Confessions of a Video Game Junkie Part 2

The year was 1988 and the arcade wars were over. The small town I lived in no longer had any true arcades, it had only a couple of party stores with arcade games and a very small arcade/mini golf center. I was something of an arcade junkie at that point, getting my fix from the games uptown such as Ikari Warriors, Double Dragon, and Quartet. Oh yeah, and Bubble Bobble and Section Z. Kick ass. Anyways, I had never expected my parents to get me a Nintendo Entertainment System. I don't recall ever even asking for one, not seriously anyways. I knew they were like $100 and it might as well have been $1,000 as far as I was concerned. It's not that we were poor or anything; my parents bought me things, just never anything in that price range. The idea of saying "Hey dad, buy this $100 toy for me" seemed absurd. But one day, out of the blue, they did. I remember hooking it up, playing it for about 20 minutes, then hopping on my bike and riding straight to Alright Guy Tom's place to tell him all about it and it's so cool and oh my god you've gotta come over right now and play it with me c'mon let's go! He was being abducted and taken to church or his grandparents' house or something that day. But there would be many gaming days in the future.

Ikari Warriors gobbled up many quarters while Tom and I struggled to shoot each and every one of the thousands of Men in Blue Uniforms. Nasty little buggers.

My NES came packaged with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. I played the heck out of Mario, but more importantly my parents had gotten The Legend of Zelda for me. This was a new kind of game for me. Having been exposed only to arcade games and crude console games to this point, the idea of a game with a story where you keep playing and saving your progress, working towards an end goal was amazing to me. The open and free world that the game took place in was amazing also; no more being led around by the nose, I was able to choose where to go and when. Zelda was the first game to ever really hook me.

My first addiction: the original Legend of Zelda. Stand. Sit. Kneel. Pray.

I don't want to give the impression that I was a recluse (like I am now) who remained holed up in my room, having my food slid under the door and peeing out the window to avoid going downstairs. I played outdoors in the woods behind my house, I played baseball with the other kids, yadda yadda yadda. It's just that I was perfectly happy in front of a television with a controller in my hands. Gaming was social as often as not for me. Tom and I spent countless hours playing video games together. It was a backdrop for our friendship (a topic I'll touch upon again in the future.) We even played single player games and RPGs together, passing the controller back and forth.




Tecmo Bowl started me on my way to being a Pro Football fan.

Remember that smallish arcade I mentioned earlier? My dad had pinball machines set up there, which allowed me to get my foot in the door and strike up a wonderful business arrangement with the owners there: they had decided to rent out NES games and would I be interested in renting out my games there? My NES game collection was stored a block away at the shop, where they would rent the games out to customers and give me half of the proceeds. This was a fantastic deal for me, and I enjoyed the hell out my NES with my friends for many years. Games such as Mario 2 and 3, Adventures of Link, Dragon Warrior 1, 3 and 4, Bionic Commando, Faxanadu and many, many more were staples of my collection that I finished with help from friends.

I used the profits from my game rentals to purchase more games, of course. I acquired a Sega Genesis and a Turbo Grafx 16 in this manner. The Turbo Grafx 16 was short lived, but the Genesis provided loads of entertainment. I was hooked on Shining Force 1 and 2, and I also enjoyed the only fighting game I ever got into: Street Fighter II.


Remember Blazing Lazers on the Turbo Grafx 16? I DO! Later in life, the twitch reflexes I developed by playing games such as this would grant me god-like powers. If your children start gaming young, they will also develop godlike powers.



I took a sabbatical from the world of gaming for a year or two around 1990; it was time to put my toys away and start growing up. Games no longer interested me...until I got a Super Nintendo. After all, there was a new Zelda game for it and I just had to try it out....