Happy National Video Game Day! This month's episode is Ready Player One in honor of this day.
I have played video games my entire life, yet I do not consider myself a gamer. I've never built a rig specifically to play games, chased down the perfect graphics card, or cared about refresh rates. I don't even play games on a computer. I've always been a console gamer. And nowadays, I play everything on easy mode because I do not have the time or punishment threshold to "get good."
But video games have always been a big part of my life. I was born in 1979, right in the Goldilocks zone of Gen X and Millennials. Household computers were a luxury. Even when we got our first Windows computer in 1995, I was not allowed to play games on it. My parents thought it would "mess up" the computer, that somehow Duke Nukem would fry our hard drive. So, I always stuck with consoles.
I was lucky. Growing up, I had just about every mainstream console through the ages. My first was a TI-99. I still have the muscle memory of pushing in a cartridge. Then we got the Atari 2600. Me and my older brother spent countless hours playing Outlaw, Combat, and taking turns on Pitfall!
Then, in 1985, we got the Nintendo Entertainment System. Our whole world changed. The games were ALIVE! Mario, Spyhunter, T&C Surf Designs, Double Dragon, P.O.W., Ikari Warriors—the list goes on and on. The NES was my escape. I was completely invested in these worlds. Whether I was eating hamburgers with the president in Bad Dudes or stopping an alien invasion in Contra, the NES had me hooked.
After that, I begged and pleaded with my parents to buy me the latest and greatest in console gaming. Let's run through them quickly...
They bought them all for me. Like I said, I was lucky.
The PlayStation was the first console I bought with my own money. I had a part-time job working at CompUSA while I was in high school, and I remember feeling proud when I brought that box home. I can still feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I fired up the PlayStation for the first time and heard the ethereal sounds accompanied by the logo. Good times.
But of course, it didn't stop there.
And now I'm on a PS5. There were a few mainstream systems I never owned. I never had a Gamecube, a 3DO, or a Jaguar, and I stopped buying Xboxes after my 360 red-ringed. The betrayal!
But when I think about video games, I realize I have so many memories attached to gaming. My brother and I played Atari and Nintendo nonstop. Convincing our friend Carlos that if he jumped off that ledge in Double Dragon, he would get a secret boomerang, he did not, and he died. He's still mad about that one. My friend Trey and I playing Ikari Warriors all night because there were no saves, and the game froze on us right before the final battle. I threw that cartridge in the trash. I was so mad. Endless rounds of Soul Caliber and Dead or Alive. Goldeneye, No Odd-Job, only slaps. Doom LAN parties and having to use headphones because Trey would always track you down from the sound of his rocket blasts. The list goes on and on and on. So many lazy summers, slumber parties, all-nighters fueled by Jolt cola and Cool Ranch Doritos, playing games, and enjoying time with your friends.
Time to get REAL corny. But when I think about video games, I think about all the times I spent with my friends. The real conversations that would happen during load times or player selection screens. We would let our guard down and share what was actually going on in our lives, and then we would get right back to sh** talking.
As I have gotten older, I have started making fewer and fewer memories with video games. Everyone has different schedules. Everyone is busy. But now I have two daughters, and we are right back in the memory-making business. We visit each other's islands in Animal Crossing, catch ghosts in Luigi's Mansion, and race to the finish in Mario Kart. My girls are getting better at trash-talking and starting to give me a run for my money. I couldn't be prouder.
Keep gaming.
Keep making memories.
//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/37154615/height/120/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/FF6200/
