At Last! Video Game Independence! ...and the price tag that came with it

So how to do deal with a child who wants something that you don't want them to have?  You give them false hope for obtaining that thing.  For me, this came in the form of a wager that I made with my dad at a very young age.  I started getting graded report cards in second grade, and I was usually the consistent B/C student, so my dad made the wager that if I ever got straight A's, he'd buy me an NES (later we changed that to the SNES when it came out).  Now what happens when that impossible wager backfires in your face?  Do you squelch on the bet, or do you suck it up and pay up?  I got straight A's my very last report card in 4th grade.  You can sure as hell bet that I ran home and waited at the door for dad to get home so I could take him down to wherever these things were sold and buy one of these things.  Much to my dismay they gave me the run around, and I mean BAD.  I was shattered, and after my birthday came around and I didn't get anything then, you can bet I had gave up hope.

 There's a new sheriff in town and his name is Super Nintendo

Complicating this situation was a move and my placement in a school I hated and had no say in whether or not I attended there.  That with dad hitting the road for work all the time instead of coming home every night took it's toll on me.  My grades plummeted and on the rare occasion that I brought up my previous scholastic track record, I was told that maintaining good grades was needed to obtain my prize.  Further discouraged, and having a lot of trouble making new friends, I was in a bad way, enough so that my parents actually started taking me to a psychiatrist to figure it out. 

Enter Christmas of 1994, the move, having a rough year, no friends, and very little to look forward to, even at Christmas.  Then it happened, I got through most of my presents on Christmas morning, and my dad came out of nowhere with a pretty good sized present of fairly ordinary rectangular dimensions.  Couldn't be an action figure it was too heavy.  Usually nerf guns, super soakers, legos, or any number of things that piqued my interest at the time that could have filled these dimensions would have a predictable feel to them, this didn't, and it was solid.  I had no clue what was about to happen to me.  I looked up kind of confused and they encouraged me to unveil this mysterious gift.  I opened it and promptly went into a combination of shock, ecstasy, bewilderment, and unhinged excitement at what I saw.  It was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (with tw games AND two controllers.  I completely freaked, I ran laps, I attempted all sorts of crazed acrobatics, I hugged everybody, I shouted to the heavens, I made a rare fool out of myself.  The other cool thing was my parents gave me the old tv to hook it up in my room and so my journey to gaming independence was underway.

 If my parents had got me on camera I would've put the N64 kid to shame.

Ironically enough was in the following months, my grades improved, I participated in more social activities (I joined a street hockey league and met friends that I still have to this day), obviously I made more friends in school and out of school and had quite the profound turnaround.  Obviously this can't be all attributed to getting an SNES, but the hours I spent on it helped me sort out my frustrations, I got along with my family better, I was generally in a better mood after playing for a while, I had things to talk about besides hating school and life in general, it gave me a platform in which to center myself.  I use that and other hobbies similarly to this day when I'm stressed or upset and need help getting through rough patches in my life.

Toys R Us deal ftw!  Not only did I get the standard Super Mario World with my SNES, but I also got Super Mario All Stars.

Sometimes I wonder why I don't appreciate games like I used to, and when I looked back, I only have like maybe ten games by the time SNES stuff phased out of conventional retail sales.  This was because my parents would not buy games for me, absolutely refused, not even as gifts, I was the sole financier of any and all games I ever owned on the SNES (except Killer Instinct, my grandpa got that one for me even though I asked my parents for it, lol).  This meant that those games got played the fuck out of because I didn't have much in the way of options, it also meant that I got a new game about once every six months with whatever birthday or xmas money I could throw together.  Sometimes it meant I could buy a shiny new awesome game (upwards of 70 bucks), sometimes it meant hitting up the old Toys R Us ten buck specials, sometimes I could get like a greatest hits title (30 bucks).  I would pick up a Nintendo Power here and there and find a game, obsess over it to the point of ridiculousness for months.  I would imagine myself playing it, I would read the articles about it OVER AND OVER and any reviews, anything that would ease the tension until the day that I could go down and buy it.  What this did was make sure I made informed decisions on games that I wanted, and I made sure they were games that I could play the shit out of, and I always did.

 Eight of the Original Nine, missing is F-Zero because I fucking hated that game and got rid of it, the handwriting on the two Mario games is genuine 10 year old Jaymbz handwriting.

 My first three games got the honorary "Property of James" sticker because I intended to keep them FOREVER, and indeed still do.

So how is she holding up today you might ask?  Doing pretty good, other than some odd discoloration from years of use and exposure to the sun and whatever other factors I'm not accounting for, she runs like a champ and still works as well as the day I got it.  Both controllers work just fine, the AV cables were an upgrade, I use to have to use that funky cable adapter back in the day, but after I replaced my old tv in high school I tossed it in favor of the cleaner picture that AV cables offered.   I only recently boxed it up in favor of the "retro duo" a new snazzy small number that plays NES and SNES games and uses SNES controller ports.  I figure if I want to be able to bust out the old SNES in the future and fire it up for funsies to show off or whatever I better start babying it now before it does get too worn out.

Lots of memories, lots of great times, many many hours of gaming, she's played the greats, the ok's, and even the occasional stinker rented from the video store.

Because this is getting pretty wordy I'm going to hold off and write up a separate bit on any particular game later and give it my full undivided attention.  I just wanted to write about the SNES particularly because of what it represents to me as a gamer and a how much the hours of play time over the years has given me great joy and peace at times when I had neither.  Anyway, I need to dig through the old SNES collection and decide which of these games I'm going to write about, I could and may very well eventually write about all of them, but I need to find a good launching point.  Anyway, check back in later (if it's not up by the time you read this one too), and find out what I decided on.