The Ghost of Gaming Past

Twelve years ago (and a handful of days) I celebrated my eighth birthday. On that day, I opened something called Genesis. It wasn't the first book of the Bible, but rather a sleek redesign of a black 16-bit games system by Sega. Twelve years ago, sitting there on the beige carpet of my old house, I couldn't imagine where gaming would go or where it would take me.

Heck, twelve years ago I couldn't imagine being...twelve. I couldn't imagine the Sega Saturn, the system of choice for me during my pre-teen - or "tween" - years (yeah, go ahead, pity me), couldn't fathom CD based game media; actually, I didn't focus much on CDs at all. Popular music to me seemed to be mostly the groaning and moaning of an older, jaded generation...my sisters, their weird friends, et cetera. I suppose the fact that the largely depressing melodies of Sara McLachlan and Melissa Etheridge being so in vogue with young ladies during that time - and so played out on the radio - didn't help my perception of the medium, either. (Of course, this was before my discovery of classic rock.)At the age of eight, I also couldn't imagine peach fuzz above my lip, the new dynamic that was "middle school", or any of the other things that would impact me when I turned twelve. The point is, in retrospect, I have all these nostalgic memories of critical junctures in my life - my own personal mini-epochs, if you will - and they are all mostly a jumbled mass of blurry recollections, vivid triumphs, and blindingly-sharp regrets. Yet strewn among all these varied memories of my life's turns and twists are games.

In fact, one of if not the earliest memory I have involves gaming. I remember sitting upstairs in our old "TV Room", watching my two competitive sisters - born just two years apart - hammering almost ferociously away at the old Nintendo Entertainment System power pad as they raced onscreen in an old track game, leaping into the air to "jump" over hurdles and generally disturbing my parents down below, who probably believed they were going to come through the ceiling. I remember the frenetic shooting affair that was Duck Hunt, and the forsaken tittering laughter of that damnable dog (who didn't wanna put a bullet into him, seriously?). I also remember watching my sisters attempt to beat Super Mario Bros. and conquer The Legend of Zelda, never quite finding the source of Ganon's laughter in that final dungeon. After watching for so long...I recall finally picking up the controller myself. This, oddly, is all interchanged with the memory of seeing the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video by Nirvana on MTV for the first time (even then I knew there would be something lasting about that song), and numerous flashbulb images of sitting on the couch in the family room of my oldest house, watching at random both The Little Mermaid (Sebastian, the crab, is my dawg) and multiple installments of The Mickey Mouse Club. (I likely saw Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera and, most importantly, Justin Timberlake before ANY of you all. Envy me.)

Such memories were for a long time a source of confusion and even consternation for me. Why did so many of my older memories involve media and games...and Justin Timberlake...and why was there such significance hung on them? And what was that significance, most of all?One of my other wizened memories was of a trip we took when I was but a wee lad, maybe around four or five, to a resort my aunt and uncle ran in Wisconsin. Being so far "back in the day", this was one of those trips in which the entire five person Kirk family (for those not in the know, that is my curt surname) piled into dad's old red Nissan Sentra - circa 1986 model - and headed out on the highway, looking for adventure, and whatever came our way. We were of course too cheap to take a plane (and the parentals still are). Upon arrival at the resort, the only thing I remember, aside from my toddler cousin biting my sister in the stomach, was the entertainment. Sharp images of 1990's Dances with Wolves (this was before Costner became a sort of joke in the industry) appropriately dance in my head, but most vividly were the scenes from the video game version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I played that game in those brief days like Tony Montana snorted cocaine...I was an addict. I remember my sisters, cousin and I struggling to get past Rocksteady (I suppose they just weren't that good and I was too young), and specifically watching the first level over and over, with the foot soldiers and the random fires in the hallway of the level. This lies suitably in juxtaposition with watching my older cousin through the upstairs window as he stood down below in the dark night, darting his hand in and out of the fire of the lit torches. He was always a daring fellow.

It was at this same cousin's house, out near the serene fields of Wisconsin, that I would first meet Sonic the Hedgehog some years later. Before I ever laid my hands on a Sega Genesis he had Sonic 2 for the system, and I watched him play and, as I recall, announce quite publicly that the Metal Sonic boss at the game's end simply couldn't be beaten. I promptly sat down and beat him, leaping over his rolling robotic hedgehog mass and generally expertly dodging his shooting spikes. On this same trip I slipped on an asphalt court or driveway, skinning up my elbow badly; it resulted in my uncle applying a sprayed-on alcoholic antiseptic of sorts that stung like the dickens (damn you, Charles Dickens!). I honestly don't know if I still hold that memory because of the moderate pain involved or because it coincided with my first encounter with Sonic. As of late I've begun to guess the latter.

Interestingly, not long after that my cousins came to visit us at our place in North Carolina, and aside from recalling my oldest cousin playing basketball with my sisters (and a fight over TV remote dominance), the only thing I can concretely conjure up from that event was my cousin and I renting Super Street Fighter II from the local Blockbuster and bringing it home to play on my newly-acquired Genesis. I took a liking to Blanka, and with my electric attack I was one mean customer.Why this dominance of video game memories then? I've begun thinking lately (a new thing for me), and I've constructed a theory based upon the methodology of John Cusack's character in 2000's High Fidelity. In that movie, Cusack ruminates over his past loves and constructs a "Top 5 Breakup" list, much in the same way he holds "Top Lists" for his music records. (I would have a top 5 list, but women avoid me like the plague; it might have something to do with the boils all over my body.) Cusack after all plays a record store owner, and he shows a distinct tendency to treat the events of his life like he does the most dominant force in his daily existence, music. Although Cusack is a moody pessimist throughout much of the movie and dislikes his job, the interesting point is that he asks himself: "Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" I look in the mirror nowadays and ask myself: "Do I play games because of who I am? Or am I who I am because I play games?" (I've also asked myself, "Why am I wearing heels right now?", but that's a subject for another time.)

Perhaps my most tender memory is of a time back when I was still very young, and my sisters were again playing the NES, this time Hudson's wonderful Adventure Island. My oldest sister had her over sized Emerson boom-box hooked up in the room, and a Bryan Adams song was playing. As there was a pause in play, and no doubt motivated by the tone of the song as it reached its climactic verse, I leaned down, hugged my sisters and told them I loved them. This unusual action was in no way promoted by the skateboarding, fruit collecting antics of the protagonist onscreen, but it can be argued that the play session with Adventure Island was what created the framework for that event.... and it inexplicably may have been part of the reason why I recall it these many years later.

Like Sonic wagging his finger impatiently at me, showing a kind of sass and attitude that would reflect...or maybe even inspire?...my impending entry into the years of teenage angst, I'm beginning to feel that games will be present at other junctures of my life, even if I eventually faze myself out of the gaming lifestyle. After all, if video games haven't been serving as a miraculous source of causality for some of the events in my life, they have unarguably been inexplicably present during what my mind has deemed as key moments in my development, along with other forms of entertainment media. Why this tie between games and my life's events has been so omnipresent I do not know, but what I think I do know now is that somehow it's going to continue on with me, towards whatever end I unknowingly sail towards. Perhaps one day when I'm forty I'll happen upon a game title that features a graying man turned hero who takes a fancy to riding a motorcycle and fighting crime, in the ultimate portrayal of a mid-life crisis.

Okay, that may be unlikely, but sarcasm aside, it wouldn't shock me if the culture of video games somehow snuck in at the end, much as it did near my beginning. One day when I lay on my deathbed and I see through the slits of my eyes my family gathered round me, I can't help but wonder if, standing close, I'll see the eyes of my great-grandson (I can only hope to live that long) and down by his side, in his drooping hand, I'll notice a Game Boy X90 (the one Nintendo will re-release in different forms six times). It may seem perverse, but reflecting upon the memories of my past, it could definitely be one of the last of those flashbulb memories I ever have. Games may not be what define me, but they have served to help categorize my life for twenty years. Maybe it's a sign of where I'm supposed to go in life or what I'm supposed to do. Maybe I'm just a guy who chose to pick up a controller one day, or maybe it was I, somehow, who was chosen; I just don't know. But what I do know is, while games may not be the center of my universe it seems they are, at least, one of the celestial bodies in it. And for whatever reason that may be, that's okay by me.