As a child, I would go to bed at night and dream of one thing: video games. From at least 1994 my mind revolved around them, whether the arcade hits of the day (early Tekken, some relative of Soul Caliber, and most of all Mortal Kombat were mainstays of my arcade life by 1997) or the games on my cousin's Sega Genesis (mostly Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and, again, Mortal Kombat). In later years, once I felt the decline of games as I knew them, the thought came to me to own the classics of my youth, and of the days before I began playing. But though I scoured yard sales and the local auction for used systems, the games and systems I sought proved too elusive without the Internet, and by the summer of 2005 professional wrestling had displaced gaming for what seemed forever.
But reality is not always what seems real at the time, and eventually through the very gaming that seemed displaced (and through Newgrounds) my obsession with pro wrestling ended. Though my former thoughts remained dormant until my circumstances could support some of them, eventually that support became a possibility, and all it took to set them back in the track of my mind was one glimpse, one seed from which the tree of my thought could grow.
Then I saw the Angry Video Game Nerd. The room in which Mr. Rolfe films his AVGN videos was and is a prototype of my vision, filled with classic consoles and old games. But my vision is greater, filled with more consoles and more games than the Nerd will ever review, and perhaps with old arcade machines as well. Still, the systems and games on his set were enough to re-awaken my dreams of owning all, of building a great shrine to video gaming as it once was, as it should still be.
Consider this first a notice of intent: I intend to buy as many classic game systems, and as many games for those systems, as I can afford. As time passes and as I obtain greater and greater amounts of money, I will use more and more of it to buy video games. Anyone who knows how I become when focused on the game will understand how serious I am about this plan.
Second, I will provide here the most basic outline of my idea as it stands now, a system of organization that recognizes "good" games from "bad" ones.
I. Region of the Greats
1. Hall of Heaven: Where good games go when they die. On an upper floor, this room contains the good games of the past that just didn't make it to beatification. Think Zelda II for the NES, or the American Super Mario Bros. 2 (Doki Doki Panic if you live in Japan).
2. Palace of the Beatified: The greatest games of yesteryear. Games have to live up to the Two Tests before entry, the Test of Great Fun and the Test of Great Influence.
3. Canonized Saints of Gaming: The first recognizable games of the great series. If half or more of the series is in the Palace of the Beatified, the first game is probably in here.
II. Region of the Average
1. Hall of Purgatory: These games were, meh, OK in their time, and they haven't aged well at all. Probably the largest hall in the Shrine, filled with mostly-forgotten games as well as a few knockoffs and spinoffs like Ms. Pac Man.
2. Hall of Limbo: These systems just didn't get enough support or attention for the games to thrive. Under the forever-watchful statue of Duke Nukem, here as well lie the names of games from popular series that just never made it to the gamers, whether they were mere rumors or announced-and-canceled games.
3. Adam and Eve of Games: All men spring from the First Couple, and so all games spring from a single game and a screen somewhere in the early 1970s. One game, the first to garner mass popularity among the people in their own homes. One screen, the partner of the game. In this room waits Pong for the end of its descendants' story.
III. Region of the Terrible
1. Hall of Hell: Shitty games and consoles galore. Anyone can enter, but who the fuck would? These games are an example of what not to do when licensing, developing, publishing, or marketing.
2. Eternal Prison of Worst Offenders: These games are well-known, even legendary, for sucking. Never, it is to be hoped, shall the people of Earth ever again have to suffer from their like.
3. Mouth of Satan: One system, a Colecovision with Atari 2600 emulation attachment. Two games, both Atari 2600 games of 1982 make, who together nearly destroyed an industry on the American continent and most of whose kind are said to have been buried in New Mexico. You and I both know which games these are.
Fellow users are welcome and requested to suggest changes to the system, or to voice their opinions on what constitutes a "classic" console or game.
Gustavos
Ok, but you'll wake up tomorrow and ask yourself what were you under the influence of, and why your left eye is itchy.
So is that what happened this morning?
Well shit, I have to say that that is a very, very bad idea unless you happen to be rich with nothing better to spend money on. If I had the money to do this I would bring it over to Child'sPlay Charity. A charity that brings books, toys, and video games to kids in the hospital. How awesome would it be to take away some pain with some good old WiiSports (which comes with the Wii)? Or hell, there are plenty of cool charities to spread the love.
I don't know. I'm a child who followed the new games once he got tired of his older classics (which I still play, I just no longer drool over them). I have no interest in obtaining old consoles with games nobody ever heard of. I'm fine with the Virtual Console and PS1 titles available on PSN. Oh, and the Sega Genesis Collection for PS3 which includes 40 classic Genesis games on one disc for 30$. Kickass.
I just think you should rethink what you want to do with your money in your future. Pipe dreams never turn out the way you wanted them. Just enjoy AVGN as he lasts, and buy yourself a newer console.
If you truly have a passion for video games. Perhaps to bring the greatness of the older generations to newer games, then work on a future of helping make video games. Be a programmer, designer, director, animator, or tester. I myself hope my flashwork gets me a step closer to an animator for say, the next Mario or Zelda game. I want to help Nintendo take their games seriously. Cinematics is not their strong point. I wouldn't mind also working on the next Metal Gear or Resident Evil game (two series' that I'm a BIG fan of), but Nintendo needs help.
Eventually, I could work my way up through the ranks to Lead Animator. I tell a group of "Yes Men" what I want everything to be like. Kickass...
What? Oh-err, yeah you should definitely think twice about this dream of yours.
Or at least...
That's what I think...
SoulMaster71
By now you, if anyone, should know better than to try to talk me out of something like this. Have you forgotten 2007? I'm not interested in so much as touching a PS3 or a Wii, not until they're about a third of their current price. Actually, in the Wii case, I'll probably never play again after playing Mario Baseball or whatever that was with one of my cousins. When I was a child, I didn't play no damn gimmick motion-sensitive system with shitty games!
I already have a 360, and you know what? I still play my old games a lot more and haven't touched the 360 since January, because the 360 fucking sucks. The games are all graphics and little or no storyline or gameplay. Assassin's Creed, for example, lacks replay value, but guess what games still have replay value? If you answered "the oldies", you're correct! But the gaming public has just changed too damn much to enjoy my kinds of games, so no company would make them now. That's why I have to take refuge in the old games and systems: other than me, gamers now just want guns and explosions, and possibly multiplayer competition. It's too bad that the Wii, with a few games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and (of course) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess that offer something a lot better than just "graphics and guns and grenades AND 10-PLAYER ONLINE ACTION!!!", is cursed with that motion-sensing gimmick and armies of shitty games like Wii Sports and such made just for the gimmick.
AVGN was just a trigger. It's been in my mind, in some form or another, since my cousin, the one who got me started on gaming, sold his Genesis in 2001 or so. It was dormant, sleeping, buried, but eventually it came back, as it inevitably would. I certainly like the videos, they're hilarious (am I still so immature that, at age 20, I still laugh at shit jokes and vulgar language?!), but it would only have been delayed without AVGN.
I've already ordered a Genesis from eBay, including some of the earliest games I played (by which I mean Sonic 2 and the first two Mortal Kombat games). Might as well start where I did the first time, eh? I might not finish the plan before leaving the physical world behind me, but hey, every man has his recreation, and mine is playing good games which understand that there's more to games than appealing to hardcore FPS players who cut their teeth at Doom LAN parties or non-gamers who haven't touched a game since the first Pac-Man at the latest. Too bad most of them are from when games couldn't produce realistic graphics.