Page 50 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

things? And
even if you find
something you
like, you don’t
stick with it, be-
cause you’re still
trying other
things. I mean,
How I Found My Video Game Soul years passed, there were more and more games no matter how good it is, with that much vari-
at my fingertips. Soon after Gameboy emulators, ety, you probably have something better
Some say that no one is born with a soul. more emulators hit the scene... Atari 2600, NES, available, right? But then you get filled up,
and you don’t even want to eat any more.
Sega Master System/Game Gear, Colecovision,
Some believe that one has to earn a soul. The the list goes on and on... I’ll tell you right now that I probably never
soul is an essence deep inside, though reflected And, of course, that was not the end either. played half of the games I had for emulation.
on the outside. No matter how well one draws,
they are no artist until they can create images in Further upgrades of both emulation technology I had TOO MUCH variety. I would go
and my computer’s motherboard yielded Super
through and play each game for five or ten
their head that never existed before. A man can Nintendo, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 to the minutes. Two hours and ten-to-twenty
learn instruments and musical notation, but he is
no musician until he can hear a song in his head bunch. I had several hundred games. games later, I would be “filled-up;” ex-
hausted and tired of playing video games.
Then, over a thousand.
that no one has heard before. When men like I finally gave away my consoles, having deter- But that’s only on the surface of my reali-
these see, hear, and feel the essence of what the mined that they were superfluous pieces of archaic zation. Deeper inside, I realized that playing
love deep down in the core of their beings, they
KNOW they have a soul. hardware. There was no way I could have fore- this Jumping Flash game was “real.” And I
can’t even quantify what makes it so. Emu-
seen the scope of that mistake...
But what does it take for a gamer? How can And my descent to video game hell. lators sometimes don’t have the color or
we look within and know what’s there? Surely
joysticks and high scores alone do not give a I had sold my soul to the Tramiels* and I never sound right-on with that of consoles, but it’s
knew it. I slowly lost my urge to play video games.
more than that...
man a soul. So what then? Can one achieve My playing had slowed to a near halt. Gaming had It’s the FEEL.
video game enlightenment? Travel to a video lost its flavor, and I didn’t even know why. Finally, It’s the essence.
Valhalla? Find gamer’s salvation with a cyber-
Jesus and electric-Buddha? I traveled to video when I had no rational recourse left, I sold my It’s the fact that somewhere, deep down
inside, we know when something’s real or
computer in an attempt to find salvation.
game hell and back. Hallelujah! I was to begin to see the light... not.
Here’s my story:
It started years ago with VGB (Virtual Game- One day, I found a game for the PlayStation Just as margarine will never replace but-
boy Emulator). called “Jumping Flash” on sale for 99 cents. My ter.
Just as Miracle Whip will never replace
brother had a PlayStation. I had a dollar. I had
I realized that I could, from the comfort of my never heard of the game but thought, “At that mayonnaise.
own computer, find and download Game Boy
games from all over the Internet. Computer price, how can I not?” I got home and I played that Emulation will never replace consoles.
game for hours. Don’t think I’m recommending it
For the same reason Neo wanted to es-
games never quite “did it” for me. Console or anything! This actually was only a mediocre cape the Matrix... Because I have a soul,
games were always simpler, and more fun for game at best. But this experience epitomized the and you just can’t replace REALITY.
me. But now I could have all the Game Boy
games I wanted, and I didn’t even have to buy soul of gaming that I had lost over the years of
emulation. It made me remember: You can have
*(In case you don’t understand, that’s my
them. fun playing a game, even if it’s not that good. way of saying “Video-Game
BWAHAHAHAHA...
But it didn’t stop there. Emulator technology You ever go to an all-you-can-eat buffet? You devil” without any further use of
video, game, or both as a prefix.)
ever go from dish-to-dish, trying out all the different
improved, and I upgraded my computer. As the
ants. Well as the saying goes, It Was a New dead but instead of making new games,
Day Yesterday, But It’s an Old Day Now (Jethro they just remade the same old ones that
was looking around on the Internet re- Tull song for those of you scratching your people had been playing for years.
I I centy, trying to dig up some new informa- heads), and there are new battles to be fought. Games like Joust, River Raid, Pole Posi-
tion on Microsoft’s latest video game opus, Unfortunately, while the rest of the world has tion, and Pac-Man just weren’t that inter-
and I stumbled across some information on moved on to weapons of the pistol variety, Nin- esting anymore, especially compared to
the guns Nintendo is bringing to bear. The tendo seems not to have learned the lesson of the exciting new titles that Nintendo was
time is quickly approaching high noon, and its former adversary, Atari, and brought only a pumping out.
those gunfighters who have no more fight left rapier to the fight. Now let’s go back to the present. Q:
in them have gone indoors with the townsfolk. Let us travel back in time to when the What is Nintendo’s marketing strategy for
Straight out of the old spaghetti western clas- Tramiel family bought Atari from Time-Warner. their new game system? A: Another Mario
sic A Fistful of Dollars, a three way standoff is Wanting to turn the video game company into a game. Another freak’n Zelda game. All the
about to take place. Sony with it’s PS2, Nin- computer giant, the new owners shelved the same stuff, over and over again. I sin-
tendo with its GameCube, and of course Mi- then revolutionary 8-bit Atari 7800 in 1984, even cerely hope that there is at least one Nin-
crosoft with the X-Box. though the unit was completely ready to take tendo executive reading this article, be-
Long ago, Nintendo had vanquished its old the market by storm. Nintendo came out with cause if not, Nintendo is gonna get
nemesis Atari (who came to battle with a ba- the NES in 1985 and with it, revolutionary new creamed.
nana and a pointed stick) in a display of games. You may have heard of them, Super
swordplay so furious the Dread Pirate Roberts Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid,
would have applauded the skill of the combat- Rygar, etc. Atari brought the 7800 back from the
Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 50