pretty fond memories of a few LAN games of Aliens vs Predator 2, however.

Less multiplayer gaming meant more single player, however. Having a steady income and almost no expenses meant I was buying games left and right, including many titles I had wanted for years, but never managed to own. Many of those I have barely played to this day...
I had recently gotten back into console gaming as well. Then, in 2002, I picked up a used Dreamcast and was snapping up titles for the discontinued system at a discount (and import titles at a premium). Later I added a Gamecube and a PS2.
2002 was the year of the beach assault in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, No One Lives Forever 2, and Battlefield 1942, which blew my mind for a few weeks. On the strategy front, Medieval: Total War was a major upgrade from Shogun, and while I picked up WarCraft III and Age of Mythology, neither really connected with me. Grandia II, however, did connect, and it got me back into JRPG's after a 5 year absence. It wasn't until 2003 that I finished it though. An article about Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind's music was possibly the last thing I posted to my gaming website I ran while in college.

Many fond memories of that time, but it was also a transitional period of major life (and gaming) changes. My semi-pro gaming time was mostly over (but would experience a brief renaissance in local competition during Unreal Tournament 2004's heyday). I would move increasingly into story-based gaming, and my games collection was in its early stages of near-exponential growth.

It was also the year that a friend and I had disassembled a desktop computer in order to move it through his house to the location of a laptop in the same house for a LAN session. As we were carrying the heaviest components down the hallway we suddenly realized how asinine this undertaking was.

[Jon Cheetham]

2002 I was 14, playing Morrowind on pc and very little else, and listening to Missy Elliott. Good times! Except for the cliff racers.