Marvelous Men and their Gaming Machines
Christmas 1997.

All I had wished for from my parents was a Sony PlayStation. All my friends were going to get one, and it was the 'in' thing. My nature of collecting videogames and consoles borders on manic nowadays, but back then resources were limited, and I amused myself by busily flicking through gaming magazines looking for all the games I would love to play on such a fine piece of kit. You can probably guess the anticipation I had leading up to the 25th.

Christmas morning comes, and rushing down the stairs to lunge at the presents, I feel great excitement welling up in the pit of my stomach. As was customary in my house, smaller presents are opened first, and then we work up to the big one.. oh yes, I've been waiting for this..

I tear at the corner of the wrapping paper, basking in the joy that lay underneath...

I see.. a word.

An unexpected word..

Sega.....?

Had they betrayed all of the advice and requests I had laid at their feet? Had my parents made the mistake of buying a Saturn instead of a PlayStation?

Yes, and No.

They had not bought me a Saturn (with hindsight, thank fuck).

They had bought me a fucking Mega Drive.

A 9-year-old piece of gaming equipment.

I was not an angry youth, however, and I calmly explained the age of the gift, and the ridicule that would be levelled at me by my 'friends'. My dear father exclaimed his surprise, and thought he had bought the correct item, and apologised. My mother however disagreed with this view and noted that they bought the MegaDrive 'because it was cheap' and that I should have better things to do with my time than play videogames (from the person that spends 2.5 hours an evening watching mind-numbing soap operas).

Luckily however, my dad packed up the device and returned it, buying me an N64 to make up for things.

No, I never got a PlayStation, but the N64 was f'kin awesome!! GoldenEye FTW!

On a further note, I have bought many games over eBay, none have disappointed me except one.

Xenogears.

The game was good, very good even, but at the time it only had a limited release in the US, and was relatively rare. I paid $80 for the sucker (about £65 at the time), and was pleased with my purchase.

Move forward 6 months.

SquareSoft decide to rerelease Xenogears. It's now worth about $10.

Fucksocks.

Also, after visiting the US last year, I find Oreos to be a big disappointment, as well as anything Hershey related. Yuck.
(Lythium deals in lead, my friend., Tue 1 Jul 2008, 14:10, 1 reply)

N64 wins over PS1 anyday
Perfect dark and Goldeneye FTW
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 20:44, closed)