Introducing The Monkey
I've been playing videogames ever since I could remember. Literally some of my very first memories are of me playing Outlaw on the Atari 2600 with my father when I was maybe three or four. I still remember seeing ads on TV for what must have been game of the month clubs from Sears, offering to mail you a new game every month to play. Then came a dark time... The videogame crash of '83. For some reason, our Atari died around the same time. I would pester my dad to go out and look for a new one from time to time, but he could never find any, (obviously,) and games were off the plate for me for a few years.
But that all changed in 1987. My little sister was in the hospital, and in the pediatrics wing they had an Atari 2600 with bowling in it. Me, my mom, and my dad all spent hours playing on that thing while at the hospital, prompting my dad to go out and search one more time... And hello, Nintendo Entertainment System! I can't remember my third grade teacher's name, but I sure as hell remember the day we went to the store and bought that! I don't remember all the games we bought along with it, but for sure the original Metal Gear and Pinball were in. (I almost asked my dad to buy Jaws because I liked the picture of the shark better then the picture of the soldier on Metal Gear, who even then I thought looked like Kyle Reese from Terminator.)
When we got home, my dad went to setting it up, and I went to... doing homework. He wouldn't let me play until I finished. (Obviously looking for an excuse to play with the new toy first, looking back.) I remember seeing Super Mario Bros. being booted up and being amazed at how much BETTER it was then the old 2600. And how BAD we were at it! We thought mushrooms would kill you if you touched them, and we couldn't figure out how we sometimes went down pipes! (Our theory was it had something to do with jumping backwards.) It was a while before my father finally managed to get to level 1-2, and again the amazement: A new background! That never happened on Atari! I had had trouble reading the instruction book, so I somehow came to the conclusion that Mario was a monkey trying to get back home to his master. That lasted until one of us finally accidently hit a mushroom, Mario grew, and you could see he was a man.
Dad wouldn't let me play Metal Gear. He said I 'wouldn't get it'.
Never the less, a love afair was born. I remember being obsessed with the Zelda games when they came out. It took forever to finally find a copy in the store, and I just kept renting it and hiding the instruction manual because I liked to look at it, until my parents just paid the 'lost instructions' fine so I could keep them. I think the original Zelda may have been the first videogame I ever beat.
TMNT: The Arcade Game was another one I lost a lot of sleep over waiting for. I loved it in the arcades, and would try to get to Chuck E Cheese purely to play it.
Looking back on it I'm not sure how this was possible, but I swear it's true: I played Super Mario Bros. 3 before it was released on a Play Choice 10 in a 7-11. It was on the way home from school and I would beg every day to stop there so I could play. I remember thinking "Hey! I've played that!" when I went to see The Wizard in theaters and they unveiled it as the final game that no one has ever played.
Then the Super NES was coming... Oh man did I wear those issues of Nintendo Power out with the Super Mario World previews in them. In school that fall our teacher wanted us to write a letter to our future selves, which she would give us at the end of the year. I talked about two things: The girl next to me was cute, and I was SO jealous of myself for finally having gotten to play Super Mario World!
Anyway, there's a lot more stories and reminising I could share, but the point is: I love videogmes. And the NES in particular has a very special place in my heart. Probably for much the same reason it does in yours. Unfortunatly as a child I traded/sold all my games away for new ones, and wound up throwing my NES away because it no longer worked, (*sigh* if only I would have had the internet and known it just needed a new pin connector,) but I'm back baby!
But that all changed in 1987. My little sister was in the hospital, and in the pediatrics wing they had an Atari 2600 with bowling in it. Me, my mom, and my dad all spent hours playing on that thing while at the hospital, prompting my dad to go out and search one more time... And hello, Nintendo Entertainment System! I can't remember my third grade teacher's name, but I sure as hell remember the day we went to the store and bought that! I don't remember all the games we bought along with it, but for sure the original Metal Gear and Pinball were in. (I almost asked my dad to buy Jaws because I liked the picture of the shark better then the picture of the soldier on Metal Gear, who even then I thought looked like Kyle Reese from Terminator.)
When we got home, my dad went to setting it up, and I went to... doing homework. He wouldn't let me play until I finished. (Obviously looking for an excuse to play with the new toy first, looking back.) I remember seeing Super Mario Bros. being booted up and being amazed at how much BETTER it was then the old 2600. And how BAD we were at it! We thought mushrooms would kill you if you touched them, and we couldn't figure out how we sometimes went down pipes! (Our theory was it had something to do with jumping backwards.) It was a while before my father finally managed to get to level 1-2, and again the amazement: A new background! That never happened on Atari! I had had trouble reading the instruction book, so I somehow came to the conclusion that Mario was a monkey trying to get back home to his master. That lasted until one of us finally accidently hit a mushroom, Mario grew, and you could see he was a man.
Dad wouldn't let me play Metal Gear. He said I 'wouldn't get it'.
Never the less, a love afair was born. I remember being obsessed with the Zelda games when they came out. It took forever to finally find a copy in the store, and I just kept renting it and hiding the instruction manual because I liked to look at it, until my parents just paid the 'lost instructions' fine so I could keep them. I think the original Zelda may have been the first videogame I ever beat.
TMNT: The Arcade Game was another one I lost a lot of sleep over waiting for. I loved it in the arcades, and would try to get to Chuck E Cheese purely to play it.
Looking back on it I'm not sure how this was possible, but I swear it's true: I played Super Mario Bros. 3 before it was released on a Play Choice 10 in a 7-11. It was on the way home from school and I would beg every day to stop there so I could play. I remember thinking "Hey! I've played that!" when I went to see The Wizard in theaters and they unveiled it as the final game that no one has ever played.
Then the Super NES was coming... Oh man did I wear those issues of Nintendo Power out with the Super Mario World previews in them. In school that fall our teacher wanted us to write a letter to our future selves, which she would give us at the end of the year. I talked about two things: The girl next to me was cute, and I was SO jealous of myself for finally having gotten to play Super Mario World!
Anyway, there's a lot more stories and reminising I could share, but the point is: I love videogmes. And the NES in particular has a very special place in my heart. Probably for much the same reason it does in yours. Unfortunatly as a child I traded/sold all my games away for new ones, and wound up throwing my NES away because it no longer worked, (*sigh* if only I would have had the internet and known it just needed a new pin connector,) but I'm back baby!
Comments
~~NGD
Welcome to the site!
...the picture of the soldier on Metal Gear, who even then I thought looked like Kyle Reese from Terminator.
My brother and I've always thought that too. Awesome intro by the way, very interesting read.
This is actually my third crack at building up a sizable game collection. The first was foiled by my break-up with my ex-fiance. I came out of that with one suitcase, one carry-on bag, and barely any room for socks, let alone video game consoles. Later I had a pretty decent collection of Dreamcast/XBOX/PS2/Gamecube games going... But then I discovered I liked drugs, and *zip* went the collection again to pay for that. (Along with all my DVDs.) In those days, if I was only negative $200 in the bank, I was doing well.
But things are looking up now. A little over 400 games for every system I've got combined. By far the farthest I've gotten. And I am not. Selling. Anymore!