Last Tuesday

Last Tuesday saw the last day of Winter-een-mas ’06. That’s it for another year. I felt a bit bad that, because of major deadlines, I had neglected gaming over the holiday season. In fact I have neglected my gaming needs since I began college last year. After my final GCSE exam (physics I think) I ran home and flicked on the Windwaker. I then did not budge until I had completed it. Over the summer holidays I played games non-stop, the free MMORPG ‘Runescape’ becoming a particular favourite. For the last few weeks of the holidays I borrowed a DVD from my aunt called ‘Animals’, a stand-up show by one of the guys that wrote ‘The Office’. I would constantly listen to the DVD in the background while I played Runescape, alternating between the normal and commentary versions of the stand-up. After the holidays ended and I began college, I stopped playing Runescape to devote more time to my work. The DVD was returned to my aunt but not before I recorded the audio onto CD so I could listen to it on the bus.

Last Tuesday I joined a new gaming forum to talk to people about a TV show I wanted to make for a college project about gaming. While browsing the forum I found a thread about underrated games. I decided to add a comment about an old favourite of mine called Tombi, a 2.5D platformer on the Playstation. Released in 1998, I played a demo and fell in love. I bought the game and played it constantly although it was so big that I never completed it. Tombi was my life and people who knew me then (especially those in my maths class) could tell I liked it. However time passed and soon Pokémon was released. I bought that and soon forgot about Tombi.

It is amazing, and quite worrying, how your life can change. Things that used to play a major part in your life can fade away without you noticing and quickly get replaced by new things. 1998 was eight years ago and I find myself wondering what my life will be like in another eight years. I would have finished university and be an adult, twenty-five years of age. A quarter of a decade old. I contemplate what I have in my life now that will be the same then, if anything. Where will I be living? What will I be doing? The realisation that I am, that we are all, at a crucial point in life.

Last Tuesday I got a reply for another user of that gaming forum informing me that there was a sequel called Tombi 2. My first Ebay purchase and two days later I had a mint condition copy of Tombi 2, a brand new one retails at £85 online. Released in 2000, I had gone six years without knowing that there was a sequel. Now the PS2 has moved into my bedroom and lives alongside my Gamecube. Tombi 2 has taken psudo-permanent residency in the ‘limited edition’ silver console and there it will stay until I have completed it.

I am hoping it wont take me eight years to complete however it is larger than the original game and I still have yet to complete that fully. I am going to try and play games more often, especially now that the deadlines I was worried about have been met. Gaming was my life and I am beginning to feel alive again. I guess I’ll have to see where I end up in eight years, there is no point in worrying about it now. In the meanwhile I think I’m going to go play