This month’s Round Table Discussion is a trip down memory lane — “A moment when you knew that games were to be a part of your life…” As soon as Corvus announced the topic I immediately knew what moment that would be for me. The moment is crystal clear. It happened one Saturday morning on my way to Boy Scouts.
I was twelve years old at the time (1987), and on Saturday mornings I attended our weekly Boy Scout meeting at my friend’s house. His dad was the Scoutmaster and I’d get a ride to the meeting with another buddy of mine. This particular Saturday (it was late October, if memory serves me) my friend handed me the manual to his new Nintendo game, Kung Fu.
I had already been playing video games for a couple years on my trusty Atari 2600, but that was the extent of my playing. I didn’t play it very often, just a game of Combat or Pitfall when I was bored. I was more into my G.I. Joe Headquarters than any video game. My friend had an ColecoVision and I knew what the new Nintendo system looked like, but I had never played it. Leafing through the pages of the Kung Fu manual that chilly morning, I was immediately sucked in. “Look at those graphics!” Amazing! “Oooh, I bet the Mr. X is tough to beat!” I had to play this game. All during the meeting, all I could think about was saving the girl and kicking butt, Kung Fu style! After the meeting, I called my mom and begged her to let me go over Lance’s house. That afternoon we played Kung Fu and Super Mario Brothers for hours. I don’t know if you can get Nintendo thumb from just a few hours of playing, but I’m pretty sure I did. Kung Fu was one of my favorite games on the NES and that single day cemented my love for video games.
Of course I set about making sure Santa knew that all I wanted for Christmas that year was a Nintendo Entertainment System. No G.I. Joe, no Transformers. Just Mario, Luigi, and any other 8-bit creations I could play. Santa came through, as he always does, and I haven’t stopped playing since.
“Where it all started“
If you’re interested, you can download the Kung Fu manual here, from replacementdocs (which is where I got the image above).