Digging around in the garage before heading back up to school, I uncovered a massive treasure trove of old games. I found boxes marked “N64”, “Consoles”, “Nintendo”, “PS”, and “Game Stuff”. Inside were stacks of stuff like this:
A crazy rush of nostalgia came over me. I was looking at the original Super Nintendo Entertainment System games like Super Mario World, Donkey Kong, and Mario RPG; Dozens of different games. Then the N64 games with the original Golden Eye, Majora’s Mask gold cartridge with the holographic label, Quest 64, and the best ever Harvest Moon 64. So many hours — countless hours — of fun in that picture on the left.
Then I fount Graev’s older Gameboy game collection. Graev has about 10x the number of games in that picture already in his secret hiding place, but this box was the special one he was missing. One of those games, I think it was ‘Bad N Rad’, I found on the streets of Australia while I was on a student ambassador trip back in the 90’s. I have memories of Graev playing those while our family took trips all up and down the East Coast. While we would all look at the trees of Vermont or Niagara Falls, Graev would be finishing a new game. Crazy memories!
Reminiscing over every game pulled out of the box … I miss those days. I think I enjoyed games more then. I appreciated them more, at least. Each one was special. Each one new in its own way, some even transforming the gaming industry into what it is today. Nothing was taken for granted. I think that’s why we kept it all, — every console, every game.
Time to play!
I think we also appreciated games more when we were you because we didn’t have the level of disposable income that we (hopefully!) get to enjoy in adulthood. Being selective of what we bought, and playing the hell of it is the norm for most young’uns. As opposed to now where I have the dreaded backlog to deal with constantly. As volumous as my games library is now, sometimes I miss the days of leveling all of my characters in Phantasy Star IV to max because I knew it was going to be a while before I’d be buying another game.
Who doesn’t remember good times with Golden Eye? I almost miss those days as much as I miss DAOC… 🙂
Yes you can’t really beat 4 player Golden Eye for multi-player fun. Even my non-gaming relatives loved that game. 🙂
Something I often bring up in conversation with friends is how we (well at least for me) have a huge over bundance of great games to play and no where near enough time to play them. My list of Steam games that I haven’t even started yet is exhausting to think about. Assassin’s Creed 1+2+3+4, Crysis 2, Dead Space 1+2, Bioshock 1+2, Dues Ex HR, Batman AC to name just a few.
I am an explorer by nature and can’t fathom playing Fallout 3/Vegas, Skyrim (will take forever in this game). When you’re into MMO’s as well it makes it seem impossible to get time with all the great games out there since I enjoy MMO’s the most.
I loved the days of Goldeneye too. There were games and there were great games. Goldeneye multiplayer got my friends to socialise with big gaming weekends and in my own time I would keep working hard at unlocking every cheat. I was proud of doing reaching that goal too!
I think there are worse problems to have. We are just too spoiled these days 🙂
I also liked going to the local Video shop with my brother and hiring a couple games out. Not knowing anything about them. Games like Super Probotector (Contra 3’s name in Aus)zombies ate my neighbours…
Wow i’ve ranted a bit here! Just got me thinking about all these great times!