extrabastardformula says:

I wouldn’t say there was a game that made me a hardcore gamer. I’d say that I’ve always been one even if I didn’t know it, and that the question is what game made me realize it.

I guess I’ve known ever since I loaded up Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest in NESticle so many years ago that I would be doing this for the rest of my life. It wasn’t the first game I emulated. That would probably be Blaster Master or one of the Super Mario Bros games. That’s not what’s important. Discovering the joys of old things I might remember or that I might have missed the first time, those are wonderful things but ultimately irrelevant.

What is important is that somewhere along the line videogames (and if you are the sort who are offended that I write that as one phrase, that’s good. It’s good to care about things. It’s part of what makes us all human. There will be people who will tell you that caring about little things like how I write videogames is horrible and trivial. But Caring about little things never stops any of us from caring about big things. I’d say it’s quite the opposite. It encourages a philosophy of care that has fallen away from the Anonymous crowd who screams in derision of anything they perceive as “serious business” and will not stop seething with rage for anything they consider “emo” as though feelings were the greatest poison there is. So let them sneer and push all of their emotions deeper down bottling them up until they have gone rancid and turn into a sour cancer within their hearts. You and I might be able to shed a tear for them that they would refuse to shed themselves. We are people who can care) form a reference point and offer a frame that helps me keep the world in perspective.

I know that after washing out of school I was selling Korean BBQ out of the front window of my kitchen, and that despite not having enough money for any furniture that I could not scrounge on heavy trash day. During this period in my life I was very much into anime and I know that back then I only knew the Japanese term for heavy trash and not the American term, and that none of my friends knew the English term either. Now, years later I am unable to recal the Japanese term (and would appreciate it if someone were to let me know in the comments section) but I do remember that in the days when I was waiting for the people to show up and get their thin strips of grilled beef, wrapped in a tortilla with fresh chopped pears, apples, sesame seeds and a clove or two of roasted garlic I would sit on the floor of my kitchen (no furniture, remember) and pass the hours with Donkey Kong Country 2. I never did find all of those DK coins.

It wasn’/t until years later that I found out about that one coin hidden in the bonus level as I was reading David Sirlin’s website. I haven’t gone back to it either. It just seems like it would be cheating. Not in the sense that using FAQs is cheating. No, it would be cheating in a much more important sense in that Donkey Kong Country 2 was part of my life as the sort of person who would constantly nom on the meat products. Now, these years later when I won’t buy meat (or accept meat other people have bought for me, though I am ok with taking leftovers from work or eating anything that’s been discarded, hooray freeganism) Donkey Kong Country 2 is a part of the past. It is a game of bananas but in my heart it will also be a game of meat in a way that even Cooking Mama won’t be despite how it obviously is a game filled with meat.

It’s funny what hasn’t changed. Here I am in my room, lying on the floor staring at an LCD monitor which sits on the floor just like me because once again I have no furniture. Only this time it’s a voluntary decision. I’ve been refusing furniture (which means no bed either) out of habit or something else, but still I refuse furniture, not unlike refusing the Donkey Kong Country games.

to paraphrase the bible

When I was Donkey Kong Country, I spake as Donkey Kong Country, I understood as Donkey Kong Country, I thought as Donkey Kong Country: but when I became The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, I put away Donkey Kongish things.

Maybe I really should buy a chair.