My childhood favorites

There are some movies you watched and some games you played as a kid you probably will never forget. I often saw something in a movie I wanted to do myself, because it looked so cool. I watched those movies unlimited times and played the games for way too many hours, often without fully understanding the game or playing any story missions.


The first Spider-Man movie, released in 2002 is one of my favorites. No matter how many Spider-Man movies there will come in the future, this one will always be the best for me.
Spider-Man 2 is one of my favorite games. Not because of the story or the graphics or whatever, but merely for the fact that I could swing like Spider-Man (I don't think any of the newer games are as good at web-swinging as that one by the way). For hours I just swung trough New York, occasionally bumping in to an invisible wall, because I didn't unlock that part of the city, and I never would. Sometimes I found an open door on a rooftop which would lead me to a gang hideout. An awesome fight followed.

The only missions I really played were the "?" missions. I saved many people who, for some reason, were hanging from a skyscraper (I couldn't always make it in time, unfortunately).
Another one of my favorite childhood movies is 2 Fast 2 Furious, which is, besides Tokyo Drift, the only Fast & Furious movie I've ever seen, but I watched it a lot. Also with this movie there was a game where I could replay all the cool stunts: Need for Speed Underground 2. Unarguably the best game in the NfS franchise. It even had Brian's Nissan Skyline. Again, I didn't play the campaign, but only cared for the free roam mode, hitting top speeds accompanied by Rise Against's Give It All or Spiderbait performing Black Betty. Look for those songs on Youtube and you will find many people looking for NfSU2 nostalgia.

I also had a lot of fun playing Everything or Nothing's multiplayer and 2-player karts in Mario Kart Double Dash worked really well. All those memories are from around 2003. I don't remember anything else about that time, except for the European football championship in 2004. The games and movies really left their mark on my history. Those are the things you tell your kids about and they'll think: yeah whatever, old movies and games with bad graphics.

As a kid, the quality of a movie or a game is much less important than when you get older. I'm always afraid to rewatch those movies and replay the games, because memories are better than realities. Although Spider-Man 1 didn't age at all in my opinion. And hey, I'm up to the best web-swinging ever in the Spider-Man 2 game. I bet crashing into yellow barrels or white unmarked vans in NfS wouldn't hurt either. I should rewatch 2F2F as well, it's been a while. Perhaps I also should see 7, if only to say goodbye to the guy I pretended to be as a kid.