BACK TO THE INDEX.
-By Philip "Pocket Squirrel" Wesley -
-Welcome to The Philip Rational-
-This is the No Spin Zone of Video Games-
-But you will love it anyways-
-Posted August September 20th, 2003-
That
controversial enough for you? I suppose I should tell you a bit about
who I am and what I stand for. I have been a video game player from age
six or seven. Not really sure; but I do remember that my first
experience with video games was in arcades. Bubble Bobble, Goonies, and
Super Mario Bros. That would be where I began. I played outside a lot,
and really only spent time indoors to play with Legos, or to grab more
Matchbox cars, G.I.Joe's, Transformers, or whatnot. I grew up in a
fairly conservative enviroment, as whatever was making the PWOC cringe
was off limits to me. The PWOC would be the Protestant Women Of the
Chapel group which my mother belonged to. So, I would get in trouble
for playing with Masters of the Universe, watching Ninja Turtles, The
Simpsons, and even G.I.Joe ended up being too "violent" for me to be
watching. I remember argueing with my mother to watch Dragon's Lair and
The Legend of Zelda on Cartoon Express and that other channel. "It's
like The Chronicles of Narnia! See!" "Well, okay." Give out the C.S.
Lewis name and it makes some of the stricter, but good intentioned,
parents back off. Learning to stretch and mold at an early age.
Despite that, I did get a healthy dose of games in my youth. We had an Apple IIe and several "cracked" games for it, such as Sub Noodle, Wings of Fury, Karateka, and more. Then, my Aunt sent us her old Commodore 64 and the obsession took firm root when I suddenly had Donky Kong, Q-Bert, Mario Bros., B.C's Quest for Tires, Dig Dug, Gandalf, and more on the SAME DISK. Load "*",8,1 became my best friend ever. I was exposed to everyone else's NES though. So, I became instantly hooked on the BEST GAME EVER MADE: "Super Mario Bros. 3. Before that, I really dug Mickey's Mousecapades and Legend of Zelda. When we moved to Germany -I'm a military brat- I began to lean toward wantin ga system of my own. One in particular: Nintendo Game Boy. I had gotten to play Super Mario Land, and Tetris on one and I was hooked. It was the best thing ever. The screen was black and white, so my mother asked me if I wanted a color Sega Game Gear, or an Atari Lynx instead. I knew what I wanted. I wanted Tetris and I *really* wanted to play Super Mario Land. I used to stare longingly at the box for the game at the Base Exchange. A Base Exchange is a store for the military. We pay no sales tax and get decent deals. Other branches of the service have Post Exchanges, and such. It is all under a huge conglomerate called AAFES. (Army Air Force Exchange Services) Anyhow, I got one for Christmas, sort of.
I got a picture of a Game Boy cut out from a Sears Catalogue and Super Mario Land. My parents had ordered one and were waiting for it to get here. After a while of reading the instruction booklet over and over again, I opened other presents and felt I could wait for a Game Boy. Then, eventually, my parents decided to give me a choice, they could get me one at the BX and then just give the one that came in the mail to my sister. Since the Game Boy came with Tetris, a game link cable, batteries, and headphones... her and I could play Tetris against each other. I thought it was a great idea. The rest is history, tons of games later, I have every Nintendo system, I'm collecting the shows I didn't get to watch before on DVD now, I have been to four E3s, had readers from Iraq, gotten $1,000 checks with my name on them, worked retail, met celebrities, gotten death threats, worked on this site for over five years, and I've worked with and on several websites including Nintendojo, ZHQ, N64.com (IGN), The N64 Underground (Nintendorks), and more. I've been around quite a bit in the industry. Been in and out of Non-Disclosure Agreements, worked for Nuby, Saveja (Gameinis), and more. It's been a loooong and strange trippy thing. My mother still says she regrets ever buying me the Game Boy. Thanks Mom, whatever. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this weird non sequitor style column. For those who are more hardcore, I hope I can some how appeal to your senses as well. On that note...
This is just another sad article by one of those high strung, video game journalist, pre-madonna superstars.
-Philip Wesley-
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