A random encounter in an arcade and comments over my ability to remember a cheat to unlock Gold war machine in Marvel VS Capcom lead to the embarking of a friendship, with a fellow gamer who would go on to be a best friend. It started off with flippant comments like "You're well good at this game!" and "Ah, that air combo was SICK bruv!" to talking about which consoles we owned and our favourite games.
After bumping into one another in the arcades atfer school several times and exchanging names, we started to hang out. I found out he had a Sega Saturn and he found out I had a PlayStation. Due to my Father having not bought one for me for Christmas, I used to live out my dreams of owning a Saturn vicariously through him. And due to him not owning a PlayStation, he used to live out his dreams of owning a PlayStation through me. It sounds like we were using each other, and I guess in a way we were. But we became so close and had such a mutual love of gaming that in the end it all just boiled down to the fact that between the 2 of us we had a really cool collection of games and consoles to play.
My friend still mentions to me the days where we used to meet up during half terms and summer holidays and try to best our scores on Virtua cop 2, plough through Guardian heroes and murder the VS mode in Fighting vipers with Hyper mode turned on. I always laugh at him and joke "You're STILL going on about those days!?" when he mentions them, because it's like a part of his brain is stuck in the past. But I remember the moments vividly myself. He went on to tell me on one occassion that it meant shit loads to him that I used to kick it with him and just play games and have a laugh - because he was going through a really tough time around the period he met me. So I guess that's why he holds the memories of us back in those days so dear, and because of that I do too.
I think this is one of the reasons I've always had a thing for the Saturn. Because it'll always represent a moment when I acquired a new best friend. A friend who I'm still close with now.
2 comments:
I'm glad to hear you are still close to your friend. I had a great best friend when I started secondary school, which was almost the same thing. It started off with Micro Machines and S3 & K on the Mega Drive, then I got a Saturn and he got a Playstation and we had the best of both worlds. I got a playstation eventually and played NHL and Red Alert through link up with him. Those were the days.
Unfortunately, things soured when we grew up and got girlfriends... total shame.
You two sound so like me and one of my best friends. We used to spend whole afternoons over at his house playing on his playstation. Haven't seen him for a while, though, now that I'm at college and he's working...
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