I was a typical child of the 80's growing up my listening to Bros on the radio and being dressed by my mother in some of the ugliest clothes known to have ever existed. My mother for some reason or other had a strange penchant for dressing me in shorts with my sisters hand me down red tights under them. It would have probably been alright had I been a girl but being a boy (and not to mention I had a long curly fro) most people passing me thought I was a girl. So it was my unhappy privilege to walk the earth being thought of as a girl for the early part of my childhood. All of that changed when I hit five and my temper developed. You are probably asking yourself what has a child''s temper has got to do with video games, well let me explain.
Being dressed like a girl was becoming a constant source of deriding by my school chums and that led to me becoming increasingly angry. I started to break things as early as six years old and my mother was at the edge of her breaking point with me. So to combat my urge to break things my mother bought be my first games console. I can still remember it today - my Commodore 64. What a machine. It has 64 kilobytes of processing power and I could play full colour games on it from cassette tapes. Wow that machine literally blew my young six year old mind. Gaming on it was, when it worked, an exhilarating state of the art experience. I loved that machine - until it broke. If ever there was a broken hearted child it was me. At eight years old I had experienced the sadness and depression of loss.
For an adult loss can be a terrible concept to grasp and comprehend but for an eight year old it was the end of the world. I was constantly moping around the house and any and all efforts made by my mother and father fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. I was an 'emo' kid before emo became a fad.
My birthday was fast approaching and my mother and father decided that they needed to do something that turn me into an emotionally positive child. I came home from school one evening to find my birthday presents lying on my bed. Through all the 'crappy'' presents ii could clearly see a box that was somewhat larger than the others. I immediately threw myself at it and frantically tore at the wrapping until the packaging was clearly visible. The feeling that rushed over me was as close to bliss as an eight year old could get Jumping around in glee I could not believe my eyes. I had my own Sega Master System. But wait there was something else, my parents had also bought me Sonic The Hedgehog. Unfreaken beliveable. My parents were awesome.
I quickly ripped it out of its packaging and my father helped me to set it up on the TV in the living room. The anticipation was at fever pitch. We plugged in the Sonic cartridge and turned the system on. I was amazed by the realistic (for that time) graphics. the incredible responsiveness of the console and the incredibly quick load times on games. I played that console almost everyday for the next two years and gathered a substantial collection of games.
When I was ten I started feeling things for girls that I had never felt before. Sudden urges made me want to have a girlfriend and one thing led to another and I had my first girlfriend. Coming from a strict religious family this did not fly well with my parents who upon finding out about my childhood sweetheart immediately confiscated my Master system. I was torn between my console or my girl.. At ten years old nothing was more important to me than my console so you know what had to go. My mother promptly returned my Master system and life as I knew it returned to normal. A month later my Master system packed up and died. That night I cried.
I went to school the following day and saw my ex-girlfriend with another kid and I pondered as to whether I had made the right decision. I quickly realised I had and that an extra month with my beloved console was worth getting rid of a girl for.
One night after a few months of me moping around the house my father had enough and took me to the local video games retailer. He asked me what I wanted I quickly pointed at a Sega Mega drive. He bought it and my mood quickly changed.
tune in to part 2 coming soon but to tie you over until then and to give you some ideas for Christmas, here are a selection of some of my favourite games that are currently out.
Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii at Argos Now £34.29
Tekken 6 on the Xbox and PS3 at Game
Assassins Creed 2 on the Xbox, PC, PS3 and PSP at Amazon |
