I began gaming at a young age, around 4 or 5, my family and I lived in Austria at the time. My dad had always been big into games and one Xmas decided to introduce his girls to the wonderful world of gaming. The three of us opened up matching grey GameBoy monstrosities! Looking back, I’m not even sure how a 4 year old could even hold on to one of those things. The idea behind them was so my sisters and I could link together with those too short cables so you were within punching range and play Vs. Tetris, but my two sisters grew out of it. Keeping true to my tomboy roots I however stuck with the flashing colors and storylines this new world had to offer.


My first console also came to me when I lived in Europe, which explains why a Sega Genesis was welcomed into my home and not an NES or SNES. My dad and I would play together, on solo games he would play and I would watch and oooh and aaah and screech when we came near to death. Then we’d pop in Streets of Rage and there would be father and 5 year old daughter kicking the crap out of all those baddies in co-op mode! No matter what we were playing we found a way to make it cooperative, especially when we first were introduced the Zelda series.

But before I go there I’m feeling the need to digress on the dynamics of my family, which is the only source of understanding I have for my love of gaming. In general the family is as follows: My mom (that’s one girl), me and my two sisters (that’s four), my Oma (that’s 5!) and my poor daddy who must deal with us all, even the dog is a girl! He is severely outnumbered so I guess one of us was bound to be the tomboy and being the youngest after two girls (with my dad obviously hoping for a boy)… that’s me! My sisters come and go from games, but since the Xmas we got the Nintendo 64, I haven’t seen them touch a game until the Wii then they all took a shot at Guitar Hero III, hell even my mom called me to ask how to set it up while my dad was at work. And here’s the best part, my Oma has a Gameboy color to play Tetris on, she’s 78!

So I guess we do appear to be a regular gaming family, but my dad and I are the only one who stick with it consistently and can spend hours together working on a game. It became ‘our thing’ and still is, yeah I’m a daddy’s girl.

Back to the 64 and our intro to Zelda! We had this new system and did our usual research which involved us standing by a wall of games talking out what we’d like to try and both of our eyes stopped on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This was when our new favorite way to play together really expanded. I couldn’t handle the bosses, I think I took games too seriously then, thinking it was me getting stomped on not a pixilated character. So my dad would navigate and I would use my brain to suggest what to try next. We had a lot of fun and felt so accomplished when it was done because we really had done it together.

But times change, my nerves have settled and I’m able to tackle these games on my own. But that didn’t stop me from getting my dad Twilight Princess for Xmas to play like we used to.

As much as the past sometimes needs to be left behind and forgotten, a little nostalgia never hurt anyone.