An Unexpected Bit of Nostalgia
Last Saturday at South Jersey Classic I had the biggest surprise find ever. It wasn't an expensive title, it wasn't a rare title, its not even widely sought or held in high praise. But it is a game so deeply ingrained into my past that it was the biggest relief to finally put a name to it.
Let me preface this tale with a bit of info on me past. My grandfather ran a fairly well known bar outside of McGuire AFB/Fort Dix. Ever since I can remember he used to have two arcade cabinets in the back of room. Every time me and my father went to visit I'd be handed a bunch of quarters from my grandfather to play the machines while he and my dad talked.
One of the machines was a Ms. Pacman machine (yowza) which my dad would always show my up on with his skills from "back in the day." The other arcade machine was some run and gun futuristic game in the vein of Contra. It was something so vague to describe to my current peers i would have never found the game. Even though I sucked the fond memories tide to Ms. Pacman and this mystery game have been tied strongly to my gaming history even roughly 15 years later.
So fast forward to this last weeks SJC. My friend Jim (wataru330) brought two gag games for the SNES for a good laugh. He hands them to me to check out so I promptly get my "game-on" to see what digital turds have fallen upon my lap.
First game being HyperZone. I'd Isn't the greatest but I find it has some charm being a 3D World Runner/F-Zero hybrid. We are talk about the scaling effects and other nifty aspects about the game.
Then we move on to Gun Force. My answer had finally arrived. Not even 30 seconds into the first level I exclaim something along the lines of "Holy shit I have been looking for this game for so long." It obviously wasn't as good as the arcade version but was easily recognizable for me from the first few shots and the first few platforms. A group of people were watching while me and Jim played on. We all joked about the slowed down and the lame animations they used but I could not tear away the feeling of resolution to a long long search.
Once we were done playing, Jim and I promptly traded and closed another chapter for recapturing my gaming past.
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Originally Posted by djbeatmongrel
