Skiddish
Act 2: Emulation Excitement
As a youngster, DVDs were a marvel to us—but, man, they were pricey. Enter HandBrake and Nero Burning ROM, two programs that introduced me to the world of digital wizardry. With these tools, I discovered that renting a movie and spending a mere five to ten hours could result in a home-burned copy. The catch? Our DVD player was picky; it would either graciously play our new treasure or shun it entirely, was this the fault of the baby pirate, no, it couldn’t be.
Alongside this DVD alchemy, entertainment was kinda slim. I was already a proud owner of a Game Boy Pocket with a modest collection of three or four games (one of which, Warioland 2 it occurs to me was probably the first game I’d every completed), and our collection of SMS games (Alex the Kidd, rock paper scissors, kill me).
But everyone knows someone with an older brother, and that older brother belonged to the neighborhood kids who introduced me to an entirely new realm of gaming. They showed me that they had access an endless list of Game Boy titles right on their family computer, I mean they had atleast 50 games, thats more games than I even knew of!. Armed with this knowledge I would begin my own endless collection. Armed with a dial-up connection, I downloaded at least 20 top-notch games before my sister discovered LimeWire at school and inevitably brought our family computer to its knees. The download ban was swift and all-encompassing.
Despite the setback, the allure of unlimited access to fantastic games was etched into my mind. Financial limitations had often restricted our entertainment options, but emulation broke down those barriers. This freedom fueled my childhood curiosity and pushed my technical knowledge to new heights. Imagine all the games, all of them.