ssjlance
07-10-2007, 09:34 PM
Let me start this out by saying that I am a gamer. It may be a bit redundant saying that here, but it needs to be said. Why? Because I am a gamer who hates video game stores. Oh, of course, there is the occasional gem in the rough, although overall they are the bane of my existence. Now, you're probably wondering why I would hate a store that specializes in the material possession I enjoy the most. I guess it all started when I was a young boy of 10.
I have almost exclusively lived in Alabama, with an occasional house in Tennessee and one in Georgia. Although I usually reside in the pride of the south (which, by the way, is every bit as bad as it is made out to be), I moved quite often due to my parents career choice. Both of my parents work in the radio business. Now, anyone who has ever worked for a radio station knows that its hard to find a steady job thats worth it in the business. My father's current relocation moved us to the middle of nowhere, in a town called Hazel Green. The only things in Hazel Green were a few houses, two gas stations, a general store, and some cows. However, we were relatively close to Huntsville, where there was a store by the name of Player 2. This was the first time my eyes had ever laid eyes upon such a sight: an entire store devoted to Video Games? Why, it just can't be! I must be hallucinating!
After finishing the convulsions experienced by an average 10 year old boy who has just seen the "holy grail" he had been searching for, I went in. They had everything! I was always the only kid who had an SNES regularly hooked up to my TV after the N64, PSX, and Saturn came out. However, this store had even older games. They had NES, Atari, Genesis. You name it, it was there. They even had a few dusty 3DO titles lined up on a shelf. I was amazed.
However, this is where things take a turn for the worse. As I mentioned, my parents work in radio. This is not usually a high paying job. Regardless of how much Howard Stern may pull in, you're average DJ pulls in 15,000 to 20,000 (USD) a year before tax. Usually, my father was the only one working, so we weren't exactly living the high life. Many trailers, apartments, and sharing the rent with my father's colleagues. So, needless to say, I was usually broke. It came down to either buying a new game or eating my next meal. However, I had a rather large stash of SNES games and a few N64 games, and this was a store that would give you 50% value on any game traded in. I traded in many of those games to get new ones. Now, some games I don't really miss, like the infamous N64 Superman (one of my first N64 games). However, there were several I will forever regret losing. Super Mario All-Stars, Super Street Fighter 2, some random Pinball game that was a lot of fun, X-Men, Spawn, the list keeps going.
However, upon reaching the approximate age of 12, I realized what I had done. I realized that my gaming collection had been cut in half since I had relocated. The proverbial shady oasis in the desert of my mind was merely a mirage, all the time I had spent there was really just my eyes playing a trick on me: exchanging the dull and average for something that appeared to have a silver lining. To quote the heavy metal god Ronnie James Dio, "It's on and on and on, It's Heaven and Hell."
I have been struggling for the past 3 years of my life to regain that collection. And even though I have far surpassed my limited collection then in terms of quantity, there are still titles I loved that I have never been able to hunt down. Many are games where I can't even remember their names, which simply makes it a distant dream when I think of my 10 year old self sitting in front of a television older than me, having a blast teaching my little brother how to play a game. You know what's kind of ironic? The old games are gone, but that same TV is still hooked up in my bedroom. Yup, even though many of the games I used to play on it are dust in the wind to me, I still possess the screen which would let me escape into the world of Zelda, the same TV that my parents gave me along with a brand new SNES when I was 4, the one that I spilled water into and cried because I thought it was dead. So at least I have something to remind me? Maybe.
So, the moral of this story is that if you think of yourself as a gamer, don't give up one game you even kind of like for a new one. Just because it was only "kind of fun," you may just want to play it again one day. And from personal experience, it can sometimes be a real pain in the ass finding the game that was "kinda" fun again.
I have almost exclusively lived in Alabama, with an occasional house in Tennessee and one in Georgia. Although I usually reside in the pride of the south (which, by the way, is every bit as bad as it is made out to be), I moved quite often due to my parents career choice. Both of my parents work in the radio business. Now, anyone who has ever worked for a radio station knows that its hard to find a steady job thats worth it in the business. My father's current relocation moved us to the middle of nowhere, in a town called Hazel Green. The only things in Hazel Green were a few houses, two gas stations, a general store, and some cows. However, we were relatively close to Huntsville, where there was a store by the name of Player 2. This was the first time my eyes had ever laid eyes upon such a sight: an entire store devoted to Video Games? Why, it just can't be! I must be hallucinating!
After finishing the convulsions experienced by an average 10 year old boy who has just seen the "holy grail" he had been searching for, I went in. They had everything! I was always the only kid who had an SNES regularly hooked up to my TV after the N64, PSX, and Saturn came out. However, this store had even older games. They had NES, Atari, Genesis. You name it, it was there. They even had a few dusty 3DO titles lined up on a shelf. I was amazed.
However, this is where things take a turn for the worse. As I mentioned, my parents work in radio. This is not usually a high paying job. Regardless of how much Howard Stern may pull in, you're average DJ pulls in 15,000 to 20,000 (USD) a year before tax. Usually, my father was the only one working, so we weren't exactly living the high life. Many trailers, apartments, and sharing the rent with my father's colleagues. So, needless to say, I was usually broke. It came down to either buying a new game or eating my next meal. However, I had a rather large stash of SNES games and a few N64 games, and this was a store that would give you 50% value on any game traded in. I traded in many of those games to get new ones. Now, some games I don't really miss, like the infamous N64 Superman (one of my first N64 games). However, there were several I will forever regret losing. Super Mario All-Stars, Super Street Fighter 2, some random Pinball game that was a lot of fun, X-Men, Spawn, the list keeps going.
However, upon reaching the approximate age of 12, I realized what I had done. I realized that my gaming collection had been cut in half since I had relocated. The proverbial shady oasis in the desert of my mind was merely a mirage, all the time I had spent there was really just my eyes playing a trick on me: exchanging the dull and average for something that appeared to have a silver lining. To quote the heavy metal god Ronnie James Dio, "It's on and on and on, It's Heaven and Hell."
I have been struggling for the past 3 years of my life to regain that collection. And even though I have far surpassed my limited collection then in terms of quantity, there are still titles I loved that I have never been able to hunt down. Many are games where I can't even remember their names, which simply makes it a distant dream when I think of my 10 year old self sitting in front of a television older than me, having a blast teaching my little brother how to play a game. You know what's kind of ironic? The old games are gone, but that same TV is still hooked up in my bedroom. Yup, even though many of the games I used to play on it are dust in the wind to me, I still possess the screen which would let me escape into the world of Zelda, the same TV that my parents gave me along with a brand new SNES when I was 4, the one that I spilled water into and cried because I thought it was dead. So at least I have something to remind me? Maybe.
So, the moral of this story is that if you think of yourself as a gamer, don't give up one game you even kind of like for a new one. Just because it was only "kind of fun," you may just want to play it again one day. And from personal experience, it can sometimes be a real pain in the ass finding the game that was "kinda" fun again.