Classics

The Classics

Collecting for collecting purposes

A set of six classic games, ranging from a Vic 20 game cassette tape, a LED game called 1943 that is played in the video below, a loose Atari Yars' Revenge, a boxed Atari Xevious, and the Intellivision game Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Treasure of Tarmin, on a wooden table.

The top left corner of a storage shelf in my room, with the set of six games tightly arranged to be all visible at least somewhat. The Andy Warhol art book is crammed to the right and a nautical sextant is on the wall to the left.

Ahhh, the games have been kicking around in the background for ages. Those sought out over time, slowly piecing together boxes and loose cartridges, and things that have lived with me since literal childhood. There's not a lot of them, and I can play almost none (at least directly, emulators exist for like... all old systems), but they were my favourites from the past.

It begans with Vic-20 Blue Meanies From Outer Space, a... bizarre Vic-20 game involving shooting lasers from the side of the screen at frowny face aliens coming down. My favourite game from early childhood, and probably the second video game I ever played. The first, if I recall, was Slither/Super Slither, which while I was able to re-obtain from eBay (purely for "this is the first game I ever played" purposes), wasn't awesome enough for the display. But it can exist in the general display shelf.

The next that came was 1943, an LED airplane shooter game. There were others in and around that area, but again, this was my favourite, and has followed me around since childhood. The fact that it still works is incredible!

After this, the originals have gone and been replaced from classic used game stores. Xevious, Yars' Revenge, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin existed at about the same time, our family having an Atari 7800 (which also played 2600 and 5200 games, Yars' Revenge being of the former), a gift from an uncle, and our neighbour had an Intellivision, where I first got to play Treasure of Tarmin, which of course started the whole AD&D page.

Metroid of course came after, and marks the end of my classic game collection, but the beginning of my Metroid obsession. Again the cartridge was re-obtained at a later date, the original having gone with my brother to Calgary with all the classic consoles. I obtained protective sleeves for the paper boxes (I've looked for one sized for a loose Atari cartridge, but to no avail yet), and that set in some manner or another exists in a display in some form or another.

And so, the classic display lives on, rearranged as necessity or incidental bumpage requires, and keeps in view my favourite games from over the years. Will another find its way into this set? While Metroid II: Return of Samus certainly qualifies, it's actively playable in the Gameboy section, so dwells over there. If something else should find its way into there (one other if I can ever find would be Rings of Medusa (YouTube), which was incredibly fun), they will be added to the page. So until I find an old 3.5" disk of that or another game enters the fray...