Number six deals with a hot button topic among gamers, emulation. My stance I love playing retro games, and a lot of the time the games I play with an emulator are ones I have no ready access to, for example I use MAME because I can't find many of the games it emulates in arcades anymore. But that's another debate for another day, this story can explain why I am a retro gamer.

6. Emulation and Collecting Classic Games

Myself and Emulation go back a good ways, when I was a month or two into 7th grade, I first saw something on the Internet called MAME. It boggled my mind, I could play games like Pac-Man, Galaga, and Frogger for “free” on my computer. Why the hell wouldn't I be interested, these are arcade classics that I don't have to drop quarters into. So any MAME ROM I could find, I downloaded.


I will own a badass MAME Cabinet like this someday, someday.

Later on that year I found out that there were NES emulators out there as well. The hunt continued, it didn't matter my NES was Up North, I could find and play any game I wanted. From favorites that made me waste my childhood, to games I never got to play or get too far into. I played my first game of The Legend of Zelda where I made it past the second dungeon on a copy of Nesticle. I could finally play and beat Final Fight as Guy instead of just Haggar or Cody. When friends came over or family visited I proudly showed off the new programs I discovered, letting them play some of their favorite classic games. I even had a floppy with Nesticle and a few games on it for when I was bored in my computer class. I would download anything I could find, even incredibly shitty ROM hacks.


Is a guy with diabetes and who likes oatmeal really interesting enough to base a series of hacks on?

I remember showing my brother and cousin a copy of Super Naked Punch-Out, I dunno the idea of Mike Tyson and company sans pants was funny to me at the time, and having to quickly close the window when my Mom came in telling us she needed help with dinner. From those two emulators my collection grew and grew. I played Gunstar Heroes and finally understood why my friends were in love with it in fourth grade. I finally played Super Metroid and saw why the hell every top 50/100/200/whatever game list had it top 5. I even got Stella the Atari 2600 emulator to play the shitty Pac-Man, the wretched ET, and the rapetastic Custer's Revenge, just to see how bad they really were.


I'm still wondering if it's based on actual events.

I still use emulators, I love them, they've helped me discover games I never knew, and rediscover ones that I played only briefly before. How has this changed me? Well, we've got to go back to that NES Up North. By Sophomore year of high school I was enjoying my emulators a great deal, but it made me wish I still had my NES so I could relive my past. I'd even been scoping Ebay for a good deal on a system and games, but would always lose the bidding. So I asked my cousins if they could send me the NES and games next time they went Up North. I got them back right before summer, and while Tyler and I spent time renting and playing from Blockbuster, we were also having a blast picking up and playing NES carts from the local Game Stop. Thankfully, both were in the same shopping center so it could always be justified to hit each store.


Yeah their prices suck, but they are the best option around me for used games, unless I wanted to travel to Downtown Chicago.

I originally used Emulators as a novelty and eventually they gave me my love of retro games. In life it's given me the idea, if you enjoy something, just do it, and fuck what anybody else thinks. While most guys were getting their drivers licenses, finding girlfriends, and living a “normal” life, I was blowing my cash in a search for any NES game I could find. Looking back nearly seven years later, would I'd have rather done what my peers were doing? Fuck no, the NES is kick ass, and was worth my time. I still got my drivers license, still lived what I consider a normal life, and learned that most high school relationships are shallow and not worth the




Alright, halfway home. Once again feedback, comments, whatever are always appreciated, and I'm giving you people out there an option as to what I write about after the list is over. I've got two ideas currently, Why I Enjoy Grinding, a simple bit about one of the most hated aspects of RPGs that I enjoy (in most circumstances). The other is, A Look at The Super Smash Brothers, hailing from the Mushroom Kingdom these men are professional wrestling's number one video game based tag team. Players Uno and Dos integrate gaming into their tag team and singles matches, with the names of their moves, the outfits they wear, and even the weapons they bring to the ring.