I don’t think this is my very first gaming memory, but it’s the most poignant and awesome. I think I was about five or six years old and this whole thing took place in a K-Mart long ago… Well, not that long. I don’t want to be old yet…
Anyways, I’m there with my mother shopping and my birthday was either coming up or had already happened. They had these white wire bins brimming with all sorts of games. My first console had been the late, great Sega Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog was my first video game love. Not long before that day I rented Sonic and Knuckles and adored it. Climbing and gliding around in the jungle as Knuckles was all I wanted to do (I also thought he was a girl and had no idea what an echidna was at the time, oops) so I was scouring the bin for it. And there it was, in my reach…
Until some old woman snatched it away. Snatched. Without a passing glance. And there were no other copies. So, as I was shy and sensitive, my feelings were crushed and I went to my mother to get ready to leave. She noticed I was clearly dispirited by something and when I told her what the woman did, it was the most incredible thing to me.
She marched over and chewed that lady out; I expected punches to be thrown, honestly. The other woman, flabbergasted and flustered, handed the coveted game to my mother and she came back and gave it to me. I’d never seen my mother do something so aggressive, it was like she was a lioness providing food for her cub, except less for nourishment purposes. To say the least I was ecstatic and grateful, and I’m also exceptionally proud of how badass my mom is on a daily basis. I certainly enjoyed that frustrating game for a very long time after that incident.
Another early gaming memory comes to mind where I had a new set of Final Fantasy VIII disks and I couldn’t play the first disk because the minutest little chip occurred on the edge of the center circle. Bummed me out. The end. See? Much less exciting.
Do you have any early memories revolving around video games? Can you remember that far back?
