The letter I wrote to my television yesterday put me into a nostalgic frame of mind. Ah, the good old days, when my tv and I would spend the mornings together over a hot cup of tea, or sit down for a lunch break, or go on those dates that ended in the wee hours of the morning, me sleeping on the couch while the tv, well, just kind of sat in the corner.
As I looked back over those years, I was suddenly reminded that my entire adolescence was spent staring at a television, but not to watch the shows. No, video games were my preferred method of time-wasting. And my top 10? I’m glad you asked.
10) N64 Super Mario Cart – this game affected my college GPA by at least .25 of a point. There were nights when my room mate Doug, good old Mario and I watched the sun set, and then rise, just the three of us, cruising through the jungle or down Rainbow Road.
9) Anything Legend of Zelda – I knew I had found the girl I would marry when Maile claimed to actually enjoy watching this game with me and trying to figure out the various puzzling boards.
8) 007 Goldeneye – this shaved another .25 of a point off my collegiate GPA, and also introduced into my vocabulary the words “proximity mine”
7) Double Dragon – I remember stuffing a $1 bill into the arcade change machine, hearing those quarters drop gleefully into the catcher, scooping their wonderful weight into my pocket, and running straight for the Double Dragon arcade game, wondering if life could get any better
6) Super Mario Brothers – when Chad Fisher was the first one of my friends to get the NES, and I played this game, I would lay awake at night pondering the most tactful way of approaching both his parents and mine to inquire about the possibility of getting adopted into his family
5) Pitfall Harry – running, jumping over alligators, clinging to vines, leaping over scorpions. To my 6 year old mind, the only adventure more exciting was my morning bus ride.
4) NBA Jam – three words for you HE’S ON FIRE!
3) Sega’s EA Sports NHL Hockey – oh for the days when I could dominate an evening with Brett Hull at my command (when Burn wasn’t hogging the Blues)
2) Asteroids – a game in space? with ever-approaching, splitting asteroids? and UFOs? and a ship/small triangle that could shoot and even fly around if you so chose? Awesome.
1) Pacman – that simple theme song followed by the never-ending wakkawakkawakkawakka as pacman flew through the course was pure genius. The brown ghost, Clyde, however, was not. Yet Blinky, the red ghost, was fast, and that made all the difference.
So what are some of the video games that take you back?