Ask the Game Trust: The First Game You Bought
2/5/2009 4:57 PM | 19 Comments | Page 2 of 7
Did it live up to your expectations? Yes. I'm not even a huge fan of platform games, and I don't tend to persevere with games if they force me to start at the very beginning after I lose all my lives (in other words, every old-school arcade game out there). However, I took a shining to
Wonder Boy in Monster Land and persevered until I got good enough to make it very far into the game. Part of the appeal to me was the fact that you could purchase new weapons, armor and clothing, and doing so would actually change Wonder Boy's appearance. Turns out I was a role-playing fan and just didn't realize it yet.
Do you still own the game? No. I stupidly sold it at a garage sale, along with
Shanghai and the entire Sega Master System, for $20. A few years ago my husband bought me another Sega Master System, but I haven't replaced
Wonder Boy yet.
Would you buy it again (at the original price)? Now that I know what else is out there, probably not. Plus, the final level was a maze. I hate mazes.
Steve Kent: Joust (Atari 5200)
When did you buy it? The year was probably late 1983, because the Atari 5200 was still a relatively new system at the time.
Why did you choose that particular game? I chose the 5200 and
Joust because they were the best things at the nearest store. I was a student attending the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University at the time. The campus was on the isolated north shore of the island and stores with videogames were not common. I happened to be in a Longs Drugs where they had the system and the
Joust cartridge, and I jumped at it. If they had had a ColecoVision, that would have been my first choice. I
loved Donkey Kong on Coleco. (The Adam Computer was way out of my price range.)
How much did it cost? I believe I spent around $180 on that night, between the system and the game.
Did it live up to your expectations? The system did not live up to my expectations, but not for the reasons you would imagine. I got the system home and called my parents. When my mother heard about it, she told me to return the game or she and my dad would stop helping me through college.
Do you still own the game? Obviously, I no longer own the game. In fact, in a symbolic salute to my parents, the 5200 is the only major American-made game system I never repurchased for my collection. If we are being completely honest, I would have bought the system again at some point if it were any good. As it turns out, the 5200 is sort of the ugly stepchild of the Atari family.
Would you buy it again (at the original price)? Not a chance. Of course, out of deference to my parents, I would not buy it for a dime.
