I am a console gamer. It’s not something I’m proud of, not a badge I wear to mark myself or somehow justify the way I view the medium as a whole. It does, however, define what I’m drawn to play, what genres I return to year after year, and just what I’ve had the opportunity to play since I was four years-old. Only playing games on devices that fit in my pocket or plug into a television has, by turns, given me an incredibly imbalanced game-literacy. Deep, respected play experiences bound to personal computers are things I’m familiar with by name only. Space Quest? Fallout? Oh, yeah, sure, I’ve heard of those. Great games, right? Call me a nerd with a seriously warped perspective, but I’m actually embarrassed, that guy sitting in a circle of academics discussing James Joyce and having to admit that the last book I read was Harry Potter. My console crutch hasn’t just kept me away from keyboard-and-mouse-only fare either; there are literal hundreds of classic console games I’ve never played, and will never have the spare cash or access to the actual cartridges or discs, waiting at my fingertips via emulation.
I have never played a Sega Master System game. I want to, and I know I could, but I don’t. I’d love to try out Final Fight 3, but I don’t have fifty bucks to drop on a stray cartridge and, somehow, Google searching a ROM feels wrong. It’s not the piracy issue. The vast majority of silver age games will never, ever be commercially re-released. It’s that I feel like I’m missing out on the actual experience of the game by not engaging the physical artifact it was originally presented as. Crazy, I know. But it’s undeniable that there’s something vital and intangible in an “authentic” experience. Standing in front of Monet’s Vétheuil in the Fog, being able to see the physical cracks in the paint, is fundamentally different than looking at a print. There’s a difference between playing the English edition of Terranigma on my laptop and actually putting the cartridge, with its art flaking from the badly cared for label, into an SNES and holding that controller in my hand. The recent translation of Mother 3 is monumentally exciting but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to play this game on a bonafide Game Boy Advance.
So, tell me, dear reader: am I just completely batshit crazy, an overthinking rube with pretentious ideas about legitimacy? Or is there something to be said for an original experience of a game? Let me know.
Related links:
Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?
Question of the Day: Has the HD Revolution Happened and Does It Matter For Games?
Screen Test: Fallout 3
Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
Earthbound and Back Again