A Mass of Memories

I can still think of various times in my life and associate them with video games, somehow.  Good, bad, happy, sad, whatever.  The unfortunate part about that is that I always re-gravitate towards the games that I played in happier times.  The games I experienced during the more stressful or unhappy periods of my life (not that I’ve ever been “down in the dumps” – everyone has their ups and downs) don’t get very many playthroughs, simply because they plop me right back into those time periods.

Not that they’re bad games, they just weren’t all that great to me.

It’s not just video games, either.  It’s the same way with movies, music, or even sporting events.  Various parts of my life can be pieced together by thinking of various other things, which bring back certain memories.

It works vice-versa, too.  If the games\sports happenings\movies were bad, I don’t have too many random memories from those time periods.

For example, I don’t remember much of 1994.  The Blue Jays did awful that year, and the Expos had a fantastic season nullified by the player’s strike.  My early interest in auto racing took a hit when an F1 racer I had just started following because I thought his name was catchy (Ayrton Senna) was killed in the first part of the year.  I lost a bit of interest in both sports, which was a bit of a bummer.

Kurt Cobain died some time during the end of Grade 5, and though I didn’t like Nirvana at the time, the image of kids crying the morning after he died is fresh in my mind.  One of the girls in my class had her mother pass away after a tough battle with cancer, and it freaked a lot of kids out to the point where counsellors came in to help some of the kids.  I was more or less fine, but the frank discussions we had about death kinda spooked me.

So, yeah, what games did I play in ’93-’94, while I was in Grade 5?  Off the top of my head, I can honestly say I’m not too sure.  Maybe Mega Man X?  The release date seems right, although I don’t associate many childhood memories with it, except the specific ones I’ve already posted about.  NHL ’94 and NHL Stanley Cup come to mind, but that was more around Christmas time, and there were no other really memorable games to speak of.

Perhaps there were others…  they just aren’t coming quite as naturally to me, maybe because I just choose not to remember.  Funny, how that works.

I know this wasn’t much of a gaming post, although it kinda\sorta is.  I just kinda let my fingers do the flyin’ today.

That being said, I don’t expect to be out of gaming memories any time soon!