I think I was four years old when we got our Nintendo Entertainment System. I should say rather that my brother got his Nintendo Entertainment System, and I simply reaped the benefits. That would make him eleven at the time, and old enough to regularly receive games; this meant I regularly received games. We received two games originally if memory serves; the all star duo of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, and some other game. Mario was a game I could get my noggin around. The little man had to get to the other side of the screen without running into any little monsters. there were only two buttons and a directional pad on the controller, I couldn't screw it up. I have distinct memories of breaking my arm, and holding the duck hunt gun directly touching the TV in order to cheat, and having that not work due to...physics.
That other game though ended up really doing something. My brother apparently discarded the game quickly after he saw it, but ironically my Dad was the one that latched on to it. The story goes that one day when he was too sick to go to work, he fired up the Nintendo to see what all the buzz was about. He tried Mario, but he couldn't keep up; he kept dying on the first level. He wanted to try another game, but the only game we had was Dragon Warrior. For those that don't know, Dragon Warrior is a story of a hero that needs to save the princess, kill the dragon, and save the world. The game might as well have been called Dungeon of the Bad Guy Quest Heroes for how generic it was, but c'est la vie. The gameplay involved you, traversing the world, and occasionally fighting monsters. When you were presented with a battle, you were given a menu, with the options of Fight, Spell, Flee, and Item; pretty self explanatory. As threatening as the monster was in front of you, he was considerate enough to allow you to choose what you wanted to do for an indefinite amount of time before using his own move; it was all very chivalrous. In Mario Bros, the killer Goombas did not wait for you. They walked right into your indecisive behind and punted you right back to the beginning of the level.
My dad was hooked. He could spend as much time as he wanted doing anything he wanted. There was no time limit, no immediate threat, no points. The bad guys were going to kill everyone, but they weren't on a set schedule. You could pound away on the local brigands until you were the greatest fighter in the universe, and they'd still be tapping their feet in their castle, waiting for you to come to them. It was great. When I started playing Dragon Warrior, it was mesmerizing. I could do anything I wanted. I didn't have to follow just this set path or risk dying. Andy could do anything he wanted. You see, in Mario Bros, you play Mario; there's no mistaking who the hero is. In Dragon Warrior, you get to name the hero. My Dad always just picked a name that he liked (I think he used Arnold for a long time for whatever reason,) but my hero was always named Andy. I wanted to be the one who saved the princess, became the strongest, and killed the dragon. Andy was a legend.
Andy could do anything he wanted. If he wanted to spend three hours killing Magidrakees (don't ask) in the mountains without fear of the sun ever going down, he could, and if he wanted to run away from every single battle, he could. I spent more time playing that game than was probably healthy, since with so little direction, I never got anywhere. It took me forever to get through that game, since I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to go, or what the heck a princess even was. As you can see by the picture, I couldn't even remember to sleep apparently.
Video games tell stories, yes, but they also draw you in. Just as much as you are controlling a man on screen, you are the man on the screen. That man does nothing without you as the impetus, and you are the one choosing to make the story go forward. Dragon Warrior was amazing as it didn't need grandiose storylines to make it work; as long as the gameplay was fun I could fill in all the details myself. I think my imagination really grew from playing that game; I spent a good chunk of my later childhood writing stories and playing games based off of games like this, since they needed details for the story to work. I hope that I'm taking my life in a similar fashion. I hope I'm doing what it takes to be worthy of being "That guy" rather than just another random talking head on the street. Time will tell I guess.
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