Being a thirty year old, I can remember when Nintendo first came out. Gosh, that was just the greatest thing on earth! I would play the Legend of Zelda until the sun came up! Do you remember how you used to have to blow in the Nintendo games to get them to work? It was a pain, but we didn't know any better. Life was still good!

Then there was Sega Genesis. Talk about an upgrade from Nintendo! Now I wasn't fortunate enough to own one, but my neighbor a couple of blocks down did and I would go over to his house after school and play Techno Cop. For some reason too, I would never make it home on time...wonder why?

Shortly after Sega was released came Turbo Graphics. Now I don't remember ever playing that system because it didn't last very long, but I do remember being blown away by the fact that it used a disk versus the traditional game cartridge. This was cool, but I never had the pleasure of playing it.

The next system that I remember after ol' Turbo Graphics was Nintendo 64 or N64. Banjo and Kazooie was the ultimate game for N64. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) fell in love with that game and I naturally followed suit. We became so obsessed with that game that we actually bought the walk-through guide for it. Of course there was Mario, but Banjo and Kazooie really sealed the deal for us and N64.

The best Christmas present I ever received was a PlayStation (now referred to as PSOne). This was PlayStation's first intro into the gaming market and what a rousing success! I played my PlayStation for hours and hours. I had a couple of favorite games, but narrowing down to my top two -

- Madden
- Twisted Metal

These games would bring friends together for hours on end. We would play for so long that a majority would call into work the next day. Man, those were the days!

I did purchase a PS2 (PlayStation 2), but shortly after I purchased, I had my first child. Once he came, the games went. I still play it now and then, but there is very little time for that.

I do miss the days of playing games and hopefully one day, I can get back to playing them - at least casually.

It's amazing how much of an impact video game systems have had an impact on my culture. I certainly do not see them going any where soon.