I can remember back to my 5th birthday party that took place nearly 20 years ago (wow, that’s absolutely scary to even think it has been that long). Anyway, the party was held at Showbiz Pizza (now Chuck E. Cheese’s). I’m sure the party was great; my entire family was there, but the one thing I remember most about that day was that I received a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). My parents actually tricked me; the first Nintendo box I opened was stuffed with clothes! You just don’t do that to a kid! Luckily a second box contained the actual system.
Seeing as I wasn’t really able to take part in most of the physical activities that kids my age did, video games were my primary form of entertainment. Some of my fondest childhood memories revolved around times spent involving the NES. I often find myself daydreaming back to those better times in my life, hanging out with my aunt and cousins at their place on Sardis Lake. Days were spent watching my cousins play games like Baseball, Super Mario Bros 3 and The Legend of Zelda. I would give anything to go back and relive those experiences.
Anyway, jumping back to “reality”, I was big into video games up until around 2000 or so when computers took over as my primary mode of entertainment. I played games on the computer but it seems my interest in them just slowly wore off. I rarely play computer games now, and usually just do so for benchmarking purposes.
This does not mean I have lost the love I once had for video games. I just don’t think today’s games, with their ‘fancy’ graphics, can compare to the classics that started it all years ago. I still own a NES and play it semi-regularly, although I wish I had more games for it. Emulators and ROMs are great but there is still no replacing the original.
So a few nights ago I had a dream about an NES game (yes I am weird) which reminded me of a website I had bookmarked many months ago, TASVideos. This website specializes in tool-assisted speedruns of classic video games. Tool assisted means that the authors of these videos use emulators and tools such as slow-motion and savestates to overcome human limitations of skill and reflex. Other “tricks” used include manipulating luck, taking damage to save time and abusing programming errors in the games. The videos found here have taken months (and possibly years) to plan and accomplish, and the end results are simply amazing!
This site brought back so many childhood memories it’s hard to describe. Watching someone complete The Legend of Zelda in under 26 minutes is incredible.
Or how about beating Super Mario Bros in less than 5 minutes!
I think I’ll always be a gamer!