How I wound up with Nintendo's Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the Nintendo 3DS is rather unremarkable. My family asked me to put together an Amazon.com wish list for the 2012 holidays, I wanted Paper Mario, I put it on the aforementioned list, my parents bought it and sent it to me as a gift, the end. The real story here is not so much how I acquired the game, but what I did with it once I had it and when I finally found the time to play it. See, while I received the game in early December, I didn't have the chance to finally open the box and play the game until the middle of January. I had been planning a long weekend getaway with my girlfriend Nicole after the holidays, and since every good vacation needs a game to go with it, I made it a point to finally start playing the game just prior to the trip. Our destination? Historic St. Augustine, Florida for four days of relaxation. Paper Mario was along for the ride, but this trip was secretly about more than just getting away for a few days and certainly about more than saving the Mushroom Kingdom.
This was the weekend that I asked Nicole to marry me.
When the Nintendo GameCube hit North America, I hesitated. Rather than buy the new console, I sat back and watched as launch titles that weren't Super Mario titles came and went, so by the time I did purchase a GameCube the following year in 2002, I had some catching up to do. I bought Super Smash Bros. Melee without hesitation, but decided to rent a few of the games of which I wasn't sure about buying. With plenty of time to kill over the long July 4 holiday that year, I stopped by the Blockbuster Video a few blocks from my apartment and picked up Luigi's Mansion and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle to take for test drives. I cleared the mansion over the course of a few days and wound up returning the game a day overdue (bringing Blockbuster's wrath down on me in the form of a late fee that equaled the original rental price), so I didn't have a chance to explore the hidden unlockable mansion that revealed itself following the game's conclusion. I decided to hold on to my memory card save data and vowed to pick up the game on the used market before too much time passed in order to completely finish it.
Friday, June 10, 2011: I've spent the week in Los Angeles covering the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo, and for the first time I've covered it largely as a solo act. It was my seventh time out to the big show and the first one I've covered without Kombo's brand name and clout backing me up. It was not an easy job. I checked out of the hotel room before dawn and made my way to the airport, then caught the long five-hour flight home. Exhausted, I staggered off of the plane and into the jetway. Last year I had to take a cab home, but this year I'd made better arrangements.
On the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the release of the Nintendo 64 and the groundbreaking Super Mario 64, it's time to share the story of how I wound up with the oft-misunderstood console and smash hit game. I was fifteen years old when the system debuted in 1996 and, like everyone else in my generation, was extremely curious as to what Nintendo had planned for Mario in his latest adventure. I'd been following the Nintendo Power coverage for months ahead of release (even if the coverage was vague and cryptic as the magazine was famous for at the time) and finally found a demo unit showcasing both the system and the flagship title at the local Blockbuster Video one September afternoon. While my parents picked out a video to rent, I held the trident controller and realized that all of the previews hadn't prepared me to play Super Mario 64. Not that I was blown away by what I saw or overwhelmed by the moment, mind you (though I was), but I honestly had no idea how to hold the controller. I ended up trying to maneuver my way through the Bowser In The Underground level by pinching the control stick with my thumb and pointer finger as if it were an old fashioned joystick. That didn't work so well, and by the time I figured out how to actually play the game it was time to leave, so I had to walk away unsatisfied. I wanted more! I knew I had to have a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 of my own.
People don't seem to talk about the Game Boy version of Nintendo's 1992 puzzle game, Yoshi. It's certainly easy enough to forget about if one compares it to the monster puzzle titles of the era such as Tetris and Dr. Mario. Even if you did enjoy it, you'd probably spring for the colorful, more detailed Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game. Not me, though. I walked right up to the counter at the mall electronics store, plunked down my $30 in saved allowance, and proudly asked for the little handheld version of Yoshi. I didn't do it near my home though. I bought it nearly three-thousand miles away as close to "the source" as I could possibly manage. I'm getting ahead of myself though.
I grew up playing the many games of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise and was still playing at the age of 22 when the GameCube iteration of the series, The Wind Waker, hit stores in 2003. At this point in my life I was going to college full time and working part time, spending my days out in the world and evenings back home in my little one-bedroom apartment. I had been on the fence about buying the game at launch, however, and it wasn't until I took a private tour of developer n-Space's facilities and saw them playing the Japanese version of the game (which was already out by that time) that I decided to take the pre-order plunge just about the time that Nintendo announced it was offering the Ocarina of Time Master Quest as a reservation bonus. By the time I was ready to make things happen, I was dealing with severe stomach problems and had to wrench myself out of bed to make the fifteen-minute drive towards downtown to Best Buy to take care of business. I put down my $5 on the pre-order, picked up the bonus disc, and went home to sleep for the rest of the day. I figured I'd take a day off to rest, and then revisit the quest the next day in better health. Unfortunately, some things just don't work out as I plan.
The Internet is buzzing today with nostalgic news of the Nintendo Entertainment System's twenty-fifth anniversary and I feel that I can't let the day pass without saying something about the console that started me on the road to life-long video game enthusiast, but I've already shared my NES origin story with you and told the tale of the time I bought my very first NES game. The world doesn't really need another explanation of why Super Mario Bros. 3 is such a great game, so instead I thought I'd go in the other direction and tell you the story of the very last NES game that I acquired. Every console has a final chapter, and while the very last first-party NES game would reach the finish line in 1994 with Wario's Woods, my own personal dropping of the NES curtain came in January 1993 when I bought Capcom's Mega Man 5.
I really should have known better, but I went ahead anyway. 1993 was a difficult year for Super Mario fans such as myself. Super Mario World had been released two years prior, while the next Mushroom Kingdom adventure was still two years away. What was a Nintendo fanatic supposed to do to bridge the gap? The Software Toolworks must have sensed the building demand in the marketplace, because the company licensed everyone's favorite plumber for a series of edutainment titles based on the popular Super Mario franchise. The gaming magazines of the day made it seem palatable - almost enjoyable, even - but after all these years my one gaming regret involves that boring summer day when, at the age of twelve, I walked up to the gaming counter at K-Mart and said "I would like to buy Mario Is Missing."
Longtime readers know that I have a certain fondness for the wannabe mascot wars of the 16-bit generation. I've championed for Bubsy and Plok, after all. Today it's time to direct your attention to Sunsoft's attempt at cashing in on the "radical mascot with an attitude" era of gaming history, or rather Sunsoft's continued attempt. The company pinned its hopes on Aero the Acro-bat for the Super NES and Sega Genesis, and while the first game in the series was relatively easy to find, the sequel that was produced a year later in 1994 was downright elusive.
I spent many near-sleepless nights trying to finish the first Aero and had even stumbled upon the stage select code before it had been published in the gaming magazines of the day, so I knew I had to have the second. I went to every store in my little hometown and surrounding areas that sold video games, but nobody even knew the game was created, let alone for sale. Remember, this was the pre-Amazon.com era. Finding obscure games such as Aero today is as easy as punching up eBay, but at the time I was limited to the whims and sales trends of retail stores. As much as I loved Mario and his pals, the Mushroom Kingdom characters had taken over the shelves. There was no room in the Nintendo section for a plucky little aerobatic bat.
I haven't always been a popular game journalist. Yes, it's true. Once upon a time I was just a regular gaming guy who grew up with dreams of working in the video game industry, but getting my foot in the door seemed impossible. Pursuing the idea was always one of those things that I'd put off for "later", but then one day it looked as if there would not be a "later" for me. After a long illness and a brush with death I threw myself into working towards my goal of becoming a video game reviewer, and if you've been a long-time PTB reader then you already know how the story ends. What you probably don't know is how the whole thing began, and ultimately it's the tale of how I acquired Tom Clancy's Splniter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for the Nintendo GameCube.
Longtime readers know that I have a certain fondness for the wannabe mascot wars of the 16-bit generation. I've championed for 
I haven't always been a popular game journalist. Yes, it's true. Once upon a time I was just a regular gaming guy who grew up with dreams of working in the video game industry, but getting my foot in the door seemed impossible. Pursuing the idea was always one of those things that I'd put off for "later", but then one day it looked as if there would not be a "later" for me. After a long illness and a brush with death I threw myself into working towards my goal of becoming a video game reviewer, and if you've been a long-time PTB reader then you already know how the story ends. What you probably don't know is how the whole thing began, and ultimately it's the tale of how I acquired 
