Ask the Game Trust: The First Game You Bought
2/5/2009 4:57 PM | 19 Comments | Page 1 of 7
You already know that the Crispy Gamer Game Trust knows its stuff when it comes to gaming. But where are the writers really coming from? What are their favorite games? Their defining gaming moments? Their turn-ons?
To answer these questions, and many more, we present our "Ask the Game Trust" feature. Every week we'll ask and answer a different question about our collective experiences, opinions and general thoughts on videogames and life in general. Think of it as a tiny, tiny window into our VERY SOULS! And please, feel free to open a similar window into yourself in the comments thread.
This week's question:
What was the first game you bought with your own money?
Kyle Orland: Mickey Mousecapade (NES)
When did you buy it? The fall of 1989. I was 7 years old.
Why did you choose that particular game? After playing
Super Mario Bros. for about one bazillion hours during my first three months of NES ownership (and spending roughly 10 minutes on
Duck Hunt), I was eager to get another game --
any other game. So I convinced my mom to truck me to Toys "R" Us with the $50 I had saved up from my $2.50/week allowance (including $20 I had gotten as a birthday gift from Grandma). Back then, I didn't have access to
Nintendo Power or
GamePro, so I was entirely at the mercy of the box art to make my purchase decisions (You have to admit: That's some nice box art). I was also at the mercy of my mother, who gently nudged me towards
Mickey Mousecapade because of 1) the friendly Disney characters and 2) the discount price of $20, which, she pointed out, would leave more money for future games!
Did it live up to your expectations? Well, it was bright and colorful, and you could jump, and I could get to Level 3 pretty consistently after playing for a while, so I'll have to say yes. I never understood why Mickey had a gun that shot tiny white stars, though.
Do you still own the game? No; it was lost in the great FuncoLand NES Game Purge of '93 to help pay for some worthless SNES game -- a decision I still regret.
Would you buy it again (at the original price)? No, but I might plunk down a fiver on a Virtual Console re-release down the road to relive the memories.
Erin Bell: Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Sega Master System)
When did you buy it? 1987, I think, which would have made me 7 years old.
Why did you choose that particular game? I needed a new game for my Sega Master System because beating my little sister at
Shanghai just wasn't cutting it anymore. Back then it was all about perceived coolness (as opposed to actually reading game reviews or anything like that), and because I had seen a
Wonder Boy arcade cabinet in a restaurant once, I thought it was the coolest game ever. So I made a beeline for the
Wonder Boy box at Toys "R" Us, not realizing that
Wonder Boy in Monster Land and
Wonder Boy weren't even the same game. (As it turns out,
Wonder Boy in Monster Land was much more fun because you got to swing a sword and buy boots.)
