The cartridge slot clicked with that familiar satisfying snap, and there I was again—standing in that cursed carnival town of Termina, watching the same three-day cycle begin anew. My mate Dave had warned me about Majora's Mask when he lent it to me back in 2001. "It's proper weird, this one," he'd said, tapping the gold cart like it might bite. "Not like normal Zelda."He wasn't wrong. Where Ocarina of Time felt like an epic…
So there I was last Saturday, watching my daughter mess around with my N64 setup in the basement game room, and she’s completely fixated on that opening screen of Super Mario 64 where you can grab Mario’s face and stretch it like silly putty. “Why does his nose do that?” she asks, pulling it out until he looks like some kind of cartoon anteater. I couldn’t help but laugh because honestly, I did the exact…
You know that exact moment in Sonic 2 when Tails shows up? That orange blur suddenly appearing on screen, and you realize you’re not running through Green Hill Zone alone anymore. My friend Mike and I probably logged a thousand hours fighting over who got to be Sonic during those endless summer afternoons in ’92. Though honestly, playing Tails wasn’t terrible – you could fly around, at least until Mike inevitably speed-ran ahead and left…
Christ, where do I even start with King K. Rool’s laugh? I mean, we’re talking about a sound that’s been rattling around in my head for twenty-five years now, and it still makes me want to check over my shoulder. This was back in ’99 – I was about twenty-five myself, working my first proper IT job and still living in a grotty flat share in Fallowfield. My flatmate Dave had somehow convinced his girlfriend…
Back in 1991, I was twelve years old and completely convinced that my Genesis was about to change the world. I’d been defending Sega since getting my Master System three years earlier – you know how it is when you’re the weird kid with the “wrong” console – but Sonic felt different. This wasn’t just another exclusive game to add to my arsenal of playground arguments. This was ammunition. I still remember unwrapping that first…
My mate Steve turned up at my fifteenth birthday party in ’96 with this knowing smirk and a Mega Drive cartridge hidden in his jacket pocket like he was smuggling state secrets. “Right, forget whatever else you’ve got planned,” he announced, which was exactly what you wanted to hear when you’d been politely enduring my mum’s friends asking about my GCSE choices for the past hour. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 wasn’t just another fighting game—it…
My buddy Mike texted me last week while he was cleaning out his garage – found his old Genesis collection in a milk crate behind some Christmas decorations. “Dude, what was that weird Sonic game where you looked down at him like you’re flying overhead?” Three seconds later I’m typing back “Sonic 3D Blast” because honestly, that game’s been living rent-free in my head ever since I set up proper Genesis emulation on my Steam…
Last Saturday I was down in my game room doing that thing we all do – you know, pulling cartridges off the shelf pretending I’m organizing when really I’m just fondling plastic and having flashbacks. That’s when I grabbed my copy of Sonic 3D Blast, and man… even after all these years, that blue spine with the chunky yellow lettering still makes me stop and think. This game was so damn weird. Still is, honestly.…
I’m forty-seven years old and I still can’t get that damn Song of Healing out of my head. Four simple notes that somehow managed to burrow into my brain back in 2000 and set up permanent residence. My wife caught me humming it while balancing our checkbook last week – she just shook her head and muttered something about “that weird Zelda game” under her breath. Twenty-four years later and Majora’s Mask is still messing…
I can still picture that moment in 1997 when I first wrapped my hands around the N64’s bizarre three-pronged controller and booted up Mario Kart 64 for the first time. My buddy Mike had managed to snag the system at launch – his job at Best Buy had its perks – and we spent that entire Saturday afternoon discovering what would become the definitive kart racing experience of our generation. Coming from Super Mario Kart…