Cliffhanger ...
Pressing the Reset Button- Part 1
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 On 11/20/2014 at 09:39 PM by Jamie Alston See More From This User » |
Two years ago, I was standing in the living room of our small apartment, my heart heavy with mixed emotions. Several months earlier, the wife and I decided to reduce our expenses and move into yet an even smaller apartment-- her parent’s house. As the time to pack up and move drew ever closer, it was there in the living where I finally took the bullet I had been dodging for quite some time. I decided it was time to give up my NES, Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and a few other prized consoles, along with [most of] the games for those systems.
“Why’d you do that?”, you might be wondering. Well, from time to time my wife would mention how much she hated clutter and really resented the fact that my systems and games sort of “took over” the living room, if you know what I mean. In short, there was too much of my retro gaming stuff taking up space in the apartment. Normally, I’d just shrug it off and go about my biz. After all, I had been building my collection since 2002 and I didn’t want to give them up.
However, as we were making preparations to move, I realized that there was no way I could possibly take all those games and systems with me. My games numbered well into the lower 200’s and I already couldn’t hook up 5 of the 9 game consoles I had due to space limitations. Not to mention the plethora of controllers, light guns, and other accessories laying in a big bag stuffed under the bed.
I told myself that I could never live without my extensive retro collection. But between the realization of moving into smaller quarters and my wife’s growing displeasure of my [admittedly] unwieldy collection, I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and sell off about 95 percent of my collection. The only things I held on to where the Sega Dreamcast, a handful of Sega Saturn games (but not the actual console), and all of my PSOne\PS2 games since my PS3 plays both.
Finally, we moved into our new place. As the days turned into weeks and months, I sometimes found it difficult to cope with the loss of the treasures from my favorite pastime. Now and then my mind would conjure up images of games I used to have like Dragon Warrior III or Secret of Mana dancing in a circle as they teasingly sang “Ha-ha...you could have been enjoying us right nooooow!” Overall though, I did pretty well with accepting my newfound circumstances and had fewer feelings of regret.
However as time continued to pass, I just couldn’t get that blasted NES, Super NES, and Sega Genesis out of my head. Together, they formed the perfect trifecta of what made up my formative years of enjoying video games. But there was more involved here than just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Simply put, I just really loved playing (and reviewing) those games. Those 3 consoles were the spices missing from my life-- and I decided that it was time to bring them back.
To be continued in part 2...
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