I want to ask you a fun question. What do you remember about the first game console you ever owned?
Me? Well…I remember a lot. Some might go as far to say that perhaps I remember a little too much… I know for certain that my first gaming console was the Sega Master System 2. Sure, before this, I had access to an Amstrad PC, which had a nice little collection of games available. But nothing could or would ever compare to a game console that could be plugged straight into the back of the TV. At the time of this emerging technology, this was to me, to put things simply, a technological revelation that I was desperate to have a crash course with! I can still recall faint figments of memory of the very day that I first got the console. Mind you, this was at least thirty years ago. So bare with me while I share the little pieces that I do remember. Let me start by saying that receiving the console was most likely the highlight of my year. Pause for a moment and think about what that says about 1990’s life in rural outback Australia? Bored were we? Yes! Wanting excitement and adventure in any format we could get it? Yep! Well, whatever the case, the truth is, there is little else that I remember about our family trip to Toowoomba on that day, other than it ultimately leading to me finally obtaining the Sega Master System 2 for myself! Beyond doubt, I recall that it was some time in the early 90’s, I mean, of course it was! After all, it's not like the system was released in the late 1940’s! From what I can recall it was some time before the release of Jurassic Park and some time after the original Bill and Ted. Most likely, it was released right around the time that my afternoon TV sessions were being treated with a healthy dose of Duck Tales. If I had to guess, I would say that it was perhaps right around 1992. Which would have meant that I was about ten years old at the time. This machine was made for me! The store that we would purchase the game console from was K-Mart and to this day I still recall seeing the stack of game machines upon entering. This was no ancient monument to the dead! It was a monument to the living and to the advances in technology. Further more, I now see it as a monument to my childhood! So? What were we doing in Toowoomba? I can tell you now that it wasn't the Sega that we were shopping for. We were meant to be clothes shopping, but there we were, as a family. Sidetracked by a giant pyramid of brand new Sega game consoles. Without doubt, the end cap stack itself was simply momentous to behold! I had never see anything so glorious in all my life. The consoles were stacked on top of one another and the stack formed a broad pyramid that reached towards the roof of the store. Turns out that K-Marts marketing team was spot on during this visit. The advertising obviously worked for me but more amazingly, as I was soon to discover, it somehow worked for my mother and my sister as well. While I wasn't paying attention, (no surprise, I'm easily distracted), my sister and my mother had somehow secretly formed a pact between them. Looking back now I am sure that they were possessed. They had somehow peacefully come to an arrangement to split the cost of the machine between them. It was quite possibly the last peaceful delegation between them before my sisters’ teenage years really took flight. Whatever the case, this secret pact was formed because of one simple reason. The price. Even now I still recall the device being reduce from its normal one hundred odd dollar price point to what I believe was now a neat seventy nine dollars. This was evidently convincing enough to put the discussion onto the table. It should be said, as a family we were as broke as Grandma but we still managed to scrape together enough coin to buy the Sega Master System 2. Thanks K-Mart! You’re brainwashing techniques really worked in my favor on this one! After the purchase I recall heading back to the motel room and immediately setting the console up on the old cathode-ray TV. The TV itself was mounted on the wall and boasted a whopping 32 cm display! That, believe it or not was pretty standard for the day. For those with no perspective of what this means in regard to size, it helps to think of your old school computer monitor, it was roughly that big. The fact that I remember this to this day is evidence enough that it apparently made a massive impression on me. After all, back in those days, it really was about the simple things and the getting Sega Master System 2 was perhaps one of the simplest memorable occasions of my simple child hood life. Whatever the case maybe, first console or not, I had indeed managed to play Sega before this. Please, bare with me while I share a “friends, brothers, uncles” story. My friend down the road had older brothers and his older brothers were the proud owners of an original Sega Master System One, they were also the proud owners of a fine collection of what is now considered classic games. Lucky for me I had played their Master System on play dates and was completely captivated by the technology. I recall their master system having two preinstalled games on it. One was Wonder Boy and the other was some Secret snail game, the likes of which I have not seen since. The secret snail game could only be accessed via a sequence of controller button presses. After a little research I soon discovered that the secret snail game was called Snail Maze. My cousins also had a Sega Master system, except theirs was the next edition, version 2. And from what I recall it was in fact here, at my cousins’ house that I was first introduced to the idea of a gaming console at all. I still recall a chat with my cousins one day about a special channel that their dad had put the TV on, the very night before this conversation. This special channel, they boasted, apparently allowed him to play arcade games. The way they explained it to me was that the games had come from their TV antenna, which was hung from the side of their house. I remember thinking that they were full of shit. I was 6 or 7 at the time and gaming consoles were completely foreign to me. It was through conversations with friends and relatives that I first learned of these mythical devices. So this, my friends, is how the myth of gaming consoles at home started. Over the next couple of years, after first hearing whispers of such a thing existing, the Sega Master System 2 went on to became a massive hit. The sad truth was that we had one store in town that sold the devices. One! What I do recall was that this store had a demo model set up that customers were welcome to play. Some afternoons, while my mum did the weekly grocery shopping, I would find myself in line, waiting patiently for the previous costumers to finish using the console before I could finally get another chance to get my gaming fix. This wait would often lead to a pent up sensation of excitement that I’ve rarely experienced since. Like I was saying, back in the early 1990’s it was all about the simple things. The game on the demo console was always Alex Kidd and it was here, on a demo console, in a small town electronics store, 220 kilometers from anything that closely resembled modern civilization, that I first got a real opportunity to have a good go at the game without being interrupted. I also happen to remember that outside of Goondiwindi, it was K-Mart and Big W stores that had offered these demo units. I remember visiting Toowoomba, 220 kilometers from my home town and these were first stores that my brother and I would head. My mum would go clothes shopping, which in all honesty bored the socks of my brother and I, which most likely resulted in more lost socks, which in turn resulted in mum going more clothes shopping! This was an apocalyptic cycle of endless boredom and Sega was our savior! However, because Toowoomba was 220 kilometers from my home town of Goondiwindi, my local Chandlers Electronics store was my only option of playing the demo consoles in my home town. However, this was soon to change with the release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendos second console release. My local video shop, called Go Video at the time, was quick to set up a nintendo console that you could rent for half an hour blocks at a cost of five bucks a session. This was a complete rip-off of course, even for 1990’s prices, but at the same time, if you couldn’t afford a SNES, it was an awesome way to play the latest and greatest game releases. Thoughts of hiring this nintendo machine bring back memories of a man-child we knew by the name of Hogsy. We weren’t sure what this dudes real name was, as far as I’m concerned he somewhat resembled Julian Assange and probably was. Legend has it that Assange was known to frequent the region from time to time. Whatever the case, Hogsy would often stop into the local video shop to hijack the game, even though we paid for it! Therefore, in typical gamers retaliation fashion, we honored him with the title of “Hogsy” because, to put things simply, he was a freaking game hog! But more on the legend that was Hogsy in another article perhaps? He has already eaten up enough of my valuable time. Now, I feel I have strayed far from my original conversation. So to help bring it all back into perspective I will remind you here that I was indeed discussing the Sega Master System 2. Now, the reason I wanted to discuss this gaming system was because of the game that came free with the console. The name of this game was Alex Kidd in Miracle World. It should have been called Alex Kidd in ‘push you over the edge world’ or Alex Kidd ‘It’s a miracle I didn’t have an aneurism playing it, world’. As a kid this game was a beast. And I can tell you now, as an adult, this game is still a beast. And, it should be said, we didn’t call it Alex Kidd in Miracle World; we simply called it Alex ‘the’ Kid. This game is notoriously difficult, was back then, still is now. That’s what’s great about it! Throughout the years the game itself has been re-released on the Nintendo Wii and Wii U console virtual stores. Up until recently, it remained largely unvaried. That is until its re-release on the Nintendo Switch in June of 2021. How I missed the release of this game is a testament to how I have completely neglected gaming for the past couple of years. What have I been doing! Oh, that’s right, I went down the Sodium Hydroxide rabbit hole… The re-release of Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a game worth buying. With the flick of a switch you can play the original retro version or you can chose to play the new enhanced version. The truth is that the original game is so well made that at times I forget which version I am even playing. Proof that it’s not about the graphics and that it’s more about the game play itself. Alex Kidd in Miracle World is simply addictive. Often I find I have been playing in retro mode without even noticing. The new version however is more appealing to the eyes and ears. The retroversion soundtrack still haunts my nightmares. The sound of Alex’s death is particularly sticky, as is the repetitive soundtrack loop, which plays in my head as I write this. So, there you have it. Hogsy, Chandlers, some place called Toowoomba and Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Happy days. Happy days indeed! 
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 I am behind the times. What have I been doing?! Oh, that’s right, I have a job and some pretty strange hobbies. Combined, these tend to take up most of my time. As this is the case, I have fallen behind the times regarding video games. I attempted to play Ghosts of Tsushima, but it simply didn’t stick. The Pod-racer 64 re-release on the Nintendo Switch, on the other hand, well, let’s say that that game stuck and then some. That’s how I spent my Christmas break. I was so thoroughly invested in pod racing that when I went back to work, I drove the work truck so fast around a roundabout that I lost a generator out one side of the vehicle. Luckily a milkman was there to pull it off the side of the road. So, it’s safe to say that finding a good game has been somewhat of a challenge for me lately. Things are tough in the gaming market when the only decent one left to play was initially released more than twenty years prior. So it came as somewhat a surprise to me to find The Evildead Game on the shelf at my local EB Games. How the hell had I missed this? Surely I should have heard about this from somewhere! But no, sadly, this had almost slipped under my radar. But there was hope. The best thing was I hadn’t completely missed the bandwagon. It wasn’t due to be released for another couple of weeks. Well, now the time has come. The release date has come around. All I need to do now is willingly compete in the eternal struggle to kick my son off Fortnite and I will be good to go. Here comes the boom!….stick.  |
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