Hey everyone, its about 2 in the morning and I kind of just feel like writing. So, I have been thinking about video games lately. I have been kind of deprived of them since I have came to college. It’s not that I don’t have them at my disposal their is just no time to “waste” on them. I hate using that word when I am talking about video games, but it’s true when it comes to schoolwork. I really miss playing them. When I was a kid I used to spend so much time playing them. I really have some fond memories there. Playing endless hours of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I was young and I sucked really bad, but it was still fun as all get out. Geeze, and don’t get me started on “The Golden Age of Gaming” as some (including myself) call it. This refers to the 16-bit era, Super Nintendo, Sega Genisis, and the lesser known Turbo Graphx 16. I still remember when I was a wee Nintendo fanboy back then. Super Nintendo was by far more superior than Sega Genisis. I would have arguments with Sega fanboys. We would sometimes talk about “impossible” circumstances. Such as Mario and Sonic teaming up on the same console, maybe in the same game. Things we couldn’t even in our wildest dreams think of happening. It seems commonplace now, but Sega has produced games on Nintendo consoles. That still strikes me as weird. Maybe, I’m the only one. Sometime, I wish I could go back to being a kid, just for the games. It was so exciting to me back then. Get the latest Nintendo Power in the mail every month and run to my room and read it cover to cover. Before the internet, this WAS the place to get all your gaming news (for Nintendo at least). Systems were not very powerful back then, but for some reason the games that “moved” me the most in terms of story came from the era. My favorite game of all time came from there. Damn it was good. If your wondering what it is, it was Chrono Trigger. It was a late bloomer. It was released towards the death of SNES. :*-( It had pretty much everything you could have asked for; time travel, multiple endings, a moving and cohesive story, likable characters, and impressive graphics (for the time anyway). Even if you despise video games and everything they stand for, I recommend this game. It’s still playable, they re-released it for the PSone about a year or so ago in a compilation called Final Fantasy Chronicles. This post is really stream of conscientiousnesses, I hope your not bored listening to me ramble on about my childhood and video games. Even if you are, that’s fine. It’s making me have this awesome feeling of nestolgia. Friends plus video games was always awesome, too. When I think friends and video games I always think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game. It was a simple game where you were one of the 4 turtles and you went around and beat the crap out of the foot clan. It was still fun, and even better because it was the Ninja Turtles. Let me take this opportunity to plus the new Turtles movie coming out next month. It looks like it is shaping up to be sweet. It’s all CG, but it looks like they did a pretty good job. Anyway, back to how much I miss video games and my childhood. I mean, I can always relive a video game by just hooking it up and playing it, but somewhere along the line it’s not the same. It doesn’t have the same atmosphere. An old crappy TV. RF connections, we didn’t have any fancy RCA connections back then. It was pretty awesome. Also, when I think old video games, I think old Toy’s R Us. It was awesome, they had all these old kiosks. Such as a Game Boy, the big one, and this ginormous apparatus that let you see the game on a big screen. There was no Super Game Boy or Game Boy Player, so it was pretty neat. Also, they had this crazy system where you would find the game you wanted, then you would pull this ticket or something out of a sleeve, then take it to the back to exchange it for a game. It was pretty inefficient, but I guess that’s how they did. I should probably stop soon, because I think I could ramble on forever on this topic.This was pretty fun to write, probably because I got to remember all the good times I had in my childhood. I hope you guys got some enjoyment out of this. I’ll write again soon.
P.S. I am not the only one who was “touched” by video games as a kid. There was recently an art contest/show all about old video games. It was called I am 8-bit. The art was in all forms. It ranged from the cute to the obscure. It has some really killer stuff. Here is a link to the website and here is a link to a blog with tons of sweet pictures from the actual show.