I just want to start off by saying, I grew up in suburban Allentown, I am in no way a hardcore gamer, but I did play my hardest when I was very young. From the age of eight to eighteen I played video-games like a madman bent on destroying the demons of Doom, jumping on goombas and zapping aliens in Star Fox... I no longer have time to do any of this, due to college and my jobs. But now, I bring you part I of the 6 games that I grew up on...

Star Fox 64


I remember, back in 1997, which I guess is about ten years ago now, I got this game for my birthday. I was ecstatic with joy because it had a rumble pack, which, I would find out years later is just a cheap device with vibration technology. But I didn't care, back in '97, it was my dream come true, to play a jet-fighting game and actually feel the turbulence of the cockpit recoiling right back at me. The game's story was ridiculous, a bunch of woodland critters flying around in jets trying to stop a giant monkey from taking over the galaxy - but I didn't care. I would sit in my room for hours, glued to my television, playing Star Fox 64. I remember, a few weeks after I got it, it was Thanksgiving, and my Mom kept yelling to me from the first floor "COREY GET DOWN HERE SO WE CAN EAT!!!" But I was super-glued to my Sanyo Television, trying to defeat the evil Andross and save the critter galaxy. Finally my mother sent my grandfather up to my room and he had to practically drag me away from the TV... Good times.

Mario Kart 64

The second N64 game I ever owned. For hours on end, my brother and I would play the overly-simplistic levels trying to unlock more and more levels, if I remember correctly, the game was overly cruel when it came to icy levels, and it would send Mario's Kart flying into the water, and I would sit there, watching as Mario was fished out of the ice thinking 'Wow, I wonder if he's dead this time? Oh, no he's still living, thought the ice may have froze him for good that time..." My brother was much better at this game than me, in fact, every time I tried to beat him on any level, he kicked my butt. I never realized it until I got into programming, but the characters in the game were all 2D sprites matted onto a 3D world. The items or, 'lucky leprechauns' as my Dad called them were all 2D sprites. The game's most complicated coding was probably in the 3D meshes of the levels. I really appreciate what they were trying to do, but looking back, it seems as though they could have made it all 3D, but didn't just to save a buck. But who cares? It was damned good fun.

Super Mario 64


Ah yes, the most epic platformer ever made, and the very first N64 game I ever played. Heck, it may have been the first video-game I ever played come to think of it. This is not only one of the most fun games ever compiled, but possibly the most challenging. I never beat this game until I was about seventeen. I had to have my buddy Bernie come over and he'd coach me through the levels, every Saturday for 2 years, Bernie would come over and we'd play that game until nightfall. Only recently had my brother become the master who could beat the game in under twenty hours. But I always sucked at this game. Who cares, though? It was a fun, challenging and awesome game of epic proportions. The game is still popular today, being the basis and core for games like 'Jak & Daxter,' and the first 'Prince of Persia' on PS2. The game is a monument to all that is modern gaming, I'd put it on a scale of importance next to the original Doom, that's just what a mighty game it was and still is today.

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I may not have been very good at these games, but every day coming home from school, depressed or tired, I'd just pop one of them into my Nintendo-64 and play it for hours, then by supper time I'd feel a whole lot better. It was a Nintendo Obsession and I wouldn't have had it any other way.