We were so lame when...

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This ancient gaming tech got us excited

Cereal packet 3D was the best thing in the world ever
But forget sprites and FMV. 3D is where it's at, right? But what about the first 3D games? To look at them now, it's hard to see why we were so impressed. But again, it was something we'd never seen before. Look at this video – Virtua Racing Deluxe on the 32X. Just think – this is the deluxe version!

To play this, you'd have needed to buy a standard Mega Drive (which retailed at £129.99 with Sonic), a 32X add-on (another £169.99, albeit with £50 back in vouchers) then shell out £59.99 for each game. So the game in this video needed a total spend of £360. That's about the price of a PlayStation 3.

We were so lame, but has anything really changed? So many of us happily spent £465 on a launch week PS3 plus game. In fifteen years we'll look back at its primitive graphics and wonder what the hell we were thinking.
Speaking of extortionate prices, nothing ever changes. Remember the outcry over $599USD for PS3? That's only four dollars more than a Commodore 64 in 1982, but when you consider inflation, that makes the C64 more expensive. Look at this promotional demo from Christmas that year demonstrating the machine's capabilities.

We can imagine families huddles round the screen, the joy of seeing a computer recreate Christmas scenes and carols… it was a different world.

Justin Towell
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.