I grew up a Sega fan. Sure I was able to play most of the NES classics with friends, but ever since I unwrapped a blue and white checkered Sega Master System one holiday season long since past, I knew where my allegiance would be. While the neighbors gawked over Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda, I was experiencing the joys of Alex Kidd and Fantasy Zone. Who needed Contra and Battletoads when there was Rambo and Ghostbusters. And I'd like to declare that the be-all, end-all version of California Games is found on the SMS. Things continued as such during the Genesis/Sega CD era, and while I dabbled with more than a few Squaresoft offerings on the PlayStation it took the amazing Dreamcast launch to truly bring me back into the fold and set me up as a lifelong gamer.

So now it's a bit odd that the only gaming systems I have in my Boston home is a Gamecube and Nintendo DS, the first and second Nintendo purchases I've made throughout their storied legacy. I don't feel like I've missed out - through friends collections, emulators, and even borrowing a system for a spell I feel I've spent fair time with a good chunk of what made Nintendo great. It's just that Ocarina of Time was so undeniably incredible, the best game ever really. I had no real interest in buying Nintendo this generation and yet because of OoT I ended up purchasing a Gamecube with Wind Waker and Metroid Prime anyway and I haven't looked back. For better or worse.

Now, I love the GC - I've had some of the best gaming experiences yet on it, it's a great little box. And like before, I've been able to play through the GTA's, Halos, Katamari Damacies and what have you's through friends and the family Xbox. But these past few months have been tough for those of us with GC as our one and only one console. There ain't **** coming out for it! I'm a big supporter of the DS, but most games are best in quick bursts and every now and then you just need an experience portables can't provide. Even in this "transition" period for the industry I'd still gladly throw down some cash for Dreamfall or Kingdom Hearts II, yet I lack the appropriate hardware. Not to mention trading in my PC for a Mac.. the pretty interface came with a few drawbacks I didn't really think through. No more pc gaming for poor little me.

So yeah.. I guess what I'm trying to say as a starved gamer stuck with a Gamecube and a Mac is thank god for World of Warcraft. Off with ye!

And yet, the only system exciting me down the pipeline is the Revolution, even with it's paltry specs.. am I really sleeping with the enemy after all these years? Or is it more like sleeping with everyone despite preconceptions, and sticking it out with the ones that give it back good?

The horrors within my Xbox are such that it has become nearly unplayable. This disc may be dirty or damaged. This disc may be dirty or damaged. Serves me right for buying one in the first 3 months. 80 dollars for Microsoft to take a look at it is not my idea of money well spent, so after opening up the sucker and tooling around with the drive I thought perhaps I had wiped and cleaned away the demons. No such luck. Click, whirrr, click, this disc may be dirty or damaged. All I want to do is get through Fable and after 20 minutes in the Arena leading to yet another freezeup I'm just about given up dealing with this mess. Not about to pick up another one, not with the price drop rumors going round, and a 600 dollar investment for the 360 seems like a bad idea in light of my newfound stance on early adoption.

There's too many shoddy problems that show up with these first run systems, companies can barely be bothered to create sound hardware design so long as they can ship product. At least fix my console for free if I didn't break it. No more launch window buying from now on. I can wait, companies don't seem to get things quite right first go round, so fok it. Except for the Revolution. That's the only toy I'll take my chances with as soon as I can get my hands on it. That baby screams buy me the morning I go on sale, I'm wacky and awesome and you know you want to. Yes Nintendo I do, and I shall. Just don't start getting fussy and ornery like all the others seem to after we've had a few years together.

So I was given a copy of Myst IV as a Christmas present - started playing through it and it sure brings back some memories, mostly negative ones clouded in frustration and pretty photographs. We've come so far since the days when The 7th Guest wowed the community with it's 3d world to explore and it's Full Motion Video acting. When I was gaming on a 486 66MHz machine I was fiending to get my hands on a copy of the original Myst, the holy grail of cutting edge CD-ROM gaming that was selling like hotcakes.

After several weeks and eventually a strategy guide purchase, I enjoyed the experience fully and decided that puzzle adventure games were where it was at, the prettier the better, chock full of hard-ass brain twisters that played like a slideshow. Boy did I follow a downward spiral towards some terrible games that I never came close to finishing with that decision. First it was Bad Mojo, which in all honesty was a better game than Myst and probably one of the best of the genre. It was only fools gold. Timeline was a similar title I got super geeked for - plays like Myst, only with pyramids and easter island statues? How could it go wrong? Quite easily and fully.

Remember Peter Gabriel had an "interactive environment" game? And the Artist Formelly Known as Prince? What should have been  innovative pairings of the CD-ROM era and music became great examples of how not to create a game and how to forcibly suck any semblance of actual content out of a "multimedia" experience. The Journeyman Project 2 and Lighthouse were two titles that I bought into the hype machine for and both let me down immensely with their minimal improvements to the genre and familiar, repetitive gameplay. Pretty pictures as games were quicky wearing out their welcome.

What I came to realize was just how uninteresting these silent, lifeless photographs were, no matter how nice to look at or challenging the puzzles found within. The storyline was usually so minimal there was no real reason to keep things moving along save for seeing more nice looking pictures of 3d environments. Of course a few interesting titles did sneak through that I'm glad I had the chance to experience - Bad Day on the Midway was a fun oddity, and Jewels of the Oracle I still remember only because the puzzles happend to be exceptional and of the more traditional variety than the freakishly unhinged Myst-style design.

Overall there's a whole mess of these games that looking back were a black mark on the Adventure genre and I would be content to never pay another cent for a single one again. And yet I'm strangely compelled to continue on with Myst Revelation. I mean, look at how detailed these fantastical buildings are! All these levers to pull, notebooks to read, *click* next picture, *click* closeup of that drawer, a code to jot down, an elevator to jump start.. oh sweet lord what have I done..