Telling the Untold

On 04/02/2014 at 03:19 PM by C.S.3590SquadLeader

Instead of having another blog about being sick and all the fun that entails, enjoy this anecdote about the first console I ever bought and just why it's so memorable (at least for me)! Also bear with me a little, as exact dates escape me.

I may have already mentioned how as a kid I wasn't really allowed to have games/systems of my own, mainly due to having a habit of breaking anything I ever got my hands on if left alone with it long enough. I grew out of that habit as I got older, just in time to be rewarded with a (hand-me-down) Game Boy of my very own. I had a lot of fun with it and as the years followed, I started amassing quite the collection of Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games, however on the console side of things there wasn't much to speak of.

For the longest time my only choice was the Genesis and four games that my older brother let me have after he got his N64 (There was also a brief time I also had access to his NES but he took it back after a while). This was fine, but it got to be monotonous playing Sonic 2 for the upteempth time or having no one to play against/with in NBA Jam, Golden Axe II or World Heroes on a small black and white TV.

It took a long time to get the money together, well after it initially came out but I did eventually manage to pick up a Gamecube that came bundled with a copy of Super Mario Sunshine as well as Super Smash Bros. Melee. Unfortunately I made a huge goof because when I got home there was no way for me to play it, seeing as how I didn't own a TV that had AV input at the time.

It took an extra day, but after getting a third-party RF adapter and through some creative wire manipulation, I was up and playing against my little brother in Melee in glorious monochrome!

The adapter kind of looked like this. The one I used was a different color.

Seriously, if you ever wanted an extra challenge in Super Mario Sunshine, try playing the first Sirena Beach Episode but drain all the color and make everything slightly blurry so it's difficult to determine what's what, then combine that with relatively poor eyesight. It was next to impossible to beat it, and while I could lie and said I managed to do it, it wasn't until I got my hands on a better TV that I was able to.

And that's about it, maybe if the mood strikes me, I'll do something like this again.

Super Step Contributing Writer

04/02/2014 at 04:40 PM

I hate buying something fairly expensive then realizing you forgot the other accessory needed to run it. That's the worst. I'm sorry, man.

Ranger1

04/02/2014 at 07:22 PM

That happened to me and Jason one year at Christmas. His parents gave us a DVD player and his little brother gave us his old PS1. All we had for a TV was an old one that I'd had since college that also had no AV input other than the coaxial cable jack. So no joy for a while.

Cary Woodham

04/02/2014 at 08:15 PM

My first console was actually an Atari 5200. I didn't own a 2600 because we had a PC (Apple ][+) that had games way better than the 2600. The 5200 was a Christmas present, and it was a total surprise because I didn't even ask for one!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

04/02/2014 at 09:38 PM

My family's first console was a TI99 computer, and after that an Atari I think. But eventually when I was a little older me and my brother shared a NES. Those were good times.

goaztecs

04/03/2014 at 11:23 AM

I like reading these stories of how people first got their consoles. We came from different places yet encountered almost similar events. I bought quite a few of those 3rd party adaptors especially when I bought a Playstation. For a bit I used to play NES on a little black and white TV, which made it almost look like a Giant Game Boy.

Nicoleb1989

04/03/2014 at 07:46 PM

I got my beginings into video games through NES. I slowly climbed up through Gensis, Dreamcast, N64, PS1, PS2, to now.

I will say at one point when I was rebuilding around the beginning of 2013, I was playing my ps3 on a very old tv. Im talking bulky componat tv. It was not fun, Im truly spoiled on HDTvs, and now we have to have them since next gen is HDMI only.

NSonic79

05/15/2014 at 10:59 PM

the things we'll do to play our game systems. That has to count in the record books for jerryrigging an RF unit to play a game. Sucks it didn't work out on Mario sunshine though.

PixlBit