The first time I encountered Chrono Trigger, I was fifteen and broke. I’d been saving up for Final Fantasy VI (or Final Fantasy III as my American self knew it then), but when I walked into Electronics Boutique at the mall—the one next to the Orange Julius where my friend Tom worked and would sneak me free drinks—I saw this other SNES game with box art that stopped me in my tracks. A spiky-haired protagonist…
I still remember the first cheat code I ever learned. It wasn’t even from a magazine or the internet—those weren’t…
A long time ago in an arcade far, far away… actually, it was just down at the Westland Mall, sandwiched…
I’ve been staring at this blank document for about twenty minutes now, trying to figure out how to start an…
You know what I miss about the pre-internet gaming era? The mystery. The whispered secrets. The absolutely bonkers rumors that…
The first time a video game made me cry, I tried to hide it. It was 1997, I was 19,…
The first computer I ever built myself was a disaster. It was 1994, I was 16, and I’d spent months…
I still have the scar on my right thumb from the Great Mortal Kombat Debate of 1993. Jimmy Peterson and…
Christmas morning, 1985. I’m sitting cross-legged on our shag carpet, staring wide-eyed at this gray box connected to our family…
You know you’ve reached a certain point in your adult life when you catch yourself thinking, “I once spent four…
