16-Bit Boy: The Last Temptation

By Michael Sterrett

16-Bit Boy is a column by resident retro-head Michael Sterrett, detailing his adventures with the games of years gone by.  But this time, he’s tempted to move on…

I’ve been a latecomer to many things in life.

I actively avoided getting a mobile phone until a family member literally forced one into my hand in 2004 and then ran off into the night. The rave scene was a dead duck before I munched down my first pill and danced my little heart out while gurning for England, and the less said about my refusal to embrace the abolition of Apartheid the better.

In all seriousness, though, I am somewhat of a curmudgeon, set in my ways and more than happy to lob off a good portion of my nose to spite my face. Naturally, this outlook on life casts me amongst my peers as either a die-hard maverick with the strength of his own convictions or, as is more often the case, a bitter, alcoholic crank raging impotently at a world that refuses to bend to his whims. This has very much informed my relationship with videogames. I openly sneered at the young whippersnappers queuing up to get their grubby little mitts on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, their bright eyes popping out of their heads like the display on a pinball machine. What could these new-fangled machines offer them that they couldn’t get from my beloved SNES console? “Fuck off, Granddad,” came their flinty reply as I scurried away, terrified of an inevitable happy slapping incident.

I first began to feel the world of games slipping away from me with the release of the Nintendo 64. The world and his wife seemed to get one for the Christmas of 1997, in a package that included Ninty’s big flagship title Super Mario 64. In my spatially challenged mind I could not fathom the 360 degree gameplay, and the little joystick on the controller seemed overly sensitive to my clumsy hands. I felt like the only guy in the room who couldn’t decipher the image in a magic eye painting. “Wow, it’s a steam train,” they marveled, as I blew out my eye sockets with over exertion.

And, God, did I try to make it work. Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months as I tried and failed time and time again to win the race against that big penguin or throw Bowser off that tilting platform by his tail. Ah, it was murder I tell ya. Finally I snapped, throwing the controller to the floor and cursing the misery gods who had visited this injustice upon me. I was at the centre of my own Greek tragedy, a man caught betwixt two worlds, divided against himself in an futile battle with modernity.

And so I retreated into literature, films, music and art. I told myself time and time again that games were kids’ stuff: how could they compare to the great films of the 20th Century, to the finest concertos ever written or the majesty of the written word? Bukowski didn’t need a Gameboy. Hell no. So why did I feel something was missing?

Much as is my wont, I dipped my toe ever so delicately back into the waters of gaming about three years ago when I found myself with a lot of time to kill and a friend’s PlayStation 2 staring at me from beneath the TV. Tentatively, I began to get to grips with games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Medal of Honor and Resident Evil. Like a kid who looks back over their shoulder to find their daddy has let go of the bike and that they are in fact riding unaided, I was simultaneously elated and terrified. Was I somehow betraying my former self? How could I possibly continue my feelings of misguided superiority towards modern gamers if I myself was enjoying the very titles I had looked down my nose at only months before?

And right now, I have never felt such a strong pull towards new titles. Wolfenstein and The Beatles: Rock Band are simply crying out to be played, despite my philistine refusal to engage with new media. I feel the barriers around me crumbling and giving way to a newly tolerant and adventurous person. But at the same time, I truly cannot imagine anything thrilling me as much as the first time I kicked M. Bison’s ass in Street Fighter, or pummeled the shizzle out of that weird Toad monster at the end of Super Mario Bros. 2.  Everything now is an adventure, and I am an explorer in lands foreign to my own. Wish me luck.