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Renting a video game | |
April 29th, 2020 | |
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Nostalgia struck. I'm back in a childhood home giddy with | |
excitement over the Nintendo Entertainment System which stealthily | |
arrived as the last present opened at Christmas. My parents sprung | |
for the unit that came with two game cartridges, not just one: | |
Super Mario Bros. & Duck Hunt on one cartridge, and Teenage Mutant | |
Ninja Turtles on the other. It's visceral. I can smell the box. | |
Feel the plastic. | |
Games then were expensive. I suppose they're still expensive, but | |
I don't buy so many. A game like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cost | |
about $50 in the late 80s. With some napkin math, that's around | |
$80-85 today. Pricey, as I said. We didn't get new ones often. | |
Years--and many garage sales--later, I have 57 games in my | |
collection. As a kid, I had around 20 at the most. | |
Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting games were worth this much | |
back then, but it's what we had. There's games I've got that | |
aren't worth a dime. The Adventures of Dino Rikki comes to mind. | |
What a piece of trash! Still, it cost a fortune and I had no way | |
of knowing if it was going to be terrible. Maybe a friend had it | |
and could warn me. Maybe it would get a mention in Nintendo Power | |
magazine. Otherwise, you're shopping by box art. | |
That was until the video rental stores got in on the action. It | |
was a brilliant outgrowth from home video. For a dollar or two you | |
could take home a game for a few days. Sure, you weren't likely to | |
master it or beat it, and your save game was gone when it was | |
returned. Even so, what an incredible tool to avoid wasting big | |
money on flops. | |
I vividly remember renting Life Force [0] from the Video Stop. | |
What a brilliant game that was. I loved the gameplay and the | |
sprites. There was one that looked like an uncooked chicken | |
crawling on the ground. Awesome. I believe that eventually many of | |
those sprites, sound effects, and much of the gameplay code would | |
get revisited in The Guardian Legend, my favorite NES game of all | |
time. | |
[0] Life Force | |
That rental was awesome and eventually I'd get my own copy of the | |
game. Others... well [1], I own some of those anyway. | |
[1] Not so awesome NES games | |
I don't really have a big reason for sharing this. It just came to | |
my mind and was worth a smile. Hope it gave you one too. |