...came in the form of an unexpected pay increment today.
I was summoned to the Director's office, and handed a letter, and when I examined it, it was a 6% increment.
Quite unexpected, but quite pleasing.
I guess thats more money in the bank every month!
Definitely not complaining in this day and time.
Recently, I've been hearing shitloads from Prim about how his Nintendo WII, his XBOX and his PS3, and how much fun he has doing what he does. Its gotten me really amped up about buying a gaming console for myself too...but they cost RM1k! So I guess I should be sensible and wait..for...my...bonus.
Anyway all of which got me thinking about my gaming lineage. I got my first console, an Atari, when I was a kid, and quickly moved onto a...cannot remember what. Both were quite shortlived, and although offered lots of fun, they were nothing addictive. It was just revolutionary because it was a novelty. The most outstanding games I remember on these machines are the old Mario Brothers, where the stuff you could jump and hit with your head were "bricks", and the easy bad guys were flat mushroom like creatures who moved sideways and had squinty eyes, Bomberman, and, Contra, which was my fav game because I was really good at it. It was basically you commanding a Rambo like guy who collected weapons, health, and shot up all sorts of bad guys. Cool stuff. Played with my sister, who sucked at it, and I had to revenge and rescue her all the time.
And then my mum bought me the Super Nintendo. And a whole new world of gaming emerged, where I became a fanatic, and the first signs of my hyper competitiveness started to make itself known to the world. I quickly conquered and mastered Super Mario Brothers, to this day the BEST Mario game in the series, where I happily killed all of Bowser's' musically named offspring. Ludwig's Castle, Wendy's castle, the Star dimension, Yoshi, all these are happy memories indeed, and I happily spent hours and hours immersed in this universe. I became very attached to Yoshi and hated to 'abandon' him, which was occasionally necessary. Then I had NBA Jam, which got me started on the road to real life basketball fanatic. You know it's an insane arcade game when you have Ewing nailing threes as long as you time his release just right. Then there was StreetFighterTurbo, with the 12 'original' characters. I was the indisputable champ at this, and used every character to finish the game just to watch the ending. It was this game that first brought out my competitive streak, where I would stay up til dawn honing my skills just to beat the computer. Eventually, none of my real life friends could beat me in this game, and my cousin even almost got to trading blows with me. I didn't care how I won - as long as I won. Then there was Super Mario go Kart, where I obsessively, pursued the unrelenting singleminded focussed mission of setting and rewriting all the circuit records, and whenever someone else broke my record, I had to reclaim it. It was a mission to ensure that all the record lists were populated only by my name. Yeah, what a freak right? Then it was Mortal Kombat, where I relished doing the Fatality finishing move. And not to forget, the fantastic Double Dragon, which, occupied me and my cousin for hours and hours. Even my aunt got involved in it, to the point where she was begging us to accompany her to play.
Not to mention the computer games. Besides being a loyal NBA Live fan through the last 10 years, I also played Day Of The Tentacle, loved it, Indiana Jones, Worms, the 11th Hour, Time Crusader, and all sorts of other RPG games. There was Wrestlemania, X-treme Sports, etc. And the unforgettable, Fifa, World Cup, Actua Soccer...
Funnily enough I never liked all the shoot em up RPG games like Doom Wolfenstein Quake Duke Nukem etc... got a headache from watching it.
Today I stumbled upon an article in the age, on the 10 most influential games. Take a look, see if you can talk a walk down memory lane like me, and see where your favourites rank.
...be a long day when you start off feeling slightly upset.
Ah well. That's life, some days the cookie just doesn't crumble your way and we have to be mature about things and move on. We can't all always expect everything to go our way, and really the secret to happiness is knowing when/what to give and take.
I never wished to break my hiatus from blogging with such a mundane post, but hey we've all gotta start somewhere. OK, I'll continue this later, in a little bit.
