I was seven years old when I first met Mario, though neither of us knew we’d be lifelong companions. It was Christmas 1985, and that Nintendo Entertainment System—acquired through my dad’s night shifts and overtime—came bundled with Super Mario Bros. I still remember that first descent down a green pipe, the discovery of an underground coin heaven, and the startled joy of finding out you could actually go backwards in a video game level. What…
It was Christmas morning, 1994. I was sixteen, awkwardly caught between childhood excitement for presents and teenage pretensions of being…
8 Best Platformers of the 80s & 90s That Shaped My Childhood The Christmas of 1987 changed my life. I…
There are games you play, games you love, and then there are games that fundamentally alter your relationship with the…
I first saw Final Fantasy VII in the back pages of a dog-eared issue of GamePro at my friend Kevin’s…
The first time a video game made me cry, I was sixteen years old, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor,…
My love affair with The Legend of Zelda series began in the most unremarkable of places—my cousin’s dingy basement in…
I can still hear the heated arguments echoing across the playground of Westlake Elementary circa 1992. “Sonic is way cooler!”…
5 PC Games From the 90s That I Still Play Today My Gateway 2000 arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in…
In 1996, with the debut of the Nintendo 64 (N64), video game history was irrevocably altered. The N64 was, and…
Few gaming moments are genuinely transformative, but for me, the appearance of Tomb Raider was precisely that. The late 1990s…
The first gaming magazine I ever owned wasn’t even mine. It was my older brother Dave’s copy of Nintendo Power,…
The summer of 1988 was defined by three things: uncomfortably hot weather that made my Nintendo feel warm to the…
Summer 1998. I’d just finished my sophomore year of college, moved back home to save money, and landed a soul-crushing…
I first met Solid Snake on a frigid January night in 1999. My roommate had gone home for the weekend,…
