BogusMeatFactory wrote:Fear not good sir! Rambling and ranting are always welcome as it is a sign of openness and honesty, a long since forgotten trait here on the internet! You say that the NES really opened up the imagination of gaming to you. Any particular games that stand out as being some of the real pinnacle moments for you? What is your white rabbit? The one thing that you would die to have?
Here's the story of my introduction to the wide world of gaming. It's 1987. It's a bitterly cold December in Wyoming and a young nullPointer is in 7th grade preparing for Christmas break. I was raised by my Mom, and the two of us had a bit of an unusual Christmas tradition. Basically we exchanged gifts on and off all through December. In addition to the main Christmas holiday I can remember exchanging gifts with my Mom for Hanukkah, Solstice, Santa Lucia Day, and if one of us had a particularly bad day we'd look up notable events that had happened on that day just as an excuse to exchange a gift. In many ways I still think this was a very healthy approach to Christmas, being that you seldom experienced a huge post-holiday letdown since the holiday itself had lasted all month.
Any hoo, I had been hinting in every way I knew how that I wanted an NES for Christmas. "I won't be spending money in arcades" (I rarely did anyway). "I'm pretty sure Strett (my best friend at the time) is getting one!" "It helps hand eye coordination!" You name it, I probably said it. In hind sight I realize that it was a huge request; we didn't have a lot of money and a new NES console at the time was certainly not cheap.
At any rate, it was one of those days where I had a bad day in school and Mom had a rough day at work. "Let's open a gift" my mom suggested. Now, a few presents had been under the tree for about a week or so. I had studied them
intently as young folks are wont to do, and there were two specific gifts that had absolutely
piqued my interest. You see I had been fairly obsessed about the NES for a couple of months, and I 100% knew by the shape and heft that these two gifts
had to contain NES games. But ... one can never be too sure right?
So we each selected our gifts. Slyly, gingerly, and with trepidation in my heart I laid hands on one of the suspected NES games. "Why don't you pick something else," she said. "You're not going to be able to use that until Christmas." We both knew what opening this one meant. It was the big reveal. Laying all the cards on the table well before Christmas morning. She had a great point ... but the anticipation was
unbearable. "I'd
really like to open this one," I said. 'You're sure then?" she said. I think she must have seen it in my eyes, because it was pretty much settled at that point.
So I tore into that paper like a rabid dog, and within I found ... a matte gold box with black and red lettering. The Legend of Zelda? Cool! This looks amazing!
So as you might imagine it was a long wait until Christmas morning, and I'm not entirely sure that knowing ahead of time that I'd be receiving an NES made the wait any easier. But equally, as some of you are undoubtedly aware, the original release of Legend of Zelda was a bit of a treasure trove in terms of the included supplementary materials. Within that magical game box was a glorious full color fold out map of the overworld, a Nintendo poster advertising other available games for the system, and a mail in form for free membership in the Nintendo Fun Club. The manual itself was nearly 50 pages long, including 10 pages of story exposition, descriptions of nearly every item and most enemy types, and filled to the brim with fantastic Zelda artwork. I absolutely
poured over each and every tidbit of information that was included in that Legend of Zelda box. By the time that Christmas rolled around I was practically a Zelda scholar.
During those periods in which I've gone through collection building phases, I've naturally had some moments of elation over netting a rare find at a good price, but to this day
nothing has compared to opening up that Zelda cart. I'll delve into my feelings regarding the actual game at some point (it's still my favorite game in the Zelda franchise), but I've rambled on enough (and
certainly drifted off-topic for far too long in a Welcome thread). At any rate, that is definitely one of my pinnacle moments in gaming!
