Christmas
1992, and I like most kids at this time am heavily into the home gaming consoles!
It has been an entire year since receiving my Master System II- it would be
another whole year before I would receive a Game Boy and until then I needed
something that appeased my craving for gaming on those tediously long, boring bus
journeys to school. The solution, my new Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. 3 Game
Watch!
Produced by Zeon this was one of three Nintendo LCD format watches with the other two being Tetris and Zelda. It was a simple enough game, considerably far removed from its Super Mario Bros. 3 namesake but with all the elements one had come to expect Mario, Princess, Boswer, Goombas, Koopa Troopers and pipes with some musical notes and a super leaf thrown in to make it feel a little more Mario Bros. 3’ish’. Game play: move along the course defeat Bowser, save the princess, then go back and do it again, just a little bit faster... Wasn’t a revolutionary game but it certainly whiled away those before mentioned bus trips (with its ‘blips’ and ‘bloops’ muted so as to not draw attention) it satisfied my need for platform gaming and not only that but it told me the time and alerted me when it was time to watch Bad Influence! on Children’s ITV!
Although being a reliable time piece was it’s
primary function, it certainly served its secondary function as a games device
to the max and even when I wasn’t playing it I would remove it from my wrist so
that my friend Gwynfor could have a go! Countless games were played and its
battery did Zeon proud, but inevitably, it died and it was put aside with every
intention of taking it to our local watchmakers to get a new battery for it,
but it never happened and as Christmas 1993 came round I now possessed that
before mentioned Game Boy along with a new Batman the Animated Series watch
effectively sealing the Game Watch’s fate and it remained in the drawer for 27
years, a relic from the past with no real place within my collections in the
studio, more so when I started wearing a pocket watch instead, and so last week
Omnibot put this much loved Christmas gift up for sale on our eBay store. Yes, the Nintendo
logo had worn from the strap and there was a slight scratch to screen but never
the less there it was on offer to the world in all its “sold as seen” splendor,
a truly reluctant sale as it seemed to represent my love of this era in gaming that
I never really left, having never really taken to the Play Station revolution
days and beyond.
I recently looked over some home movies and saw my younger self back in 1993 showing this watch off to my 85 year-old grandmother who was somewhat bewildered but amused at the notion of a plumber jumping over toadstools and tortoises. But funds are always required for the studio, far better for it to be part of someone else’s collection and for the money raised be put into my latest project pushing me ever closer to re-enacting other gaming activity I participated in when I wasn’t in my room playing a home console.... the arcade!
Produced by Zeon this was one of three Nintendo LCD format watches with the other two being Tetris and Zelda. It was a simple enough game, considerably far removed from its Super Mario Bros. 3 namesake but with all the elements one had come to expect Mario, Princess, Boswer, Goombas, Koopa Troopers and pipes with some musical notes and a super leaf thrown in to make it feel a little more Mario Bros. 3’ish’. Game play: move along the course defeat Bowser, save the princess, then go back and do it again, just a little bit faster... Wasn’t a revolutionary game but it certainly whiled away those before mentioned bus trips (with its ‘blips’ and ‘bloops’ muted so as to not draw attention) it satisfied my need for platform gaming and not only that but it told me the time and alerted me when it was time to watch Bad Influence! on Children’s ITV!
Although being a reliable time piece was it’s
primary function, it certainly served its secondary function as a games device
to the max and even when I wasn’t playing it I would remove it from my wrist so
that my friend Gwynfor could have a go! Countless games were played and its
battery did Zeon proud, but inevitably, it died and it was put aside with every
intention of taking it to our local watchmakers to get a new battery for it,
but it never happened and as Christmas 1993 came round I now possessed that
before mentioned Game Boy along with a new Batman the Animated Series watch
effectively sealing the Game Watch’s fate and it remained in the drawer for 27
years, a relic from the past with no real place within my collections in the
studio, more so when I started wearing a pocket watch instead, and so last week
Omnibot put this much loved Christmas gift up for sale on our eBay store. Yes, the Nintendo
logo had worn from the strap and there was a slight scratch to screen but never
the less there it was on offer to the world in all its “sold as seen” splendor,
a truly reluctant sale as it seemed to represent my love of this era in gaming that
I never really left, having never really taken to the Play Station revolution
days and beyond. I recently looked over some home movies and saw my younger self back in 1993 showing this watch off to my 85 year-old grandmother who was somewhat bewildered but amused at the notion of a plumber jumping over toadstools and tortoises. But funds are always required for the studio, far better for it to be part of someone else’s collection and for the money raised be put into my latest project pushing me ever closer to re-enacting other gaming activity I participated in when I wasn’t in my room playing a home console.... the arcade!
Coming soon: Tenth Anniversary Recap: 3. b: The Polybius Project
© Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.
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