Live Magazine June Issue 2017 June July Magazine Spiderman | Page 58

YOUR SAY
RETRO
The Gamer
THE CONTINUING STORY
While I had stuck with my Super Nin-
tendo throughout the 32-bit era so
far, a special person was about to
change my perspective on things.
My second girlfriend, also called
Amy, was well and truly a member
of the Nintendo 64 club. Through
her I gained membership and ex-
perienced my first time holding the
iconic controller. Well... many people
call it iconic, but I’ve never been a
fan of the original N64 analog stick. do, as I wasn’t playing it anymore. I
hesitated, remembering what hap-
pened with the Amstrad CPC and
the regret I felt over letting that go.
I didn’t want to sell something that
was a big part of my childhood, and
I knew that there was a lot of life
left in the system. I said I wanted to
keep it, so my mother uttered the
quote that would start the retro rev-
olution that still lives on inside me
today. Her near-exact words were:
While I currently own 5 or 6 Ninten-
do 64s, I have always disliked the
feel of the control stick. The way
that it grinds against the edges,
and the powdery buildup from it just
worries me. Having to replace the
stick with it dies is also a pain! A
couple of years ago I purchased a
Hori controller, which is a lot smaller
and has a Gamecube style analog
controller. They’re not cheap, but
it’s now my weapon of choice for all
of my N64 gaming. “If you’re going to keep it
then you should go get some
more games for it.”
Back in 1998 Amy and I played
through Mario 64, and I was sur-
prised at how easy it was to adapt
to the 3D world. Being that it was
the first third person 3D game I had
ever played it was a bit of a culture
shock, but it was just so much fun.
The graphics are delightfully blocky
and the music has a very Mario
feel about it. I still had issues with
the control stick, but that didn’t de-
tract from the gaming experience.
Around this time my mother sug-
gested that I sell the Super Ninten-
I pondered this, as SNES games
were becoming scarce. I thought
that maybe Cash Converters would
be the place to find some old games.
I journeyed down to my local store
and picked up a bunch of them for
between $5 and $10 each. I went to
a few stores that day, loaded up on
games, and introduced Amy to the
previous system. I’m not sure she
was that impressed, but I was hav-
ing fun with it.
I visited Cash Converters stores all
over the metro area, and discovered
games and devices that I had never
heard of before. I picked up differ-
ent types of controllers, including
the SNES programmable pad that
James and I had seen in the pages
of Super Play. All of my Cash Con-
verter trips would be about hunt-
ing for Super Nintendo games, but
it was at Cash Converters Gepps