Poppin' the Cherry: My Very First...

Game System.

As I prepare to get older (and my grubby hands all over "Beautiful Katamari" Monday) I can't help but admire my command centre and flashback to way back when and my very first game system.

I can't say that I was that interested in video games at first (I'm not going to lie and pretend that PONG RULEZ ALL or ATARI IS TEH WIN.) I was young and naive and uncorrupted back then. YOu see, we lived in England for the first few years of my life, and while I was there, my friends and I rode our pretend ponies, watched the boys play football and did a lot of jump rope and had those Polly Prissypants tea parties in the garden. All seem rosy, and my mother was pleased that her daughter was growing up as intended.

But then my family moved to Japan, and all hope of me ever being a normal bitch was gone. You see, a brand new "gaming system," had just been released there that was all the rage. You might have heard of it? Yes, it was little game system called the "Nintendo Family Computer."

I think it came with some of the lamest games ever--Popeye and Donkey Kong Jr (not the one in "the King of Kong," which was a great video game movie by the way)--but that didn't stop me playing them. Popeye had you fighting Brutus for stupid ass whiny Olive Oyl so I didn't particularly care for it while in DK Jr you played an ape in diapers who had to save your daddy from an evil Mario looking like asshole while red and blue jumper cables tried to chomp your ass down.

Ahhh. So much time wasted and potential lost. Before I knew it, my pig tails had been lopped off into a way too sexy "Diana Cut" (hey, it was all the rage back then!) and I stopped wearing skirts and dresses all together and starting hanging out with boys...to talk about games!

Thank goodness that our school made sure we all had to be in after school clubs or that we participated in mandatory sports else I'd be one major fat ass even then. (Wahahaha, no schools to force me into mountain hikes now!)



Now, while the cartridge games definitely got better in those first couple years (I must have wasted a good year using the fabled Mario/Tennis secret world trick) gaming in the whole got even moar betterer with the release of the Family Computer Disk System and along with it, "The Legend of Zelda." (That's right your highnekus--more time wasted on killing Octorocks and Dodongos.)

Anyhoo, I don't think the Disk System ever made it over here, but it really was an awesome ass system/concept. Basically, you buy a craptastic game on disk like "Baseball" or something for Y2,500 (if I remember correctly.) BUT, since that game sucked such pimply ass, you would simply take it to the store, visit the game counter and ask the guy behind it for a "kakigae." That is, a "rewrite." That's right, for Y500, the price of two and a half Weekly Jumps or a copy of Family Computer Magazine and a Weekly Jump, you'd copy over "Baseball" for something like, "Parutena no Kagami" or "Metroid." Finish those up and don't want to replay 'em? Pay the rewrite fee and just get your disk rewritten. So much awesomeness.

I played ghost games, Sims, RPGs, detective games, action, sports, puzzle and boards games (Jinsei Game & Momotetsu forevah.) And my girl friends played them too (which rocked.) We had sleep overs of course and talked about boys and ate oranges, but it was Castlevania that made us stay up aaaalllll night.

I remember my one friend had the coveted "combination" cartridge and disk Famicom (she was super rich) and so those of us that were "stackers" drooled over its sleek design.

Stacking:



But it's okay because I had more games, biotch! Wahahaha. Though seriously, between my guy and girl friends, we pretty much owned everything so we all kept game journals in our cubbies with a list of all our games to facilitate easier game trading. Fuck, we even had 2 week due dates to return 'em.

And the thing is, we weren't considered obsessed or over the top. That's just how things were. Regardless of gender, you watch anime, you play games, you do your after school sports and there's nothing more normal. And I had a fuckin' blast.

I only found out that I was actually "not normal" when I moved to the States years later...but that is another story of moar game systems for another time!

p.s. I still have all my games and a Famicom and Disk System (they're kinda' yello though) from back then. I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of them. Unfortunately my Famicom's dead and went through one unsuccessful defrib already so if anyone knows how to fix it.... :(