Goodbye Old School Consoles - Round 2

I've been hanging onto my old consoles since I got them way back when and I've been telling myself it was for nostalgia. These were my childhood and a part of me didn't want to let them go. Now that the first two rounds are complete, I realized I never needed them in the first place. The memories of playing the games and the fun I had playing solo and with friends is better than having the consoles and games themselves. Having them just sit around is only serving one purpose: taking up space.

A second thing I learned is that because I had good taste in games and took care of my stuff, even when I was young, they're worth a lot of dough today! When I started eBay pricing them, I was amazed at the value they came up to. The original Mega Man for the NES was my top game so far coming in at $61, but even some of the ones I figured were common, like Link to the Past, went for over $50.

Anyways, I titled this post round two and it's actually a bit late because most of the second round, the Super Nintendo games, have already sold. Tomorrow, when I get my next batch of monthly free listings, I'm going to list the last 3 games (Donkey Kong Country trilogy) and the console itself online and it will be complete. I didn't list the DKC games with the rest because I wanted to play through them again. After playing some of the first game and all the way through the second, I decided it was enough and I'm ready to sell.

I do have to say, this round began bringing up some hard feelings. This includes my copy of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past which, if you've seen my other posts, was a very special game to me growing up. However, I've decided to part with the original because I also have the GBA version (with Four Swords) which I plan on keeping. So any time I want to play this classic (in a non Minecraft sense) I can fire up my DS (which I'm also keeping) and relive the original.

DKC 3 Time
(flash+disposable camera=bad photo)

Back when the third Donkey Kong Country game came out, Nintendo Power had one of their contests to send in a photo showing your fastest completion time. I played my thumbs off and pulled in a time of 3h37m to 103% complete. I must have made duplicate prints on the photos because I still have a copy. Anyways, I send this in and my name is in one of the issues of Nintendo Power. I know I've got the issue of NP somewhere out in the shed, but that box is still buried. When I run across it, I'll take a snapshot of it as well. It wasn't until my name was published in this list, however, that I realized 103% wasn't "complete", that 105% was. I've since beaten it to that amount by using a code to turn off the checkpoint barrels in the levels (meaning you have to complete an entire level in one shot).

Once I'm through pruning down my games, my Nintendo Power and Strategy Guide collection is next to go. I was a long time subscriber of that magazine from the end of the NES era through the Wii and still have every single one. The oldest of which are in page protectors to keep them clean even... I'm weird, I know.

So, for posterity, here is my complete collection from the Super Nintendo.

• Donkey Kong Country
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest
• Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie's Double Trouble
• Mega Man X
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Vegas Stakes
• Super Mario All-Stars
• Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Super Mario World
• F-Zero
• SimCity
• SimCity 2000
• Monopoly
• The Magical Quest: staring Mickey Mouse

Next round: the Nintendo 64.

Obligatory First Post: About Me

I guess I should start out with the basic post you see on almost every other blog in the world, the "About Me" post. For the record, I hate talking about myself, but I do love talking about games. With that said, this is more of an "About my Gaming History" than about me. So here we go.

I'm a child of the 1980's. I grew up in the decline of Atari and the rise of Nintendo and the boom of home entertainment. But my first gaming system was actually neither of those. I started my gaming with Pong on a 15" Color TV. High class there. But it got me interested in it and I spent lots of time playing that simple game.

A little later on, when one of my older sisters was at college, she left her Atari at home. That blew me away compared to the simplistic Pong. I remember jumping over crocodile infested ponds in Pitfall and gobbling up endless dots and ghosts in Pac-Man. So much fun, and I wish she hadn't taken it back after she graduated.

So there I was without a console to play on when my neighbor got this thing called a "Nintendo". I had a hard time playing that thing at first. It had two whole buttons on it! lol. But I was enthralled with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt and begged my parents to buy me one. They eventually gave in and sometime in the late 1980's (I don't remember exactly when) they bought it for me. I was in love with gaming from that point forward. I spent a majority of my free time in front of the TV, which had been upgraded to a whopping 19", playing the original Super Mario Brothers games, the Legend of Zelda, Captain Skyhawk, Tetris, Adventures of Kirby and so many more. I was addicted and loved it!

After playing the NES for a good long time, my next big upgrade was to the Super Nintendo in 1994. It made all those 8bit games look like kiddie games. I sunk even deeper into the gaming world through Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, Final Fantasy II, Super Mario RPG and so many more. I played these games so much, I'm surprised they didn't wear out. In fact, I still have the vast majority of Link to the Past memorized, and I'll talk about what that means in today's time in a later post...

At this point in time, I was definitely a Nintendo Fanboy, even if I didn't realize it. I knew there was a Sega Genesis out there, but couldn't care less about it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Sonic the Hedgehog at a friends house, but give me Link and Mario any day. So, sticking with that fanboyism, I moved on to the Nintendo 64 in 2008. I honestly didn't even consider a Sega Dreamcast or Sonly Playstation at that point in time.

Once again, I was blown away by the awesome graphics of Super Mario 64 and the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This was about the time when I started making good friends, many of whom I still have today, and we started gaming together on the N64. We'd race in Mario Kart 64, shoot the tar out of each other in Goldeneye 007 and eventually Perfect Dark. We would race Extreme G or Cruisn' USA and even try our hand at some Turok: Rage Wars multiplayer. It was at this stage when gaming started to become social and a whole new world of enjoyment opened up.

I also have a lot of great memories from the N64's single player games. I loved the destruction of Blast Corps and the scope and feel of Jet Force Gemini. I had a blast with Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. I also can't rave enough for Paper Mario and Donkey Kong 64. Last year I began experimenting with emulation again and I was able to play a few of these on the big screen using a laptop and PS3 controller. Didn't even have to dig out the old console and games. But back to the timeline...

It was also during these years in the late 1990's when I started gaming on the PC as well. I played games such as The 7th Guest and 11th Hour. I loved solving the puzzles in the Myst series and blasting enemies in Descent. I had fun with Black & White and built huge metropolises in Sim City. I also got hooked on StarCraft and Diablo. On top of all that, me, with my little Dial-up Internet connection, ventured online for the first time. So much fun. But, consoles still took up most of my time and I played them the most.

In 2002, not long after it had been released, I took the next console leap and moved to the Nintendo Gamecube. 3D got a whole lot better looking, but I wasn't blown away as much as I was from the SNES to N64 jump. Still, I enjoyed Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and even Pikmin. But to be honest, there wasn't a whole lot about the Gamecube that I remember playing. Not as many memorable moments I guess. It was here that I began to slip away from Nintendo as my "only" console. I started playing more on the PC and even fired up the N64 more often. That of course changed with the release of Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure. I had to go out and buy a Gameboy Advanced with GCN Cable just to play this game with a friend. Now that was fun.

But all gaming eras come to an end. I believe it was in 2005 for my birthday when my wife bought me something I never expected. She bought me a Playstation 2, my first non-Nintendo console. Talk about a whole new world of gaming! I suddenly found myself with access to a wealth of great games to discover, some of which quickly became new favorites. There was Final Fantasy X and X-2, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, the Sly Cooper Trilogy, Ratchet & Clank series, Jak and Daxter and so many more. Plus, for the first time, I was able to play Playstation 1 games. I never really bought that many of them, but I did get a copy of Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX. I also picked up Chrono Cross and the original Gran Turismo.

This put me in a conundrum when the current generation of consoles started coming out. I didn't know which way to go. A Playstation 3 was insanely expensive at the time and all I heard about the Xbox 360 was how frequently it Red Ringed. So there was Nintendo with it's non-HD, limited online Wii for a price point that was affordable. On top of all that, it was also Nintendo so I naturally I went with it first.

Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a blast. I still get chills thinking about the final battle in Twilight Princess. That was so much fun. I also discovered the Rayman Raving Rabbids series and found the comedy hilarious. Those games played host to a couple of group parties, including a Halloween one. There's something fun about shooting rabbids with a plunger while dressed up in costume yourself. ;)

After a while, I stopped playing the Wii and instead played the PS2 more often, all while saving up money to buy a Playstation 3. I'm not sure why exactly I stopped and never went back. I guess you can only waggle a controller so many times before it gets old and developers didn't seem to want to innovate enough for me. So I moved on, or rather back. I might pick up a copy of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and play it again one day.

Eventually, I had saved up enough cash to buy a Playstation 3. I also happened to catch a clearance sale at Toys-R-Us and got a 40GB model for $299 as they were being discontinued. And thus, I entered into the realm of modern HD Gaming. At this point in time, many of my co-workers had PS3s and were playing online every Friday night. The game of choice at the time: SOCOM: Confrontation. By the time I jumped in, most of the game-breaking bugs were fixed and I had a blast playing it with the guys. We've also spent countless hours playing Call of Duty: World at War and Black Ops as well as racing in DiRT 2 and Gran Turismo 5. Currently, we're split between some of us playing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and others (myself included) playing Resistance 2 or Uncharted 3 while we wait for the price to drop on Future Solider.

Solo play, I played the entire Ratchet & Clank: Future trilogy and loved it. I also have played all the Uncharted games, Portal 2 and Final Fantasy XIII. There are others too, of course, but those are some of my favorites

Not too long after I got my PS3, a friend of mine wanted to upgrade his Xbox 360 to a newer one that wasn't prone to the Red Ring of Death and he sold me his old one relatively cheap. With that, my collection of current-gen consoles was complete. I had a Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. Finally, I was able to play the Halo games at my own house and not just at a friends. I also played Fable, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Half-Life 2 and Portal (via the Orange Box) and several others.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and my Xbox finally Red Ringed on me. It was sad, but I eventually saved enough money to buy the Arcade Version and I moved my hard drive over from the dead system and kept on going.

That short novel is a basic recap of my gaming history from Pong to the current generation. As for what I'm currently playing, I'm going back and forth between the Ratchet & Clank Collection on the Playstation 3 and Minecraft on the Xbox 360. Minecraft has become a little bit of an obsession here recently. According to Raptr, I've played well over 200 hours. Love it! More to come on my in-game creations soon...

And as for all those old consoles, I never got rid of a single one. I still have every console and almost every game I ever owned for them. As far as I know, they all still work too. Eventually, I'll get a full game-list online of every game I own.

And with that, I'd like to say: Hello, my name is Ebi Furya, and I am a gamer. Now let's go play something!