Tendo City

lazyfatbum Wrote:I was about five or six years old when I first got my Nintendo. It was Christmas and I was short of breath from seeing all the toys and gifts in front of the tree, and I grabbed it first. After hearing a brief speech about taking care of my new toy, which looked like a VCR, we began the task of hooking it up. My father cursed at the TV as if it understood him as he held the directions in his mouth with his eyes squinting. The television showed snow and as a child I couldn't help myself but make pictures out of the random flashes of white and black. My father said to turn the Nintendo on, so I did and plopped my self back in front of the TV. After about seven hours (that's 20 minutes according to a kid), the TV flickered, for a second it went black, but then back to snow. My dad got mad and said he'll have to get his tools, which to me meant something was going to break. While I waited, my sister came in from showing off her new clothes and the jewelry that has been passed down from mother to daughter for four generations. Anyway, she walked in and sat down on the couch and talked about what her friends got, and acting rather smug I might add. She looked over to me sitting in front of the TV and said (In a very fake surprised voice) "Is that the Nintendo?" I looked over to her and smiled, I replied, "I think so".

I knew exactly what it was, and it was mine, a video game machine in my living room. No quarters, no lines, I could play it whenever I wanted to, and it sat on the TV with a little red light and waited for me to play on it. As my sister got up to see what was the matter, she talked about her friends who have Nintendo and how they had problems hooking it up thru the cable box and the VCR and all that, but I didn't care, I just wanted to see Super Mario Bros. live in my house. I untied and tied my shoes several times while my sister messed with the TV, disappearing behind it and seeing her cigarette smoke rise up. I was glad to have a knowledgeable sister in these times of need. My mother walked in from the bedroom (the cigarette magically disappeared) and asked why I wasn't playing with my new toys. I told her about the problem and she disappeared behind the TV with my sister. I could hear the cigarette 'talk' again and my always-brilliant sister who can solve any argument by leaving did just that. My mom, who knew as much about technology as I did about being a mom, gave me her words of wisdom: "Go ask your father," who, by now, was planning the demise of the new gray box with its red light with his instruments of torture. He came back from the closet, now more determined than ever with that look fathers get when they fix things. I heard a pop, then quiet, then my father using interesting cover ups for cursing and with a flash, there it was:: Mario, so clear and bright it looked like a cartoon. I was almost afraid to pick up the controller, even though I had been holding it for the past half an hour, my dad looked at the TV and said "There we go, all set!"

I must have thanked him but I don't remember. He went to sit down on the couch and smoked his pipe with a big fat smile, my mother walked by shuffling through the ocean of wrapping paper and empty boxes littered thru the living room and gave me a pat on the head and went about cleaning the after Christmas chaos. I played for about ten minutes laughing at the way it looks like Mario is throwing fireballs from his nose before a friend came in to announce his new bounty. "I got a new bike!" I looked up at him and nodded, he saw my Nintendo and sat down, picking up the second controller and laughed when Mario threw a fireball. I was still lightheaded from all the excitement, my sister came back in from doing important teenager things and sat down with me and my friend as we all laughed when Mario threw a fireball. Another knock at the door and this time one of my sister's friends came in and rightfully announced my coolness: "That's the Nintendo! Way to go buddy, you made out like a bandit!" He took my sister back outside and I was back with my friend in the living room, until I noticed he was gone. Before I even remembered to brag to all my friends about my recent claim to fame, they were in my living room, the whole apartment building's worth of kids, and some teenagers, which if you don't know is a status that is reserved for only the very cool kids. Even kids I never met were there, and now my best friend. My mother made sure everyone got a turn to play the three or four games that I received from Santa for being good (who knows why he thought I was good), but I must have done something right. About mid-afternoon, they were gone to go play outside, and my mother and father (in stereo) informed me that I need to be outside as well, so I agreed and set out to tell the world that I now owned a Nintendo.

When I got outside I found myself confronted with new bikes and tea sets and Transformers and Go Bots and it was like Christmas all over again, only outside with very greedy children. As the day went by, some kids, mostly the younger ones, were called inside and left the bigger kids by ourselves until I was called in ten minutes later. I went back to the floor and in front of the TV. I picked up the controller..."Now didn't we let you play all day?" I turned around to see both mom and dad looking at me like I had three heads. "We would like to watch a little TV if that's okay with you, your highnessness." My mom had strange pet names for me. So I got up and sat between them and found 'It's a Wonderful Life' on 24 different stations all in different stages of development, so we picked the one that started earliest and got comfy. If you have seen 'It's a Wonderful Life' then you know how boring it is, and black and white. Well, to a kid it might as well be a dentist, yes it's that bad. The sun went down as we watched the movie, I had hoped my sister would come by but she was busy doing those important teenager things that I didn't understand yet. After the movie was over we sat around and played one of the new board games I got. 'Clue' quickly became a favorite after I won three times in a row and got accused of cheating three times by my father who got all the names confused to the point calling them by their colors, "It was purple with the plate!" My mom complained about the fact that she was losing. "That's a rope dad." "Whatever, purple killed him." At this point, my mom just tried to make someone lose as she was no longer interested in winning anymore. After the game (I won) it was bedtime, for me anyway.

I pleaded on their mercy to play Nintendo for just a bit, but that was out of the question. So, I reluctantly got tucked in to my comfy bed and forced myself to feel loved by my two biggest fans. My dad gave me a hug and broke three of my ribs and asked if I enjoyed my Christmas. Trying to think of a word that means better than perfect, I nodded and smiled. My mom made sure that I was completely swallowed by the bed and gave me a big fat kiss on the hair, which I always found very annoying but still good...I guess because only people who really care for you a lot will kiss your hair. She asked the same question about my Christmas, and I smiled and said it was better than a book, which I understood fine. They closed the door until just a thin crack of light went thru the room that I shared with my sister, who wasn't home yet. I fell asleep almost instantly, and when I woke up I heard some noise in the living room. I was thirsty, so logic stated that I should march myself in there and come up with a great excuse to prolong my inevitable return to the bed. In my glow in the dark space pajamas, I looked into the living room to see about ten people, all older than me but still young; teenagers and a whole bunch of them, they were playing on my Nintendo.

I made my presence known with a calm "Get away from my Nintendo now! I'll tell mom and dad if you don't!" (Ever see ten teenagers get nervous at the same time?) I didn't know what time it was and mom and dad were sleeping so I had to fend for myself. After all, these are teenagers, they can kill me. My sister sat up and walked over to me giving me the look of death (if you have an older sibling, you know the look of death) and picked me up by a piece of fabric on the back of all children's clothes which was made for dragging kids, but a voice from the living room saved me from the very un-exciting bed: "Ha-ha, aww...let him stay up Heather." I had and still have no respect for teenagers, but this guy was okay in my book. His name was Erold, a tall black guy wearing a bandana, he looked like he jumped right out of a comic book. Some other people were there, Randy who was shorter and had long hair and some other people I can't really remember, but anyway, they gave me a late Christmas present, a new game for my Nintendo. "Hey, these guys we're okay," I thought as I opened it. "It's my favorite game, it's about this dude who has a gun on his arm and fights aliens." I love aliens, and having a gun on your arm is just cool, so I took Mario out and popped in my new game and sat down with ten smelly teenagers. I have to admit, it was exciting, I didn't know if I was going to be killed at any minute, and I think that's what kept me up. The title came up, and I tried to read it but that's hard to do when you can read less than one hundred words and this was not one of them. "Metroid. That's the alien thing that sucks your energy out." Erold was half asleep but read the title for me, my sister lying down in the pit of teenagers with him.

I pressed start and went on my way through the dark caves. "This is nothing like Mario," I thought for a brief second before I was attacked by a yellow and green bird thing. "You have to time it, wait for it swoop down, then fire." Sounds easy, I wonder why I can't do it I thought. As the now-quiet pile of teenagers slept, I continued playing, with the thought of this game being nothing like anything I ever played before going through my mind. I found power-ups like a thing that lets you turn in to a ball (that I loved instantly), then I found bombs and a better gun and I was doing well, if I do say so myself. Then my parents woke up, and if you haven't ever had the chance to see a group of teenagers jump five feet in the air and bolt for the door trying to grab food as they run, I recommend watching it. My sister ran too, for some reason, but was called back with the same persuasion I received when I did something wrong. Before I could see the good stuff, I was sent to my room, and I went back to bed and remembered that sleep is good. I heard my sister talking with mom and dad for a few minutes before I fell asleep again. The next morning, I got up, threw on my clothes and ran for my new game, I leaped for the controller and got comfy quickly and turned it on. When I saw the word I muttered to myself "Metroid," and while I had to start all over, I wasn't that far. I remembered the fun last night, so I went to get my sister, and I looked in our room...not there. I looked in the fridge...not there. I looked in the fridge again...not there, but pumpkin pie is great for breakfast. So I went outside to see what I can get in trouble with and saw some luggage on the porch. On the walkway I could see my mom and my sister, and it seemed she had decided to move out. I didn't really understand, but I wanted to go play, and that was more important than boring stuff.

So she left and I felt kind of lonely until my friends woke up and came outside to play. My mom didn't want any kids in the house today (it was an apartment, but we called it a house) so we stayed outside and complained. After we spent the whole day talking about how weird girls are and finding new boundaries to cross and get in trouble for, the day was done and I went inside and found my Nintendo missing. It felt like I just lost my mind and it was skipping away without me, but before I could say anything my mom told me to look in my room. There it was, my own TV, I remember seeing this TV from somewhere but we didn't use it, until now. So I sat down and played until bedtime but this time I remembered to write down the password with a little help from someone who knew how to write.

In the middle of the night, I heard a noise. I didn't know what it was, it could have been a stray cat or a blood sucking alien with teeth all over its body. At any rate I was in bed with the covers over my head. "Open the window." Yup, it was an alien. "No," I replied as I was now certain I was going to die, but I looked anyway, just to see, and I saw my sister. So I went and unlocked the door. She was pretty tired-looking and she sat down on her bed. "Hey, you gotta TV, what channels does it get?" I turned on the Nintendo and showed her how far I was after she put the code in, and she said she never saw this part of the game. I felt proud and rightfully so, I mean, I got farther than a teenager, that's something to write home about. She went to make a giant plate of food and snacks (I guess they don't feed teenagers), and She sat down with me in her lap and we played. She read the story to me from the instruction manual and talked about the little porcupine things that walked on the ceiling because they have a sticky substance they leak onto their feet. Yeah, I was pretty grossed out, but I loved it.

We played forever, we would take turns and we got to this guy who looked like Bowser. We got passed him and continued onto a second boss, and this one was like a dragon and a whole lot harder. We found their names in the manual: Kraid was the first one, Ridley the second one, and we beat the snot out of them both. We continued thru the different levels and I noticed my sister fell asleep with a cheese cracker in her hand. So I played by myself with my sleeping sister to protect me. I didn't know how far I was, but I entered a new room, quiet and silver and chrome everywhere, instead of the caves that I was walking around in; I woke up my sister and told her where I was. "I'm lost." She sat up and smiled and consulted the instruction manual. Wham, from out of nowhere some jellyfish-looking thing grabbed me and my energy was going down. My sister yelled "That's a Metroid!" and I was doing the crazy dance. She said freeze it first than use five missiles, which I did, and it worked; it blew up and I was very happy to see it go, until the next one came, and another and another. I was down to two energy tanks and they kept coming, I used the same strategy of freezing them and then using five missiles, I still didn't know where I was and I was really lost, so I just moved forward hoping to see an end to the Metroid swarms. But before she could tell me where I was everything turned black, and there were lasers and these tubes that grow back after you shoot them. It was like an obstacle course, and I kept moving forward. I was down to..."I have no energy tanks left!?" My life was going fast, I couldn't move fast enough to dodge the lasers, but then I saw it, it was behind glass, and I stopped for a second just to stare at it. "That's...The Mother Brain!" I did not like the sound of that! "Missiles!?," I asked my sister who is now rubbing her eyes and interested in what I'm doing "Use everything." So I did, everything I had, I watched the energy get lower and lower and I knew I had no energy tanks left and this was it. I could see the sun coming up outside but I didn't care, I was saving the world and for a second, just a second, I thought I was really there. I kept blasting away at it yelling, "What I do if I run out!" I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, explosions everywhere, my sister cheering me on, this wasn't a video game, this was a movie and if I failed it would be over, I would go to bed, my sister would leave, my parents would wake up, I would be the town idiot because I got to Mother Brain and I didn't do it, I didn't beat it, I was running out I had almost nothing left. And I did it. I blew it up into a thousand pieces.

"Wow!" My sister grabbed me and gave a hug, and I was almost shaking from the adrenalin pumping through me. We stared at the TV and watched as it blew up and then said I have a limited time to escape because everything was going to self-destruct.

"What???" My sister and I both stood up, everything was falling apart, the ceiling was caving in, it got light enough to see a passage way so I ran for it! I was back in the beginning of the game, I remembered this passage way it was a pain in the butt, I jumped to each platform barely making it on the tip! "Go up!," my sister exclaimed as she bit her nails (which I don't think ever grew out in her whole life) and I just nodded and said "Okay." If I was hit two more times I would be dead. 20 seconds, 19 seconds, 18 seconds, one platform was just out of reach I had to go around to the other side...16 seconds...I'm not going to make it I thought, my sister, now smoking and jumping lightly and yelling for me to hurry up. I could see the final platform, it was glowing and looked like it was saying "Jump here fool!," and I jumped, and I didn't make it! I landed on a platform on the other side and did a spinning high jump and hoped it was close enough! I saw the clock...4 seconds...I closed my eyes, and heard my sister scream. "Wooow! You did it!" We did it. It was great, I don't remember much of the ending, but I remember it was great. When it was all over, my sister gave me a hug and I choked on the cigarette smoke and smiled. She said she had to go before mom woke up, but first she'll get all the food in the house, so I helped her and walked out to the porch. The sun was up and I had no idea how tired I was. My sister knelt down to me and gave me a kiss, and she said, "I'll be back soon." But I knew better; my sister never moved back into that apartment. She lived with a group of teenagers on the bad side of town, so I couldn't visit her much. And slowly, we grew apart.


press start to continue to page 2.

Then came news of a new house...no, not an apartment, a HOUSE. With stairs and a pool and no one living above you. We began moving and I looked for my sister, but she wasn't going to come with us I was told. I was then 9 years old, and I grew up a lot in a few years time. I realized things I never even thought about before, and I understood what was wrong with my sister. Your basic teenage rebellion, drugs, drinking, loud music, lack of food, etc. But we packed everything up and left the apartment that I grew up in, I'm so cheesy, I even said goodbye to the dump that my mother decorated to look like a home, and it was, for 6 years of my life. And when you're 9, it is more than half your life on Earth, so I guess you need to be a kid to understand.

We had a car accident on the way to the new house. Mom and I got beat up pretty bad, and there was something wrong with the insurance, so we had to sit in the hospital--cold, hungry and bleeding. My mom didn't have any cuts, I had hundreds of them, but my mom had a real bad hit to the back of head. They said it'll heal but she'll be shaky for awhile, and they still wouldn't give me stitches or my mom any care because of the problem with the insurance. My dad, a big man, moved everything out of the moving truck by himself, and put everything in the house for us. When we walked in, it was the first time we saw the house, and it looked like we already lived there. Dad said all my "crap" was in my room. "Room," I thought to myself, my own room. I ran up the stairs, and yes, I stumbled twice (stairs were still new to me), and I opened my door; there was my bed, and all my stuff around my room. I looked for it first, my Nintendo had become a hobby for me, but I couldn't find it. So I ran down the stairs (yup, only once this time) and proceeded to ask my father where my Nintendo might be. "WHERE IS IT!?!!" my dad jumped five feet in the air and asked me what I was babbling about and I told him my Nintendo was gone. He then walked me up the stairs without saying a word. He was helping me up the stairs because my legs were still messed up from the accident last night, and we went right past my room. I stood in front of my doorway, and he opened the door next to it. "This is another bedroom, no one's using it, so I thought we'd make this your game room."

"...........kay...." I was dumbfounded. MY - GAME - ROOM. I opened the door, my dad was proud with a smile. I looked inside, and I saw my TV, with cable, two beanbag chairs, my Nintendo and a giant window. In L.A., all the windows are small in the apartments, I guess because of prowlers, but these windows were huge, and I could see the pool below (and yes I would jump from that window in to the pool many many times, and gave my mother gray hairs). I sat down in the bean bag chair and laid back, smiling and still speechless, and my dad said "Have fun," and went back down the stairs. I played some games and watched cartoons (I even got the Playboy channel, but that's inappropriate for this story) and went back down stairs. My mom and dad showed me all the parts of the house; it was like a castle. We went outside to the backyard where the garden and the pool were, especially the pool. California heat waves were no match for the power of a swimming pool. I jumped in with my clothes on and my dad laughed while mom had a heart attack, it was great. I still hadn't slept for two days, but I wanted to see the neighborhood. My mom had to change all my bandages first, and I went outside to see what I could get in trouble with. This neighborhood is like something from the old 50's shows where everyone has the perfect life except their wives are witches or own a talking horse, and this was it, but in color. All the kids were playing outside and looking at me, and I must have looked pretty messed up, but as a kid, you don't really care. I made friends fast, as all kids do, and we found an armadillo on the road; this was horrible, this was disgusting, this was 5 kids playing with a dead mammal for fun, so I let them in on my little secret. "Anybody wanna go play Nintendo?" 5 heads snapped back with a strange gaze and in unison "You have a Nintendo???" I replied yes; "No duh." And we all went to my house, and we played Nintendo until the sun went down, and it was time for dinner. All my new friends went home and we got ready to eat. "What's for dinner?," I asked my dad, Lord knows why. He answered, "It's that new Scottish restaurant!" When I think of Scottish people and I think of sheep and hair, so this did not sound pleasant to me. Then my dad picks up around six bags of McDonald's and we ate watching TV and talking about the new house.

I talked about how I love my room, and that "other" room, for sleeping. My mom talked about the rose gardens, my dad talked about the lack of taste in his Big Mac and something about the air conditioning bills. But someone wasn't there, and it hit me pretty hard. I missed my sister. I had no idea where she is, or what she's doing or if they're feeding her, but I missed her and I wanted her to be there.

I fell asleep in my Game Room, and my mom had tucked me in and talked with me for an hour or so about moving into a new house, and getting new friends in my sleeping room, but I found myself back here, in MY Game Room, I loved the idea of having an entire room for myself to play games in. And like I said, I was zonked out and sleeping on my beanbag chair. I don't know when I woke up, but my eyes were closed and I could hear people talking, and then my Nintendo starting up, the sounds of cartridges being moved around, and then that music, really simple music, but eerie sounding; it was Metroid. I opened my eyes and saw Metroid being played; either the house is haunted or someone's playing it, and using my keen sense of logic I kept my eyes closed. Then something grabbed my feet. I looked down, and I saw a hand covered in rings. I looked up, and it was my sister. She came here by bus she said, and that the whole "group of people living together thing" didn't work out, and she had plates of food everywhere. My sister was back, and she lived with us for some years, and we were brother and sister again. We played Metroid the whole night, we both fell asleep and when I woke up, she was still there, sleeping with a cracker in her hand.

When I became a teenager, I started my crap too, and I remembered all the things I didn't understand that now made perfect sense to me, and I couldn't see her for a long time. She had her own place now, and so did I. We visit each other almost everyday, and she has a son now. And for Christmas, when he was 5 years old, I got him a Nintendo, and Super Mario Bros. and another game, a game that will always give me memories. Metroid was just as I remembered it, even though it looked worn and dated compared to the Nintendo 64 that I play on. It's simple graphics made me smile, and how beautiful I thought it was. I sat down with him after hooking it up, my mom complained about the trash everywhere from the Christmas chaos and my dad and I were behind the TV still trying to figure out how to hook up the Nintendo thru a cable box and VCR. My friends came by and I showed off my new clothes and they recognized that little gray box with the glowing red light. "Hey! You got a Nintendo, woo-hoo!" My nephew was smiling ear to ear. I knew exactly what he was thinking, I think all the teenagers in that room did. We all sat down, and we played his two new games, and laughed when Mario threw a fireball.

My sister couldn't be there because she was in jail; my mom and I had to take custody of my nephew. Mom and dad divorced when I was younger, but I didn't know about it. My grandfather adopted my mom, and my sister would be gone for a year or so. I learned a lot of things by then, but at that moment, we were in the living room of my mom's house in Florida, surrounded by friends and family, playing Metroid, once again. My mom's concussion healed, I got my crap together, my sister got out of jail and lives a clean life, trying to prove to the United States Government that she can have her son back, and I took a career of designing video games and writing scripts.

When we finally hooked up the Nintendo through the VCR and cable box we started the Nintendo back up. The title flashed across the screen, and my nephew turned to me, and he asked in a whispered voice "What does that say?" and I said "Metroid. They're the aliens that look like jellyfish and suck your energy out." My nephew smiled and said "cool" and we played for hours in the living room among the sea of wrapping paper. My dad sat on the couch smoking his pipe, my mom walked in from the kitchen and gave me the weirdest look I ever saw. I think she was crying, and she smiled so big that I had to smile too. And it all came back to me.

I'm twenty-one now, my sister is thirty, and her son is seven, and everytime I look at them to admire them, I remember all the good times we had. And I just shared one of my favorites with you.

And I would like to thank Nintendo, and the R&D1 team for it, as I still play it today. But most of all, I would like to thank Gumpei Yokoi for creating Samus Aran and the Metroid series that will, with hope, continue on future Nintendo systems. You have given me years of entertainment and it continues to this day, you have earned my respect as a company and as an industry.

Thank you Nintendo.

- lazyfatbum'