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Life of Marshall
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Most of my oldest memories involve video games. I'd been playing video games before I even knew what the hell they were.
In first grade we had to write in journals everyday. I think each of my entires was about the NES. From "killing triclyde" to "i got ninja gaidan." Always about games. Wait, no, one time I wrote about how one of our pet rabbits had died. The picture I drew had two rabbits crying and a third, upside down with X's for eyes. Another time I drew the class turtles and wrote about how there had been only 11 more days of school.
Ok, so I wrote about the NES and animals. Hell, what else are six-year-olds supposed to think about?
My sister had an NES first, along with a few nice games. Bubble Bobble (which we played together quite often), Milon's Secret Castle, King's Knight. Did I say "nice" games? Hmm, maybe not. What's weird is that I remember getting excited when my parents bought us SMB2, and I was thinking that it was my favorite game in the world. I don't think I'd played it before that time, though. Or had I? Dun dun duuuun.
Some Christmas, probably while I was in first grade, whatever year that was, I got my own NES for Christmas. It came with SMB3-THE BEST GAME EVAR-which I had played a bit before at my neighbor's house (My SMB3 cart later got spit in. My neighbor/best friend's SMB3 game was messed up one time, and it had lines going up and down the screen. "MARIO IS IN PRISON!" We tried to get my game to do the same thing. We tried hitting the cart around, and then lesser_friend_kevin had the genious idea to spit in it. THANKS FOR BREAKING MY FAVORITE GAME YOU JACKASS! It's never worked the same since then, for years it barely worked at all. Damn you, bars!).
So my best friends were middle-aged Italian plumbers who stomped on turtles. My friends and role models, that is. Well, maybe not. I've never in my life jumped on a turtle. Mushrooms, though, sure. There's some kind of mushroom-type thing that used to grow in my grandmother's front yard, when you step on it some type of brown poison-mushroom dust came out. I think some of it entered my brain and made me how I am today. Mmm, mushroom poison!
One of my two real friends, Kevin (Mentioned above), had a SEGA Genesis and Sonic 2 back when Sonic 2 was new. BEST GAME EVAR, I probably thought, and that's why I ended up with a SEGA Genesis of my own. If I knew then what I know now, [rest of sentence]. But one time before I'd gotten my Genesis, I had a dream that I borrowed Sonic 2 from Kevin, and it worked in my NES. Oh, what a dream.
My other friend didn't have a Genesis, though. Or a SNES. He stole my copy of Punch Out!, though. Bastard. Bastard liar. Where else would it have gone, eh? Eh? Answer me that!
I still played the NES, just not as much as I had before.
So while the other young kids were out playing with their friends, getting some "fresh air" and "excersize," I was inside, saving small woodland animals that had been imprisoned inside of robots.
But that's ok, because I got two more real-friends. Brothers that live two houses away. They had a bunch of cool toys in their basement, and a pretty big TV, and some Genesis games that I liked more than mine (Sonic 3, Global Gladiators). I spent a lot of time in their basement playing Global Gladiators. I think I only played it so much because I was able to beat it (Which I did, every single day). They also had some baseball game that sucked but I liked it because I liked to look at all of the cool uhh . . . baseball court fields.
Renting games was cool, too. One time I rented Sonic's 3D Blast, and Marek (Ok so I had three real-life friends, so what?) was at my house. Somehow we hit the cart or something while the game was starting and found a level-select screen . . . So we tried to do it again, and again. We probably broke Video World's S3D cartridge. But at least we could play in that snow level, and that's all that mattered. That is all that mattered. But that game sucked, anyway. We didn't care, it had cool graphics, and according to the title, it was 3D, and 3D was cool. And that's all that mattered.
Sometime along the line, I lost interest in video games. Sold my Genesis and 6 games for Christmas money. Gave my 3 Gameboy games to Marek when he got a Gameboy Color, and then he gave two of those games away to someone else. We gave away one of the two NESes (My sister had one and I had one) and a few games (Dr. Mario, BAD DUDES, Bubble Bobble, probably more). The other system and games went up to our other house in West Virginia. They got played every few weekends, and I think some spiders made their home in the thing. Bastards.
I guess I was in sixth grade when I was introduced back into gaming with the Playstation. I was at my sister's boyfriend's house and I got to see/play some PSX. Wipeout XL, Need for Speed II (Which was a new game then), and Soul Blade.
I have a hard time keeping track of . . . time. Obviously. I'm guessing it was 1998, though, and I wanted a PSX. My parents didn't want to buy me one, they made me work for it. So I half-assedly helped my dad do some stuff in West Virginia while I had a week off of school for Spring Break (I think that was the week when I decided to NEVER DRINK COLA AGAIN. But hey, I've actually stuck with that, so nyah.). That payed for my PSX. No games or memory card, though. But boy, did I play that Demo Disc! I eventually got a few games and whatnot, and I was officially back "into" video games. I also brought my NES back home sometime, probably so I could play The Legend of Zelda more often.
May 2000 - I GOT COMPUTER! Heard about emulation, thought you needed to buy stuff. Heard about emulation a few months later, made a few downloads, HAD A HEART ATTACK. I could finally check out all of the good (and terrible) stuff I'd missed. Super Mario World and Shaq Fu! Final Fantasy VI and Power Piggs of the Dark Ages! Games rule!
Back then all I really played on the emulators was Sonic 3, just for memories. Haha. Just like in the 16-bit days, I didn't really try out the SNES. And then I did. And that's about it. Emulation rocks. Screw you, copyright laws.
I'm not going to bother buying any of these new consoles just yet, though. Even if I had the money, it'd be impossible to decide which to get. PS2's got Squaresoft and the PSX was much better than the N64. The GC is NINTENDO, and that's really all there is to say about that. The X-Box is crap and I wouldn't buy it BUT they're releasing a new Ninja Gaiden for X-Box, To hell with you, Microsoft.
They should give me free money. They? Yes, they.
And now I'm becomming obsessed with Nintendo again. And I want to talk about games, but nobody wants to listen. There's one person I can talk to about it at school, but I only get to talk to him for about five minutes, and only the most uninteresting things come to my mind then.
TIMELINE
- 1985 - IM BORN !! NES is brought to the US, I guess.
- Sometime in the late 80s - Sister gets a NES. Infantile/Toddler/Potty-Trained me gets hooked even though me can't play. Me sad baby.
- Early childhood - Obsessed with NES, later Genesis.
- Later in early childhood - Need money to buy people stuff, sell my games.
- Maybe I was 11 - PSX
- Maybe I was 12 - PSX OBTAIN. COLA DRINKING QUIT.
- May 2000 - COMPUTER
- Sometime between May 2000 and today - "madrox85: sonic 3 rox man yup"
- Today - . . .
//Marshall
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