GoldenEye 007:
It was the summer of 1998. I was eight years old. I was staying at my uncle's place while my Mom was searching for new house on the other side of the country. We were moving. Everything I knew would be left behind. The Rainbow Market where I stopped to buy candy after school, the looming concrete half pipes built for rain water drainage where I loved to ride my bike, the friends I had known since I knew how to say the word friend. All left behind.
That night my teenage cousin had a few of his friends over and they wound up playing some Nintendo 64. I sat in the corner watching, eager to grow older so I wouldn't feel left out of the fun, too sheepish to raise my voice and ask to play.
Eventually the guys grew bored with their current game, and there was a lull as my cousin rifled through his collection looking for something fun to play. My tiny, eight year old body snapped to attention as he pulled GoldenEye 007 out of a cardboard box and inserted it hastily into the game machine.
"Dun na na nuh, na nuh nuh"
I restrained myself from humming the classic theme as the menus went by. Match after match, my cousin and his friends laughed ferociously as they proceeded to digitally murder each other with hilarious consequence.
"Can I play?"
From somewhere deep within I had mustered the courage to ask, albeit cautiously. A chorus of laughter and whooping filled the room.
"Oh you want to play little guy?"
One of my cousin's friend graciously passed me the controller.
"Go easy on him guys. He's just a kid."
My pulse raced as the camera whirled around my character before leaving me with a tiny quadrant to perceive his violent universe. I moved my fingers with deftness and precision.
BOOM! I snagged a kill with the grenade launcher before the enemy even saw it coming.
BANG! BANG! Automatic fire riddled holes in the digital frames of my weak opponents.
BOOM! Screen-look remote mine kill while the coward ran for the life sustaining body armor.
What smiles were left the room evaporated quickly, until only furrowed brows remained. Finally the frowns gave way to faces that can only be described as distorted with fear.
At that moment nothing mattered. Not the move, not the new school, not even that fact that I would dearly miss my lifelong friends. I had played countless hours of GoldenEye, honing my skills, learning to bank my grenades at just the right angle, all leading up to this moment where I would become a champion.
All the older boys patted me on the back and nodded in approval. I could feel the respect.
And I loved it.
GoldenEye is probably the best I've ever been at a competitive video game. Or maybe this story is tinted by the rose colored glasses of a man looking back on his childhood.