16/07/2017

Five totally random gaming anecdotes


Let's face it, dear fellow gamers: we all more or less play the same games, but what make our own gaming career unique is the mass of entertaining and distinctive little events that unfold around our playing. Without further ado, here are five random anecdotes lifted from different eras of my gaming life. Enjoy!

What the heart wants: 2014 marked the absolute peak of my collecting endeavours, as well as the release of Selena Gomez' single "The heart wants what it wants"; and as unlikely as it may seem, these two events are correlated in my gaming life. It so happened that one fateful day, as I was browsing the internet in search of games, the radio played Selena's freshly released forlorn love call; and upon hearing the song's chorus, I couldn't help but laugh at how perfectly the lyrics fitted my current situation. There I was, hunting for games despite the fact that a backlog the size of the Mont-Blanc was waiting for me — because, you know, the heart wants what it wants. After this episode, the song became my official Game Hunting Song for a couple of weeks, and I played it every time I looked for and purchased games online. To this day, hearing the song still stirs up memories of browsing through Ebay and Amazon pages along with a sweet, aching longing for games I didn't own yet.

Missing memories: I owned three consoles over the '90s: a Game Boy, a Game Gear and a Mega Drive, none of which I still own to this day. But while I can remember perfectly how I parted ways with my beloved Sega duo, I'm totally unable to conjure up memories of how my no less beloved Game Boy exited the scene. This is the weirdest thing ever, especially considering how extensive and precise my memories of the system are: I remember every single Game Boy game I bought or borrowed — up to very the last one, a broken mess of a game called Titus the Fox that made me give up on the console entirely. This was in 1995; and I have no memories at all of playing my Game Boy or even handling it beyond that year. Now, 1995 is also the year I got my Game Gear; and I reckon that the two events are actually linked. Although I have no memories of it whasoever, I'm pretty sure that I sold my Game Boy and its game library after the Titus the Fox debacle in order to get the necessary funds to purchase my Game Gear. That sure would explain neatly why my Game Boy seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth after 1995, and how I was able to treat myself to a brand-new Game Gear despite the fact that I was still an idle teenager at the time.

Collecting karma: In 2013, I imported a second-hand copy of Children of Mana for the DS for a couple of euros. Upon opening the box, I discovered that it contained an unexpected guest: in the GBA slot was nested a pristine copy of Pokemon Emerald in all its shiny and transluscent glory. The former owner of my Children of Mana copy had obviously either forgotten it or put it there to get rid of it, and I pondered what I should do with that surprise gift. And since I neither owned a GBA nor knew the Pokemon series at the time, I seriously considered tossing it away. Tossing. It. Away. A nearly brand-new copy of Pokemon bloody Emerald. I very nearly did it, and I shudder at the thought that I could have thrown away such a valuable game in such a careless way. But wait, I hear you say, couldn't that complimentary Emerald copy simply be a crappy bootleg that its owner didn't care one bit about? Well, this possibility obviously came to my mind after I became acquainted with the series, and I put the cartridge through a thorough examination. And guess what? This is the real thing. It's a totally authentic and legit copy of Pokemon Emerald, and I got it virtually for free. This was my biggest gaming stroke of luck ever, a splendid gift from the Universe; and it certainly repayed me beautifully for these early collecting stages when I found myself routinely paying way too much for games because I didn't know better.

Games before consoles: When the Vita was released, its "AAA games on a portable console" selling motto made me write it off as a system that was not tailored at all to my gaming needs and tastes. But at some point in 2014, I saw a trailer for New Little King's Story and my interest in the system was suddenly piqued. I set out to purchase a brand-new Vita; but to my utter dismay, there were none available in my area. However, a shipment was expected at some unspecified date in the near future; so I could rest assured that I would indeed net a Vita sooner or later. My collector instinct was fully awakened though, and I needed to unleash it and let it soar without delay; and that's how I found myself hunting for good bargains on Vita games on the internet while not even owning the console yet. And it so came to pass that when brand-new Vitas finally graced my local game store with their much-awaited presence, I already owned half a dozen Vita games. But the story doesn't stop here, oh no: it took me one more year to play my very first Vita game  which, for the record, was Sorcery Saga. And guess what? I absolutely hated the Vita upon first play. The analog sticks felt utterly foreign, the screen was way too big, the graphics were too sleek and polished, and the console left such a bad overall impression on me that I turned it off and put it right back in its box with a lot of huffing and puffing. Good thing I picked it up again a week later and managed to overcome my initial repulsion, or I would have missed on what turned out to be one of my favourite handhelds of all time  as well as on a ton of stellar games.

The rearguard: I happened to be part of the very last bunch of subscribers to the now defunct Official Nintendo Magazine UK: I subscribed in early 2013, only to see the magazine bail out in october 2014, a mere year and a half later. To see that publication edge closer and closer to its unavoidable retirement was quite an eerie experience, I must say. In true Nintendo-ish fashion, the publisher and writing staff didn't mention that ONM was slated for execution before said execution was nearly upon us subscribers; but one could feel that something was fishy many months before we were actually notified that our subscriptions were cancelled. The magazine's content was incredibly poor, with safe and boring interviews of Nintendo developers and dull previews and reviews of big titles that were published again and again under a slightly different form each time. There were no in-depth analyses, no retro features, no cutting-edge and informative interviews; in a nutshell, there was none of what I actually expected to find in a magazine devoted to Nintendo consoles and games. But when the list of staff members and contributing writers started shrinking literally every month, I knew that the writing was on the wall. I certainly didn't regret the magazine's half-baked and snooze-inducing content in the slightest; on the other hand, it was a bit of a nasty blow to be ousted from my own subscription. I had already missed out on the most famous gaming magazines of the '90s; and now that I could finally bask in the joy of being a gaming magazine subscriber, that long-awaited joy was taken from me after barely one year? Sheesh, talk about the Universe not wanting me to read gaming publications. Good thing I managed to unearth other interesting and  most importantly  thriving gaming magazines and to get a good subscription pool after that.

Now that you've been reading these anecdotes and hopefully enjoying them, I have a favour to ask of you, dear fellow gamers. See, what I enjoy even more than pondering all the little quirks of my gaming life is to learn about the little quirks of other gamers' gaming life. You guess where I'm going with that, I'm sure: I'd like you to tell me some gaming anecdotes of your own in the comments, dear fellow gamers. Numbers don't matter; just feel free to tell as many or as few stories as you wish, and I'll read them all with great delight. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

4 comments:

  1. I guess I can remember a couple of stories to share.

    First about WarioLand II, my first Game Boy Color game. I loved the game and played it to death but, unfortunately, the game simply vanished one day when I went on a family vacation. Back then, I was heartbroken since I couldn't find it anywhere, neither the same lost cartridge nor a new copy. Well then, one day, around FIFTEEN years later, it somehow showed up on my room's drawer and after I moved away from the house I used to live in. I was completely baffled how it suddenly showed up. Obviously, I immediately proceeded to buy batteries for my lovely still-working transparent purple Game Boy Color and played the game to full completion in that same weekend. And I still had a goddamn blast with it.

    One other story, less suspenseful, was that I simply found a cartridge of Super Mario Land 2 for the Game Boy in a garden's bench. Innocently I still did ask a couple of kids that were near if the game was theirs but they said it wasn't. So, I brought it home and played the game.

    Lastly, my DS Castlevania trilogy. Somehow, I bought an European/PAL Order of Ecclesia, an American Portrait of Ruin and a Japanese Dawn of Sorrow. In that order. I bought OoE in a store next to my house, bought PoR from Amazon but, instead of the European version, they sent me the American version by accident and, by complete chance, some guy, in my tiny country, near where I lived, was selling a second hand japanese version of Dawn of Sorrow. I obviously bought the game from him immediately, just to complete this trilogy in a very bizarre way.

    PS.: And since we're posting "music-while-I-browse-the-net-in-hopes-of-finding-a-great-deal-or-gem", I usually go with some chill, laid-back music from videogames (it's not uncommon to be music from Sonic games), but I usually vary with some tracks I really enjoyed from recent games I've played.

    These two are the most recent ones I've been listening to:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkvKvUvq56E
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCuEwon1T1A

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    1. Great stories! I see I'm not the only one who's been getting games virtually for free... ^^ I'm sure there's something karmic about this, like a reward for good gaming deeds done or to come yet. :P

      Glad to see I'm not the only one using music to boost myself during my game hunting! :D My tracks of choice for hunting sessions are usually upbeat tunes, Selena's song being the exception. When I'm not listening to your average dance anthem while hunting for games, I obviously go for videogame soundtracks jus like you; during my latest hunting sessions, the Aqua Kitty DX soundtrack was a must and a favourite. Especially the track "Kitty Rock" with its slow building-up, which is perfect to put you in a prowling mood:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYK5AKpIog

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  2. Great article! I loved reading your gaming memories!
    Thinking back to my own gaming life of 11 years some memorable moments come to life.

    The way I sat on our couch in August 2016 with my 7-year old girl. It was school holiday and I'd promised her a new game for her DS. Up till then she'd been busy with Nintendogs. But as you can only walk your virtual dog so many times in a day, it was time for something new.

    I wasn't into gaming at all, and purely based on the box art I'd bought her Animal Crossing Wild World. It was in English so some help was needed. The rest is the start of my gaming history.

    Pretty soon she got distracted by something else and I decided to finish Tom Nooks chores. Only to be hooked myself for 1,5 years. It was the social aspect of the game that kept me interested for so long.

    Played many games since then, but it's hard to beat Animal Crossing when it comes to interacting with friends around the world!

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    1. Thanks a lot for the kind words, and thanks as well for your input! ^^

      Your story is the stuff gaming dreams are made of: to pick up a game as an afterthought and end up playing it for months on end. I can't imagine the number of amazing memories you must have garnered during such a long playthrough! My longest playthrough ever was my four-months run of Dragon Quest IX, and it left me with the most endearing memories and became one of the most memorable runs of my gaming life... I'm not sure I'll ever play anything for one year and a half, but I sure would love to encounter a game awesome enough to glue me to it for that long!

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