Pretty much everyone here has found used/old cartridge games at a flea market or thrift store that already had stuff saved on them. It might be an rpg, a sports game, Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Phantasy Star or something else entirely. Maybe it was on the NES, Genesis, N64 or something in between. Unless you got the game from a friend or family member, you'll probably never know who the previous owner was. What do the rest of you end up doing with those saved games?

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of Sega Genesis/32X games in a thrift store. For the Genesis, I found "Greatest Heavyweights." On the 32X, I bought "NFL Quarterback Club." A day or so later, I bought "Zelda II: Adventure of Link" (classic) for the Game Boy Advance at GameCrazy.

When I played "Greatest Heavyweights" a few days ago, I found a couple of saved games in the Career Mode. One boxer was a couple of matches from winning the title and the other boxer only had one fight under his belt. Instead of erasing these two boxers and starting over, I have decided to resume their careers and see what happens. They are headed up the rankings as we speak.

Next I tried out "NFL Quarterback Club" (32X). I decided to try loading up saved games to see what was there. The previous owner was in the midst of a 14-1 season with the Dallas Cowboys, one game away from the end of the season. I played the 16th game in that season and have led Dallas into the playoffs.

The person who had "Zelda II" before me had finished the first five palaces and wasn't that far away from beating the game. I decided to jump right in where he/she had left off. What I noticed is that whoever was playing before me knew very little about some of the secrets in "Zelda II." They were missing at least one heart container and magic jar that you usually would have picked up by that point. What was puzzling was that they had yet to find the mirror, so they were missing the Life spell from the town of Saria. This was despite that fact that he/she had apparently been into every other town on the map, including New Kasuto. I thought that was funny but I also had to admit that person needed to be somewhat good to make it through all those later palaces, and the boss fights, without the Life spell.

Who else has a story like this? I know a lot of people might erase any saved games if they pick up a used game. For some reason, I have decided to continue a couple of boxing careers, a football season and a Zelda quest all of which were started by a total stranger. It is part of my nature to try and finish what other people started. That way all of their previous work to that point wasn't in vain. Of course they'll never know somebody else finished those games and probably have forgotten about them long before.

This doesn't have to be limited to cartridge games either. It could be a saved game from a hard drive (XBox) or memory card (Playstation) if you happened to have a copy of the same game there was a save for. For the purpose of this particular discussion, I'd prefer that you limit it to saved games that were started by a total stranger or a friend. It isn't quite the same when you pick up where a brother, sister, child, companion or spouse left off.

So the question is: Have you ever resumed somebody else's saved game?