Games of the World

In Brazil I would say the popularity of gaming was: Arcade > Console > PC. Numerous people weren't even aware of many home-titles, they only knew what was in the arcades. The arcade scene was more popular since it was so much more affordable (25 cents or so per game) than home systems which not everyone could afford.

Arcade Mania

The arcades were so popular that many kids, including my older brother, used to fail the school year due to excessive skipping of classes, in order to go play games like Simpsons, Toki, Combatribes, Final Fight, and of course Street Fighter II. I'm talking about 8-16 year olds here. My own brother was 12 when it happened to him, so you get the idea of how relevant arcade gaming was to everybody.

Everywhere you went there were arcade machines, even in bread shops! There was an arcade on almost every street, sometimes more than one, with every variety of game you can imagine. Even came across a “Street Fighter 1” machine once. The big shopping malls had HUGE arcades in them. Sometimes there’d be two rival ones in the same mall but on different floors.

I've also seen many people get literally beaten up at arcades for trying to butt into someone else's game. People take that stuff seriously here. Always aiming for a better run than before, or the elusive one credit clear; beating Captain Commando with only two felt like a great achievement. I’d even wear “thumb gloves” to stop getting all blistered up when playing.

There were also many strange hacks in circulation (for both arcade and console games), especially of Street Fighter which was insanely popular. There was one where a dragon punch would fire Hadokens that resulted in instant death if it connected. That same version didn't require Guile to charge for his Sonic Boom and wiggling up and down resulted in up to twenty filling the screen. There were other hacked moves where Sagat's Tiger Uppercut would have Yoga Flames coming out of his ribs. There was also hacked difficulties, lives, costumes etc.

Console Passion

As a kid I was lucky enough to live in a nice area, so my street had about 30 or so other kids, whom all had their own video-game system. It was great since we would always trade stuff. Back in the Brazilian 1980s to 1990s the Master System was most popular. Japanese and American Nintendos were also available, as well as the ‘Top Game’ which could load both regions of Nintendo cartridge. There were other systems that also had two cartridge slots. In fact, some companies even started releasing Nintendo games with a cartridge pin connector at either end. A 60 pin connector for Famicom systems and a 72 pin connector for NES systems. Otherwise mostly everyone owned an import adaptor, in order to play different region games. Many seemed to prefer legitimate Japanese imports for certain titles, which were somehow cheaper. Depending on what kind of game it was, bootleg cartridges could often be defective, disabling any save features.

The bootleg movement was and still is HUGE in Brazil. Fake games, hacked games, I mean, you name it, we had it. Cheaper and much more accessible, they’re indeed popular. In Portuguese we call them 'Jogos Piratas'.

Some people also still had their Ataris in the early 1990s, and I've played River Raid, Enduro, Spider Man plus a few others on them. Among Atari collectors there’s excitement about certain Brazil-only 2600 titles, but I’ve personally never seen them. As for really old stuff, on occasion I’ve even seen ancient Odyssey machines for sale.

Due to poor manufacturing and the Brazilian heat, the AC adaptors would get incredibly hot after a while, and you’d need a fan just so they’d last longer. One of my friends went as far as putting them in the freezer so they could cool off.

Master System dominated the 8-bit market market. The Famicom/NES was no match for it, though they were both popular. On my street there were some kids with Super Nintendos and Mega Drives. We used to cram over twelve kids into a bedroom, just to take turns playing whatever there was, mostly fighting games. We used to play games like Legend of Zelda: LttP (where my best friend used to keep a dictionary next to him, becuase it was in English), and other great classics.

I’m still a big fan of the Master System; it was after all my first console! I remember when I first got it and played for many hours straight. The Alex Kidd theme song was stuck in my head for days. By Brazilian standards I had a fairly large collection with over a hundred games. I still own 'Mônica no Castelo do Dragão', which was a Brazil-only legal remake of 'Wonder Boy in Monster Land', done by a Brazilian company called Tec Toy, that had licensed the original game and several other franchises which resulted in many Brazil exclusives. It starred Mônica, who featured in Brazil’s most popular comic book, which was really fun stuff. It was the only legal remake of Wonder Boy as far as I know, but there were many unofficial hacks floating around, including a Mega Man version on the Master System! Apart from Tec Toy, it's hard to name any other Brazilian developers, though there are more today. Tec Toy also did Street Fighter II for the Master system, but it was SO crappy, since you could only pick from about four characters. Mortal Kombat was even worse, so let's not go there. Tec Toy was still releasing Master System games up until the late 1990s, while the rest of the world was gripped by Saturn and PS1 fever.

Now the PS2 dominates the market, since you can't bootleg GameCube games and most Brazilians think the Xbox just plain sucks, there is certainly no love for Microsoft’s new system here. For collectors there were general electronics stores that sold games as well as specialised gaming stores, otherwise today we use the internet with sites like www.MercadoLivre.com (eBay’s Brazilian counterpart)

PC Aversions

PC gaming back in my days consisted of a Brazilian games like 'AV: Ases do Vôlei', Maniac Mansion, Prince of Persia, and California Games. There were also puzzle games like Sokoban and I'm pretty sure Scorched Earth was also around back then. But that was pretty much all that was available to me personally. As far as my social circle went, PC games weren't popular because not many people had PCs. They were and still are incredibly expensive. The PC I used belonged to the company my mom worked for, since she had her company office at the house, meaning I got to mess around on the 286 during the night. I was lucky indeed as a Brazilian gamer during those decades.