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(I made this a separate email since you don’t like reading multi-subject emails.)
At this point I no longer consider myself a gamer because there’s nothing to interest me anymore. This email is my eulogy.
I don’t plan on buying any Generation consoles, and the only time I turn on my Wii now is when my young relatives come over. The only games we play are NSMBWii, Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros Melee. (It may be hard to believe for hardcore SSBM players but yes, little kids like playing SSBM too.)
I’ve played video games for a long time. My first experience with video games was with an Atari. I don’t know if it was the 2600 or 5200, I remember playing an FPS-like tank game where you rotate the scope, and a 2D football game.
After that we got a Sega Genesis which I loved. Our first games were Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Joe Montana ’94 football. We used to wake up at around 5 or 6 so we had time to play before our parents forced us to get ready for school. My mom’s friends children introduced us to new games like Street Fighter 2 and Streets of Rage 2. I played Streets of Rage 2 so much that I broke the B button on TWO Genesis controllers. Video games were like an adventure, because the kids my brother and I knew had difference systems. We had one set of cousins who still had the old NES, where we played the original SMB, Duckhunt and Tecmo Bowl. Another set of family friends had a SNES, so going to their house meant playing Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, and Super Soccer.
My mom had a rule where we could only have one video game system in the house at a time. The feminists would be pleased with such a harsh lifestyle for us little boys! In order to buy an N64, we had to sell the Genesis. The N64 brought its own set of games, though the ones we played most were Mario Kart and Goldeneye. Through my school friends I first experienced Super Smash Brothers. My cousins bought a Playstation. I hated the load times for the Playstation and thought the N64 was much better because of it. Still, whenever one side of the family visited the other, we often brought our respective game consoles so we could play both. This is also when I chose which set of friends to hang out with. In elementary school the nerd/jock dichotomy isn’t as strong, so there were plenty of kids like me who enjoyed both video games and sports. However, as us boys got older, some put down the video games to play sports while others put down the footballs and basketballs to play video games, and I ended up in the latter group.
After the N64 came the Dreamcast, while my cousins and my school friends went the PS2 route. My brother was also old enough to start working and he bought his own PS2 which I was never allowed to play while he was around. The Dreamcast was ok, but the only game I liked for it was Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I quickly got bored of the Dreamcast and sold it to a friend (because of mom), and used the money towards buying a Gamecube. This was during middle school, and also right in the midst of the “console wars.” My friends and I had arguments about which console was the best, why Xbox sucked, why the Gamecube was gay and kiddy (feminists’ heads would explode if they listened to an actual conversation between middle school boys), why the PS2 was an old system that constantly broke down and STILL had long load times, etc. Of course we were all still happy to play each other’s systems. Going to one friend’s house meant Xbox Day and Halo, while my house meant Gamecube day and Super Smash Brothers Melee, and another friend’s house for PS2 to play Gran Turismo and Grand Theft Auto 3.
(a side note: my best friend growing up ended up becoming a “professional” SSBM player who went around the country and even to Japan a few times to play tournaments, and I think he was ranked very high for several years. Back then we were evenly matched, and if I put in all the time he did I probably could’ve done. However, my mother grew irate with all the time I spent playing video games with him and forced me to study for school instead.)
I still played with some of my friends in high school, but by then the jock/nerd dichotomy was very strong. Even I was getting sick of some of the nerdy kids. I grew apart from console gaming and took up PC gaming, which is good for solo-play. A few of my friends showed me Warcraft 3 and Counter-strike, and those two games filled my video game habit for the next several years.
My friends then also played Diablo 2. To this day I remember what happened with that; I excitedly told them I was going to the mall after church one sunday to buy my own copy. I brought it home, took the box out of the bag and placed it next to the computer for me to install while I went to the bathroom. While in the bathroom I heard my mom scream with a mix of horror and anger. I rushed over to see what was wrong. She was holding the box in one hand and she shouted something along the lines of “I WILL NOT LET A GAME LIKE THIS BE IN MY HOUSE!!!” And that was the end of my Diablo career until I bought Diablo 3 years later.
Generation 7 was released while I was still playing Warcraft 3 (and DotA). I didn’t really care about the Wii, PS3 or 360 when they came out. I also knew that $599 US dollars was a rip off for any console. My brother did get a Wii, which was a huge hit whenever his college-aged friends were over. The only game we’d all play was Wii Sports. I still wasn’t convinced enough to actually buying it though.
I do remember when and why I later bought a Wii though. I was on a GameFAQs message board when someone linked to your Birdman Fallacy article. Through that I found this blog and your coverage of Generation 7. It was the combination of seeing you post Japanese videos about Monster Hunter 3 and your excitement for NSMBWii that made me go out and buy a Wii. I was also expecting a Star Wars Jedi Lightsaber game to come out. I think almost all Star Wars fans dreamed of playing with lightsabers, and with the Wii I thought that dream would finally come true.
Since then, I haven’t been as excited to play video games. I did pretty much everything I could do in Monster Hunter 3. At that point I had younger relatives who liked playing Wii Sports and Mario Kart Wii, so I bought Mario Kart for them to play when they came over my house. Luckily for me, the Wii was backwards compatible so I could still play SSBM on it too. I do still have my old Gamecube collecting dust in the basement.
I’ve probably left out a lot of gaming experiences in this email but it gives a rough summary of my video game life. I’ve tasted almost all the consoles that came out during my lifetime. On a few occasions I even played with a Sega Saturn and a Virtual Boy. But I am confident in saying that I’m now a former gamer. I don’t have the time to pour into video games like I used to as a kid/teenager, and there’s nothing out there now to pull me back into gaming and use up my precious time.
Sometimes I do think about how much more simpler life was when I just went to school, did homework, and then play video games by myself or with friends.
I haven’t played Monster Hunter 3. Should I get it for the Wii, wait to play it for the Wii U, or play it on the 3DS if I ever get that?
There is never enough on a Nintendo system to make me want to buy it. What I want is to tug along my Virtual Console library (NES/SNES/etc) and get a couple of games for the system. If only Nintendo had an account system…
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