Gaming with No Roots

By: Mike
Maybe it is just the good feeling that we call nostalgia which has inspired me to spend hours creating this memorial of my childhood past time. Maybe because I am growing up too fast and am trying to keep and cherish a part of the young years. Whatever the reason, I finally contributed my ideas and stories with those of others in the internet NES community. I find sharing experiences with people like you that enjoy the system, instead of the normal: “You still play that?” remark of onlookers, is healthy.

I have to laugh whenever ‘they’ use the ‘get with the times’ remark since most of them were either huge SEGA fanatical hedgehogs or were simply not born at that time. The latter provides the greatest entertainment for me and should keep their mouths shut – the only game they have played from that time was Super Mario Brothers, and it was probably on a different system or their personal computer.

I have two great examples of both: SEGA boy and youngster.

The first is one of my best friends since I was five. His idea of gaming was a little different than mine, being that he was a SEGA fanboy and I a Nintendo (back before Playstation, or anything else, you either tilted towards one or the other). He had memories of playing the Master System at his aunt’s house, and I had mine of playing the Original Nintendo with my cousins. I mentioned to him, about a month ago, I had been working on NES Player and loved old school games. Naturally, he agreed that the best games around were still the old- fashioned kind.

My other example is of one of my cousins, who is a year younger than me (on my father’s side, which did not share more than a handful of NES memories with). That one year difference meant a great deal because of being born at the beginning of Nintendo’s reign – ’85. He had only played “Super Mario Bros 3″, “Dr Mario”, and a few other games (pretty hardcore) and all this really gave him was a head start for the sixteen-bit Super Nintendo.

Well, this summer, I packed my NES (and a handful of games) for our shore trip. He came down with us for a week and nearly fell on the ground laughing when I popped out my Nintendo packaged inside a thick see-through bag. He then asked me: “You brought your PS2, too, right?” And to his disappointment, I had to say no. After a few grumbles bubbled and popped outside of his mouth, he looked at my stack of games. “You have “Final Fantasy 1″?? I just played the 9th one over my friends house! Is it good?” One enthusiastic reply was my answer.

As a side note, earlier in that same year I had introduced him to the so-called “real” (traditional) RPGs – “Lunar 2″ on the Playstation. Ever since then he has been hooked.

So, after a quick soft blow on the cart, I saw the red power lit. Selecting my party crew, we started out, like normal, in the overworld. Before I had even moved one step, he already had the game judged. “This is the best FF game, did you say? This game sucks! The graphics look like they were drawn by a five-year old!” Because of my secret, natural instinct to defend what one adores, I tried to make him see things my way. Games back then did not have the capability of what the newest XX 3000 machine can achieve. I was the history teacher and, he, an annoyance to the class that had to be lectured. Following the unsuccessful teachings to the dunce, I fought a few imps and he kept pestering me to shut it off. He then proceeded to try my other games and, like a attention deficit disorder case, he judged each and every one in record time of, at a maximum, 5 minutes.

These are only two examples, but both show how much of each side thinks. There are the ones that love – or at least respect – and the others that close their minds and automatically hate it. I have not seen more than a few that were in between these two classes.

Again, some continue to tell me to get with the times and graphics, even after my attempts of conversion. I open my lesson book again by explaining patiently of the fact that I own a PSone, PS2, DC, N64 and still play the NES (at an average) the most. If they still make fun or think I am strange, I treat them respectfully ignorant. Obviously, they do not hold the one thing that everything in the world has: roots.

We make family trees that display our ancestors and relatives whom we still remember and reminisce from time to time, just as with gamers. Why do you think there is such a huge surrounding towards the Atari 2600, as well? These newer gamers are oblivious to past consoles and may base their roots upon the N64 and PSone, which they think are the best systems ever made.

Everyone, and everything, has roots and if you don’t recognize them and appreciate them together, you cannot fully involve yourself into new experiences.