2 Year YouTube Anniversary Blog Post! Sort Of...

On February 14th I celebrated my 2 year YouTube anniversary as a creator so to honour this, (and the fact I'm currently battling a virus and feel absolutely rubbish right now) I thought I would release the original script to the first ever video I uploaded discussing love in games and my love for gaming in general. Although as I look back on it the editing is rather basic and I'm not completely happy with the way it turned out, (that's the perfectionist in me sadly!) it's always interesting to see where you've come from in any creative format. At least I'd like to think there is an improvement in my work... but I guess you'll be the judge of that! My favourite part of the creative process is definitely the editing side, with being able to splice videos and pictures in to the script I've written to further accentuate the point I'm trying to get across being a most enjoyable endeavour, and the actual tangents I've been lead off on whilst trying to hunt down the perfect meme or video clip has opened up whole new avenues of thought I'd never even considered before... and websites no normal human being should view! (At least on purpose anyway.)

My only real regret when it comes to this first video is the fact I haven't been able to make more of them. The amount of time it took to even put together this relatively simple recording was ridiculous but since making it I do have a new found respect for anyone who does this on a regular basis; Ahoy and Jim Sterling being two of the people who I'm sure I've taken inspiration from and have two completely distinct ways in how to present their thoughts on screen. As a little YouTuber there is a fine line you need to balance upon between quality and quantity and it's fair to say I was bummed out big time after putting a lot of time and love in to that video and it having hardly any views, even today. (313 views as I write this!) To work so hard on something and not get the recognition you think it deserves can be a very frustrating/humbling experience and it was at this moment where I needed to decide on whether I was going to do this for the views and potential money making aspect of YouTube or because it's what I actually enjoy doing, and I think it's fair to say that after two years on the grind this has become my full time hobby and my passion for creating in any respect keeps me motivated to do what I do.

 I do however have this itch which needs some serious scratching right now.

As much as I like to showcase old and new games on the channel I feel the creative side of what I wanted to do on YouTube has taken a back seat from trying to keep up a regular schedule of content and although I won't go in to specifics right here right now, (VLOG incoming soon!!) I can see myself shaking up my routine soon with regards to the length of videos I upload and also what I actually choose to bring to the channel in order to free up some time for me to be able to put more creative works on to YouTube because let's face it, this isn't going to be a career defining moment for me; I'm not suddenly going to be earning a wage off doing this so I might as well be happy with what I choose to upload.

But I digress.

Below you will find the original script I wrote for that first video. If I have some witty remark to say about anything within the script or from that point in the accompanying video I will pop it in to brackets and italics to make it stand out. And let's face it, this is me so no doubt there will be some sarcastic remark earmarked in there somewhere!

And if you haven't seen my video you can check it out here:

                                                                               Thoughts of a 30-Something Gamer: Love in Games and for Gaming

Well, here you are:

So I've been thinking.... (The intro seemed to make sense at the time although it was filmed on a terrible phone camera... and yes, that has been dubbed over!)

About a week ago I found myself browsing through the Nintendo e-shop looking at all the old games available on the virtual console when I came across Super Mario Land, the very first game I owned for the original Gameboy I had as a kid, (well, apart from Tetris... EVERYONE owned Tetris) and I felt a pang of nostalgia I'd not felt in a very long time. As I sat there looking at the monochrome screenshots of those tiny sprites it suddenly dawned on me that Mario has been rescuing the same girl for a long time. (O.K. So in Super Mario Land it was a girl called Daisy... what can I say, the guy is a bit of a player when it comes to the ladies!) (So why include a pitcure A.C. Slater from Saved By The Bell? His name's Mario for Christ's sake! Sometimes I marvel at my own serendipitous luck when it comes to visual gags.. another reason why I want to do more of them.)

And that got me wondering... from a real life perspective what was his motivation? What could the reason be to give this little plumber the drive to continuously put himself and his brother in peril? At first I thought about the financial gains. There he is, running around the mushroom kingdom picking up coins carelessly left all over the place, unclaimed by anyone, who wouldn't pick them up? He collects A LOT of gold throughout each game, surely enough to be able to hang up the tool belt and live at a comfortable level? And then it hit me, it couldn't be about the money. You see, the thing about being motivated by material gain is you eventually get to the point where the accumulation of those materials outweigh the effort needed in order to accumulate them. In other words, when you have enough cash to see you good for the rest of your 3 lives why bother carrying on? He could slap that gold into a high interest account and live off the interest from his mansion in the Bahamas. (I did think about maybe going down the route that some girls just like to be chased and love to live a life of drama but I couldn't think of a good way to wrap up that thought process.)

So what else? Could it be his sense of justice? After all, Princess Peach is the head of State, the leader on the Mushroom Kingdom, surely it would be the right thing to do? The fact of the matter is the “right thing” is purely subjective here; when you break it down can you really justify the hundreds, if not thousands of creatures killed by Mario just to get to Peach? Note I say creatures, not enemies, these are the natural inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom. Take a look at almost any level in the Super Mario series and you will see that the majority of dangers featured are animals and vegetation just going about their day. They're not actively seeking Mario out to cause him harm, they're just out doing their own thing when an unknown presence enters their personal space and they react accordingly. Now from a real world perspective if you noticed a snake in the garden and it saw you it wouldn't automatically head in your direction to mess up your day, but if you go within a foot of it and start pogo-ing around like a lunatic there's a good chance it's going to try to fuck you up. And that's even before you start tackling Bowser's minions and traps in each castle who are after all, only trying to protect their boss on his property from an intruder. And then once Mario has been identified as a threat after that first level, (he has been breaking and entering after all, or at a very minimum level trespassing on private property with a pinch of vandalism to boot) they will go to any means to stop him... or at least what they are ordered to do by their employer.

So if cold hard cash and a sense of justice at any cost are just by-products of Mario's motivation to keep rescuing Peach over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... well you get the picture, this leaves as far as I'm concerned one feasible possibility: LOVE.

And that got me thinking: A lot of narrative-driven games that I've enjoyed over the years that have stuck with me because of the story have had the subject of love as their driving force for the protagonists. In The Secret of Monkey Island (one of my favourite games ever) Guybrush Threepwood is initially driven to become a mighty pirate but soon his priorities change when he meets the governor of Melee Island, Elaine Marley and falls madly in love with her. Sadly for him the ghost pirate LeChuck is also enamoured with the governess and decides to kidnap her, at which point Guybrush decides to try to rescue his beloved. Double Dragon also follows the same narrative with the player becoming Billy Lee, out to release his girlfriend Marian from the possession of the Black Warriors gang and their leader, Willy, with more than a little help from his twin brother Jimmy. Well, in 2 player anyway. A more modern take on the same tale can be found in Super Meat Boy, where Meat Boy is trying to avoid all sorts of dangerous obstacles in order to try and save his squeeze Bandage Girl from the evil clutches of Doctor Fetus.

These three examples recycle the original principle of the brave knight attempting to rescue the stricken maiden from the grasp of whichever evil person suites the ebb and flow of the story, though there are some games that have put an interesting spin on the classic formula concerning family rather than for an opted loved one. (that Lego clip was one of many I could have chosen from but to fit it in to the section I had to do a very subtle but extreme trim of several scenes in order to show what I wanted) In Fallout 3 the main drive behind your character is to find your father, who one day leaves the underground vault you have grown up in for the outside world and you, the player, ventures into the unknown of the capital wasteland in order to find him. In Fallout 4 the tables are turned as you are now the parent, and after being witness to a personal tragedy at the start of the game you vow to avenge for your loss and find your missing son, Shaun. In the same ilk Sid Meier's Pirates! (possibly my favourite game ever by the way!) has the hero scouring the Caribbean for his lost relatives, who were sold into slavery to pay off a family debt owed to the ominous Marquis De La Montalban when he was still a child. That and to make a ton of money... and maybe bag himself a governor’s daughter in the process. For a further twist on this aspect of family you could look at Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1, where although the central character Lee isn't directly related to Clementine at the start of the game they soon form a co-dependant relationship which benefits them both throughout the story, and by the very sad but predictable ending the connection between them is so absolute it hits you right in the feels. Even a game like Altered Beast has love as it's driving force, and not from the player character. He is just a pawn being used by the God Zeus, who resurrects a fallen Roman Centurion and bestows bestial powers onto him in order to rescue his daughter Athena, kidknapped by a demon god called Neff. (As long as he collects 3 power orbs within each level, no free rides from the King of the Gods, you have to earn that shit.) (All the above examples are a pretty standard affair but I was mighty proud of that Altered Beast reference as I don't think it's as obvious a point as the others... I had to do a bit of research on that one believe it or not! Well, consult Wikipedia to conform my thoughts anyway.)

These are all in essence based around the same influence, the recovery of something that is lost. There are some games however, that have a unique view on the subject of love and how to interpret it in an interactive form. The Sims series lets you kiss, date, marry and “woohoo” (the sigh was real) anyone you like, young or old, male or female, and it seems with each iteration the options for gender, sexual orientation and sexual freedom keep getting bigger, and rather than it being restricted by the technical side of the software I think it's more to do with what is widely accepted as “the norm” which in itself grows larger with every generation. (or even since I made this video one could argue)

This brings me to one of my most favourite gaming characters of all time... Larry Laffer. (Last of the true men I tell you!) The Leisure Suit Larry series are the gaming equivalents to those sexual coming of age films you grow up with as a child; American Pie, Revenge of the Nerds and Porky's to name but a few. This 40 year old disco suit wearing, cheesy talking schmoozer has a heart that's bigger than his brain and although he always seems to end up in bizarre sexual escapades all he's really looking for is that perfect partner, that one true love.

The subject of love can span all genres of gaming, from platformers to puzzlers, first person shooters to beat-em-ups, and although unoriginal in premise the subject never gets old.

So why do I bring this up? Well, despite it being Valentines Day, (which seemed like an appropriate time to do this) seeing all those retro games available for the virtual console on the e-shop had me contemplating what gaming has meant to me throughout my life. (I'm getting old... I'm allowed to be retrospective!)

This year I am celebrating 25 years of being a gamer. (27 years now if anyone is keeping count) Schools, friends, jobs and even other hobbies have come and gone but gaming has been my one constant. (I typed "jobs" on a Google image search and Steve popped up and although it can be construed as bad taste it did give me a chuckle so I decided to keep it in) I have been privileged throughout this time to witness this leisure activity grow from a secretive, seemingly unhealthy, misunderstood pastime stereotyped by spotty nerds and middle aged men in their parents basement to a mass media outlet, enjoyed by everyone, young and old, male and female, sometimes together, and other times by yourself, but through gaming forums and websites, Youtube and Twitch, you're never alone. An outlet which today rivals the behemoths of television and film, both in money invested into the industry and money spent by the end user on the hardware, software and accessories required in order to enjoy this hobby to it's fullest.

Don't get me wrong, like any child growing up gaming has had it's teething problems, and some would say over the last few years gaming has been going through a very rough period; from software companies and distributors bleeding us dry with full games being sliced into pieces and distributed through DLC, season passes or as episodic content (and now loot boxes... *sigh*) to the actual content of the games themselves being certificated and vilified by people unable to grasp the very essence of gaming as an interactive experience and see it as a threat to the traditional forms of media and so criticise it at every available opportunity. And we don't do ourselves any favours. Over the past few years we've had fellow gamers turning on each other through the acts of “swatting”, (the act of getting armed police beating down the doors of popular streamers while they're streaming live on Twitch) for no reason other than jealousy to gaming “purists” outright verbally attacking people who are trying to shake off the stigma of what it means to be a gamer in some sort of twisted irony which seems to be lost on the attackers themselves.

These dark times can't last forever, and I know with the fullest of hearts that these problems will work themselves out eventually. It feels to me that the very concept of what makes us gamers as a society is evolving at such a pace it's forcing all of us to adapt quickly or be left behind, and it's the people who think kicking and screaming the loudest will stem the flow of change on the horizon. But things have to change. They have to evolve. Evolution in it's truest form is done by an entity to develop itself, to improve oneself, and this can only lead to a purer, more fulfilling pastime for us all.

To conclude, I love gaming, and I love being a gamer, and I love that my favourite hobby has grown into something which is widely acknowledged, widely accepted and worth fighting for. (most of the time...)

Hang on. Maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. Maybe love is the wrong way to describe why Mario is continuously putting himself and those closest around him in mortal danger. Maybe it's because of OBSESSION. Let's just spin this on it's head for a second. Princess Peach is Royalty. Royalty tend to have security guards protecting them at the very least, maybe an army at their beck and call 24 hours a day. How could Bowser continually kidnap a member of the Royal family without the guards around her getting wise to his dastardly plot? And why aren't they storming Bowser's castle and rescuing her? Maybe it's because she doesn't need to be rescued!

Maybe that's why she's never in any of the castles in the first few levels, it's not that she's never been in there, she's just high-tailed it as soon as she's heard Mario kicking at the front door. And then by the end of each game she realises the only way to get this deluded guy to leave her alone is to play along with his damsel in distress fantasy before getting back with her true love, Bowser. Think about it. Peach, this eligible bachelorette could hook up with any guy she wanted in the Mushroom Kingdom. Does she go with Bowser, this muscular, independent, powerful guy who has plenty of money lying around and a very large property portfolio or does she settle for Mario, a middle aged, roly-poly plumber who still lives with his brother? I know who I'd put my money on.... (I was SO HAPPY to find that Playboy sketch summing up my thoughts so well and it's definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it! Don't worry, I was only on the website because of the articles...)

Well, that's my childhood ruined.

--END--

 So there you have it. Now I know technically this is a cheat week when it comes to original content, (and it's late!) but I hope you'll forgive me considering I'm not very well at the moment. The past week has been a real struggle and now I don't even have a video buffer for the YouTube channel which means I can't even drip feed you a new upload every couple of days to tide everyone over. Rest assured as soon as I'm up to recording a coherent video without coughs and sneezes throughout I'll do my best to get back up to speed as soon as I can.

Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

Let Me Introduce Myself Part 2: Camaraderie Through Consoles!

Now I don't want to sound too self-indulgent when it comes to me writing these blog posts, although committing my thoughts to virtual paper for the masses to read is in itself a self-indulgent act, (irony!) but I figure we'll all get on a lot better if you can at the very minimum see why I come to the conclusions I arrive at if you have at least a familiarity of my background and what makes me tick. This is me trying to be as clear and transparent as I can be in a world where masking one's true intent for fear of offending someone, anyone, has started to become the norm. I mean, no-one wants to be that guy/girl/non-binary do they?! In a world where it is so easy for someone to take offence and in return recompense in a militaristic fashion it pays dividends to keep your cards close to your chest at all times. And with everybody having a virtual presence either from the likes of Facebook or Twitter to even owning a bank account everyone has a vulnerability which can be exposed and taken advantage of for whatever reason... whenever the feeling arises. That is a scary thought! And who can blame anyone for being a lot more secretive when it comes to omitting their own true thoughts and opinions? But I say this; does it not make more sense to be as open as you dare to be in order to quell any suspicions of the contrary? Surely it is better for someone to know where they stand with you, (for ill or good) than to be forever questioning your loyalties and judgement? And in a world where you will always offend someone either by a differing view or from a lack of forethought to a throwaway comment which we are all guilty of from time to time, (It's what you say/type on the internet, never how you say it!) the only person you should be straight up with is yourself. In essence, say what you mean and mean what you say. I quote Elvis Costello, "Don't wear your heart on your sleeve when your remarks are off the cuff." And when you choose to publish anything on the internet, be it a Youtube video or a blog entry your soul is exposed to being poked and prodded by any and all nefarious types which come across it. People who claim to not be bothered on any level by that either don't care enough about their creations in the first place or are full of shit.

 So why do I start the second entry to my blog - which is supposed to be about my gaming history, to allow you to peak in to my mindset and, (hopefully) to help you, dear reader understand how I reach the conclusions I arrive at - with a paragraph detailing how saying what you feel is the truth from your viewpoint could be construed as offensive to others? SIMPLE. Console gaming in my humble opinion is one of the most tribal of technological leisure activities you can affordably be a part of today, and that has been the way since the Atari 2600 burst on to the scene along with it's competitors back in 1977. But why? The answer I think is a relatively simple one; It's because of the hardware and the fact you can't modify or upgrade anything within that base unit you purchased from the store. Everybody has the same set-up, with only the different makes of console to differ you from Willy and Billy down the street. Because of this it's very easy to draw big rivalries between owners of the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive or the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox. Now you could say that that was relatively true for my beloved Commodore 64 when being measured up to the Spectrum ZX and although both very popular at around the same time from a hardware perspective they were an ocean apart in a technological sense. Although these days from a similar viewpoint you have tech-fiends arguing about which company manufactures the best graphics cards, CPU's, motherboards etc. etc, there is such a diverse choice out there that no complete PC can be directly compared to another.

 And they're so damn accessible! Plug and play and you're away! A product for the masses... but still expensive within themselves. Take in to account the fact that buying the base unit is only the start of what is still an expensive hobby if you want to keep up to date with the latest game releases, along with the yearly online subscription you need to purchase to even be allowed to play with your friends regularly means most people still only end up picking one console from the handful available in any given generation. This breeds a playground rivalry from the owner of said chosen console brand to justify their choice; to feel like they have made the wise decision and the owners of the other brands are complete idiots for choosing their complete potato of a machine. And these rivalries can be fucking vicious, man. I remember being at school and hearing about a guy being bullied incessantly because he had a Atari 7800 when all his peers had a NES. Don't get me wrong, I know kids generally can be vicious little shits at the best of times and in that period of your life all you want to do is fit in, but just look how the rivalries of the latest consoles breed as much contempt as past generations of gaming machines yet the average age of your run-of-the-mill gamer is between 18 and 35. That means there are a lot more adults who should know better throwing their tuppence worth in to the shit storm that is the ever evolving console war. We're not completely to blame however, and as long as the behemoths of the video game industry insist on having console exclusives and getting away with blaming "netcode" and other such bollocks for not allowing cross-platform online play from games produced by independent developers, rivalries will continue at the fever pitch it has been at for last 30 years.

 But I digress. Gaming consoles! Console gaming! That's what I said I'd write about and I'll stick to the plan... this time. At 10 years old for Christmas after having my well loved and well used Commodore 64 for five years I was ready for a change. I had grown bored of the wait times for loading games via a cassette, (although in retrospect it was never that long but at that tender age it felt like a eternity) and with myself having just started at middle school the previous September I was very much aware of what other kids were watching/reading/playing and I learnt, very quickly, that console gaming was at the forefront of the playground banter. Friends new and old were pulled in to the exciting world of 16 bit gaming via the Megadrive and SNES becoming more affordable after being on the market for around 18 months and boy! was there a frenzy in that first term at school leading up to Christmas. Obviously you had the cool kids who's rich parents had bought the console within the first 6 months of release and were viewed with starry-eyed wonder due to their veteran status with their chosen machine by their peers but now we, the common folk, could finally enter the gaming clique of our choosing. No longer would we be hovering around the edges of society, (well... the school yard) listening with intrigue about the tall stories of a podgy Italian plumber or a blue hedgehog. Now even I can throw myself headfirst in to the pixel world of whichever gaming mascot I chose to enlist under! The question was though, which one? Both of the popular machines of the time had their merits but it would appear, at least in my friendship circle, that the SNES was the way to go. So on Christmas day in 1993 I awoke to a rather large present which just so happened to be a Super Nintendo Entertainment System complete with a Superscope and Superscope 6 game, (more of a tech demo for the bazooka-shaped light gun but I don't think many developers got the memo on that) F-Zero and Super Mario All-Stars. And that was me set at school; I was welcomed in to the SNES fold as one of their own, a fellow Nintendo enthusiast brought in to the ranks ready to defend the honour of our kind at a drop of a hat. And even today I still think picking that over the Sega Megadrive/Genesis was the way to go... Now was that because of the neater looking graphics? The unique Mode 7 design? The no gore effect in Mortal Kombat? I'd like to say yes, (except for that last one) it was EXACTLY for those reasons, but at 10 years old it boiled down to one key yet shallow reason; it's what all my friends had. A decision made not by good judgement or meticulous research in to the choices I had at the time, but popularity. And although it would seem that at least this time I had chosen the winning side I believe there were no actual losers in this generation, it all just depended on what you found fun. It's true that the Megadrive had the faster paced games and smoother gameplay feel but I was never really in to sports games or action/bullet hell shooters which would take advantage of those aspects on that console. And anyway I had a plethora of interesting adventure games, RPGs, platformers, fighters and racers to occupy my time.

 "For fuck's sake Padge! you've been rabbiting on and you've hardly covered any games yet!!" I hear you cry, and I'm just as shocked as you to be honest. As I type this I never really thought I'd go this deep in to the "why's" of console gaming in my past as opposed to the "what's", but I guess that's because I feel I've matured past the minimalist pleasures that a console offers, and which is always on the back foot from a tech perspective compared to the sophistication that a PC can deliver, but that's for another blog entry. (I know... very PC Master Race right?) SO, the games. I played F-Zero to DEATH. I loved it. It was my go-to game for a very long time duly to the futuristic setting, the breakneck speed you travelled at, (over 400 km/h!) and the fact you could be completely destroyed if you didn't pay the attention needed to the car racing at that velocity because of the hazards on the track like the mines... or the other cars low on energy and about to blow up themselves... or the sides of the track which were deadly to the touch! And I also really digged the the instruction manual which doubled as a scene setting comic book! Compared to the Commodore 64 which in itself had a fair few games that felt like they were pushing boundaries of what an entertainment system could offer this game in particular felt like it was on another level completely. It is a classic in every sense of the word and this is shown time and again by the multiple nods it gets in other games, from the likes of Mariokart, (an obvious one) to Animal Crossing: Wild World. The other cartridge I had that Christmas, the aforementioned Super Mario All-Stars was a culmination of enhanced remakes of the first 3 Super Mario games along with the Japan only version of Super Mario 2 labelled as "The Lost Levels". From a relatively sensible child's perspective who would only be getting 2 games to go with his brand new console, (one from Nan, one from Mumsy) this seemed like a cost effective solution to a very real problem for anyone with limited access to funds; value for money. It was 4 games in 1 cartridge damn it! The maths don't lie!! So technically I had 5 games to last me until my birthday and last me they did, and beyond. Now you've probably noticed I haven't mention the Superscope much and that's because no-one else really did anything with it. A gimmicky light gun which Nintendo hoped more developers would support but sadly did not. I guess they were trying to riff off the back of the original light gun idea after the popularity of Duck Hunt but with the thinking of "bigger is better", (it was shaped like a fucking bazooka after all!) but it seems instead of people embracing this mega peripheral and the scope itself becoming a bulwark of gaming it was seen as a one trick pony with too narrow a field of use to be fully seized upon. Sadly this would seems to be a recurring problem with each new console generation, where towards the end of their natural life our living rooms are filled with plastic inessential controllers to games long forgotten about due to the fact it's too much effort to set up compared to picking up a regular controller... but I guess we're the mugs as we keep buying them and buying in to the "unique game design" of using them in the first place... at least until we have a large group of friends or family come round to your house anyway.

 So what of later games? Over the next few years I managed to add to my collection through birthdays and Christmases with both physical copies for games I'd asked for and games bought through an accumulation of money from said celebrations to what I like to think is a nice selection of electronic distractions. Within my assortment you could find the likes of Super Smash TV, Super Mario Kart, Disney's Aladdin and The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II and WWF Royal Rumble. Although I had a few of the more popular amusements within my collection I never felt the need to get all the classics due to 2 simple reasons, swapping between friends and video game rental. As I've said before, I was blessed with having a large friendship group which meant there were a lot of Super Nintendo's flying around which lead to a lot of different types of games being bought and, like any kids at our age our attention span could be measured in nano-seconds. So when one of you got bored of playing game X we could walk over to our friends house and swap it for game Y for a few weeks which meant (generally) everyone was a winner. Occasionally you would swap a rubbish game for a better one to a friend or as we all started to grow up some people would stop playing with their SNES, (quitters) but were still open to swapping games so the swap at that point was more like insurance than theft - never borrowed, always swapped! The other is a dead concept in the traditional sense these days and that was going to Choices Video in the UK, (a tackier Blockbuster if you're not aware of the brand) and renting a game over the weekend for a couple of quid. I know these days you can stream certain games for a fee or if you subscribe to certain gaming platforms they allow you to play whatever you want for as long as you're subscribed but these are both long-term contractual services, not something you can afford to do on a whim on some cold rainy Saturday afternoon in March. Admittedly, the second hand market is a lot larger at your local Gamestop or CEX nowadays, but you generally have to spend a lot more on a piece of software which you have no knowledge of how it's actually been treated before you acquired it. That makes me uneasy... and with more and more games these days being download only that isn't even an option for 70% of the time. "Games as subscription" is how I believe the business managers refer to it as, more like a subscription to the games you've already paid outright for... but that rant is for another time.

 So what am I getting at after all the babbling... and why have I only talked about the SNES? Surely I've had more than just the ONE console in my entire life? Well, yes I have. To cover them quickly I have owned at one point or another a Gameboy, (twice... there was a headbutting incident) a Playstation, a PS2, an XBox 360, a PS3, a Nintendo Wii, a Nintedo WiiU, a PS4, (well I guess you know what side my bread has been buttered in the following generations of the console war!) and an Amstrad GX4000. Apart from the Amstrad which my grandparents bought to keep me quiet whenever I visited, (it worked... for a short while) all of the others played second fiddle to the PC we had either as a family computer, (for "homework" - LOL!) or as my own gaming machine. That means that my time with the Super Nintendo if the only "pure" experience I've had with consoles where nothing other than that machine was my main gaming focus. I feel it would be unfair to talk about the rest on how they made me feel as a teenager or young adult as these other consoles haven't defined me as a gamer since I first launched Settlers 2 on my 486 DX2 66. Of course there have been console exclusives which I've delved in to over the years which are usually the reason why I owned those consoles in the first place but since my early to mid teens the PC is where my heart has been.

To conclude, my first and only dedicated foray in to console gaming as a youngster brought me acceptance, camaraderie and a shared wealth of gaming diversity, and I guess when I slip on those rose-tinted glasses I can kind of see why the latest generation of the console wars have soldiers on either side fighting the good fight as intensely as they do... it's for that feeling of kinship and inclusion.

 Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge