At one time I reveled in an old adage by a wise man: "No man knows my history."
Today the veil is removed.
I grew up on the mean streets of suburban Orange County. The only constants in life were game console releases. My father brought home an Atari 2600 when I was at the tender age of four. Together we amassed quite the library of titles to play.
Years later the NES emerged and I was smitten. Being a megalomaniac, I was accustomed to playing with power, but Nintendo Power was a source even I was not fully prepared for. I lobbied family for a pooled purchase of the system. Truly nothing else could compare to the sheer energy generated by such a sleek system. Thankfully, I was able to wait until the year after it was released for the package to be right. For my birthday, I got the core system. No Rob, no zapper, but still packed with fun!
My appetite for interactive entertainment was only diminished when I was able to substitute pen-and-paper role-playing for the excellence that was Dragon Warrior. Only when I went to college did I succumb to Dungeons & Dragons, now I develop persistent worlds for it.
My cohort in class was kind enough to point me to this online evaluation. It seemed to provide an accurate assessment of my stats:
STR: 9
INT: 15
WIS: 13
DEX: 14
CON: 10
CHR: 17
Who would've known four years of ballroom dance would be so helpful in a swordfight?
Oh, how role-playing games have changed over the years. We are on D&D 3.5, Final Fantasy XII, and surreal worlds taking real cash. I stay away for the latter only because I am positive I would lack the will to reach escape velocity for necessities such as work, family and food when I had three characters yet to reach level X0.
During my time as an early adopter, I shared the beauty of the 2600 with my cousins, my extensive collection of NES games with friends, and my network with my roommates.
Early college was P&P role-playing heavy. I had given up watching TV and focused all of my attention on one, singular goal. One to three times a week my friends and I gathered around the board to mentally enact our epic adventures. During the last two years of college, I was being pulled back into console gaming. Ocarina of Time had scarcely come out two years after the Macarena and I learned to dance to the tune of GoldenEye. Truly it was the renaissance of gaming.
From there, it was a war of attrition. I didn’t want to buy, but plenty of offerings were made available. In the Fall of 2002 I caved. My constitution had taken a terrible hit from a bout with Mono and I failed my save versus PlayStation 2. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance surfaced with its impressive water effects. I was in. Then, the double dose of Metroid Prime and the Wind Waker caused me to acquire the GameCube. It was not much later that I realized marriage would deprive me of access to my roommate’s X-Box. A price I was willing to pay.
With so many sunk costs, I am committed to the current generation, especially when the next generation of gaming launched the same month as the next generation of my family.
Nike tells us to play hard because life is short. But when I look at my wife and into the face of my precious child I realize families are forever. Truly, my money is best spent on my family.
Now the table is set for the banquet of banquets, but my wife reminds me I am on a diet. I can only work to make sure the taste is still sweet years down the road.
So let's raise a glass to the back catalogue.
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