30 for 30 // Day 1 -- My Nintendo and Sega roots

"So what's this link I clicked?" - You

 Well firstly "hi", and let me cut the medium sized story, to a size 's'...

I'm 30 years old on the 30th of this month.  All my life until now one constant hobby of mine has been video games, no breaks, super consistent!
Another hobby of passion that I used to be all about was writing, blogs, articles, whatever formulated from mind to webpage.

I'm also one of those people that often write ideas or to-do lists on little pieces of paper or in my phone.  I figured I'd earn a tick against "write blogs again", so I figured at least for myself I'd write 30 days of video game memories to count down to me hitting what others deem to be something of a milestone age.  

The ESPN 30 for 30 documentary series popped into mind whilst brainstorming what to do for this 30 day endeavour, thus the parody logo idea.

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Day 1 -- My Nintendo and Sega

As a kid I had it pretty good in regards to games systems.  My parents were mid to young 20's and because of that they already had a Nintendo Entertainment System (a.k.a the "NES") in the house before I could even fathom the idea of controlling something on a television screen.

As I progressed into my toddler era and beyond I came to own the NES.  Both my parents seemed to of passed on the system as a  fad, yet to me the NES was almost an every day go-to "toy".  

Whilst I have 2 NES's in my collection at present, I still own my original NES I've had since childhood. 
Still works too.

Not long after I had become competent on using the NES my dad brought me a Game Boy back from one of his race travels.  I had Tetris, Super Mario Land, and eventually some import pirate cart called "58 in 1".  I recall absolutely loving my Game Boy.  It felt so cutting edge to be able to play games on the go, considering the only thing close to "portable gaming" I'd played at the times were those super primitive Tiger electronics LCD games that not even the most bored of children could remain interested in.

Come 1991/ 1992, aside from a few great arcade games I'd played the only name in my mind when it came to gaming was Nintendo.  I was obsessed, I loved the Mario Bros Super Show and the follow on Mario 3 and Mario World based series (and even the Zelda cartoon albeit hadn't bought those games due to them seeming too advanced).  I don't think I had the basis at this point to imagine a future for what video games would be.  Even though arcade games of the time looked more impressive, I just assumed that was why they had to be so big, so just sort of counted them as a separate thing and not something for the home.

92 though was quite the important year for me as it turned out.  I had a few issues of Nintendo Power magazine (presumably through mail order) and this eventually tipped me off on the Super Nintendo, alongside seeing some kiosks for it in Woolworths and other shops that sold console stuff.
  I was absolutely blown away by the visual improvements on screen (it's hard to teach how important those console leaps were too people who weren't alive for it).  Parallel to this I  was learning about Sega.  I was friends with the girl next door around this year (I even remember her name being "Lorna"), no crush though, I was too young for that, we just hung out.  I remember one time either her or her brother had a birthday party or something as a bunch of us kids were in the house and I played the original Sonic on Megadrive for the first time.

  

From that first play on Sonic it became a MUST.  I should perhaps grill my parents on if they can recall me obsessing over it and no doubt circling the catalogs to let them know what games I'd want for it and such...

I know I got the Super Nintendo first, so I assume that came for my birthday in 1992, but before year end I became a king amongst kids as my dad brought home a Sega Megadrive from one of his races in which I didn't travel with on.  Owning both a SNES and a Megadrive meant I was somewhat impartial to the "console wars", but that's a different memory for a different day.

I eventually got a Game Gear in either 93 or 94.  I cherished a few games for it, but the battery issues that console had made me almost completely rule off taking it anywhere except for times I'd be sat near the cigarette lighter in a car/ truck to power the thing.  So the Game Boy was always #1 for portable fun, plus I'd amassed a bunch of Game Boy games in the time till I got a Game Gear too.  The Game Gear/ Game Boy saga was probably the first time I learned that gameplay wins over graphics.

Many passions came and went throughout my early 90's years.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Thunderbirds, Power Rangers, but nothing reigned dominance like my Nintendo's and my Sega's.