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Time in possession: About 6 yearsDescription: Grey Super Nintendo cartidge, good condition.Cost: Unsure, but I couldn't have paid more then 7$ for it. So, 7$ it is.Description: You see, now here is an entry that points out some flaws in this whole project. Really, something as generic as generic comes: This game is a generic shooter that I bought simply because I was collecting SNES games and I enjoy shooters. There's nothing spectacular about it, no story, and no real personal connection to it whatsoever. In fact, it's one of those games that I might accidentally buy twice, not really remembering that I owned a copy in the first place.What does that say about me? That I could own so many video games (and I do own hundreds of them, over 500 at last count, and climbing) that I can no longer appreciate them? When I was young and bought my first NES, the games I had for it were absolute crap: Mission Impossible, Werewolf, Wizards and Warriors 2 and, obviously, Super Mario/Duck Hunt. When the best game for your system is the one it came with, you've got something to think about. But you know what? I loved those games. I played them over and over, despite the fact that they sucked and that I sucked at them. Now I've got hundreds of games that sit in shelves, having been played once, tested, and then put down, possibly forever. This is my childhood dream, come true. It's certainly not as cool as I hoped it would be.What does that say about me?
Time in possession: Roundabouts 5 years
Description: Black Sega Genesis video game cartridge, fair condition. Label has significant peeling and fading. Fortunately, the kick-ass game within remains functional.
Cost: 7$ from a local pawn shop.
Story: Every kid has a friend with cool toys. I don't think I ever was that kid (which might explain why I now own so many games) but I certainly had more then a few friends who were. One of those friends was Justin.When I was younger, I had very few games, which was exactly the opposite of my friend Justin, who would have a new game every week, something that defied logic in my head. I was certainly jealous: He possesses in abundance what I could only dream about. But he was a generous friend, and so when I would visit I would be allowed to try out his games, if not quite to the level that I might wish were the case. Still, a play of a game at Justin's house was usually enough to whet my appetite for more, and those are the memories that flooded through my mind when I, years later, discovered this copy of Rocket Knight Adventures at a pawn shop or flea market.It's a great game. A really fun game. Probably one of the best for Sega's Genesis system, one which a childhood loyalty to Nintendo had made me particularly slow to warm to. But you know what? I think I liked it better when I was playing it for brief moments at Justin's house. Owning the game, being able to play it whenever it fancies me... It's not quite the same. Funny, that.
Time in possession: Probably about 3 years
Description: Grey Super Nintendo Cartridge. Good condition. Photographed really poorly. I mean, really, looking at is is giving me a headache. I'm so sorry.
Cost: I'm going to say something like 15$. It was bought in a wholesale lot off of eBay, so that's a decent roundabout price.
Story: Collecting Super Nintendo games was, for a good couple of years in my life, a bit of an obsession. It was one activity that managed to accomplish some of my favorite activities: Re-living the glory days of my youth, owning that which had previously been denied to me and adding to an impressive collection. In the end, it never really amounted to much, but the thrill of the chase, searching down an elusive game, that was definitely a different kind of high, something that made the occasionally frustrating and fruitless pursuit a little more enjoyable.
Congo's Caper here was one of the many games that I had read about in my childhood subscription to Nintendo Power, the pages of every issue quickly read and re-read dozens of times until they were reduced to mere tatters. As such, there was a romanticized idea of the game in my head with very little basis in reality, as sadly was not uncommon, as was evidenced with one of my previous entries, Robotrek. Perhaps it was because I was at least 20 when I got my hands on a copy, and when I was dying to play it at 12 my laundry list of video game ideals would have been quite a bit different.
Still, it's a handy game to have around, if only to toss at a little cousin or nephew when they grow tired of play Super Mario World.
Time in possession: 3 years? During one of my several eBay sprees.
Description: Sega 32X system, minus cables. Works fine and is in decent condition. A wonderful reminder of Sega's excess and subsequent fall from grace. Also, one of my key "You've got one of THOSE??" comment-grabbing items.
Cost: Pretty cheap- I don't think I paid more then 20$. At least I hope so.
Story: As the end of the 16-Bit video game console wars drew to a close (for those of you not in the know, that would have been the competition between the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo and Turbo Graphix 16 systems, all of which are now conveniently enough download able onto the Nintendo Wii system) there was much speculation as to what the next set of systems would be like. History now shows the next wave to be the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and to a much lesser extent, the Atari Jaguar. So where does this thing come in?
The Sega 32X was supposed to be a genuine 32-bit system (like the Saturn and PlayStation), but rather then a totally new console, it was an add-on to the previous generation's Genesis. The Genesis was no stranger to add ons- It had also had a rather poorly received CD add on which ending up being indirectly involved in the cancellation of Nintendo's planned CD add on and as such as the creation of the Sony PlayStation (hereafter the PSX). But that's all a totally different story. I'm sorry, you probably don't care about any of this, but this is what happens when I read a whole bunch of books about the history of the video game industry. I'm a dork. ANYWAY, to make a long story short, the 32X sucked. It didn't do 3D, which was what people were flocking to the PSX for, and it didn't even do whatever the hell else it was supposed to do well. On top of that, it looked ridiculous on top the the Genesis. For those poor (both in luck and money) folks who had both add ons to their genesis, they were left with a freakish Frankenstein-esque console that really only had a couple of good games that people with a plain old Genesis couldn't play.
So why did I buy the thing?
When I saw the opportunity to own a 32X, I really couldn't resist. It wasn't a lot of money (as I recall) and at that point I had only really known about it through reputation. So, I took it home, dusted off one of my Genesis systems, and plugged the sucker in. It didn't work. I realized it needed another power bar, so I dug one out, plugged it in, turned it on. It didn't work. Then I realized that it needed a cable connecting it to the Genesis for the visual inputs. There, I was stuck, and have been to this day.
As far as can figure, the system works by having some of the work being done by the Genesis, which it then superimposes it's own image on top of. For instance, in the Star Wars arcade game (the only game I have bought for the system) plugging in the Genesis shows me a HUD, while plugging in the 32X shows me a star field. It seems to me that that would be ridiculously hard to program for, which might explain why only a handful of games were made for the monstrosity. It currently sits on my shelf, a reminder of Sega's folly. And my own I guess. Anybody want to sell me the connector cable to one of these things? I don't really want to play it, but it would be nice to have the option....
Time in possession: About a year.Description: Video game card for the Nintendo DS portable gaming system. Includes box and manual. Excellent condition. Also, Sudoku-tastic.Cost: 30$ new.Story: Weird, my first really new item that doesn't really have any long history. What the hell is this story going to be about? I guess we'll see.When I got my Nintendo DS, I was excited by the possibilities that its touch screen presented. While I, like most, was sketical when it first came out, a succession of excellent games won me over to the system and made me want to play it. Brain Age came out shortly after I finally got my hands on it and I picked it up, a descision easily made since it was released at a bargain price.The idea behind Brain Age is that your brain needs excercise to stay fit: Therefore it has a succession of activities that do just that, help you flex those mental muscles. When I was in school, I hated doing "Calcule Mentale" (mental calculations), a weekly math quiz that followed me around through several grades. Why is this any different? Well, in some ways it isn't. There is actually an activity which is just that, doing quick math as fast as you can. I guess the real selling point is that while the game judges you on your performance, you have several other areas to work in as well with much more interesting games (Counting people entering and exiting a house for instance, something that gets a little harder when they start flying in and out of the chimney as well as the doors) . Also, the little floating head avatar (of the guy who came up with the idea) is hilarious, with his various barbs and encouragement.Strangly enough though, I found myself playing it mostly for Soduoku. So yeah, I was using about 200$ of electronics to play that game in the paper.
Time in possession: Around 4 yearsDescription: Super Nintendo Game cartridge, grey plastic. Label and contacts in good condition. Cost: The exact cost has fallen from sight, although it was an eBay purchase, so something like 20$ plus shipping.Story: The SNES was (and still is) my favorite video game console. I spent far too many hours playing away on it and think on it fondly. However, I didn't have a lot of money growing up, and while my family was well enough off, I would very infrequently get games as gifts. As such, when I would get my monthly issues of Nintendo Power (one of the few family sanctioned Nintendo products- It did, after all, encourage reading!) I would typically spend a fair amount of energy coveting the various games I would read about but never (at least in the near future) own. And then I got a job. While I've tapered off, as soon as I had a source of expendable income, I quickly began to spend it on all the fun toys I could never have when I was younger. This quickly amounted to a large collection of video games, the majority of which were for the Super Nintendo. Sadly however, it was also quickly apparent that my local pawnshops and game stores didn't have a ready supply of all of my sought after games, and so I had to look elsewhere. To make an already long story short, I bought this baby off of eBay.The unfortunate bit is that when I finally got the game I wasn't all that enamoured with it. I mean, it's a decent game, but I pretty much played it for an hour to make sure it worked when I got it, and then put it away. It's on a list of games that I need to play that has been lost somewhere, but I don't see it coming off any time in the near future. There's a moral in there somewhere, but I don't know if I've quite got it figured out.
Time in possession: About 6 years
