One day when I was about 8 years old my father had taken me to Funcoland to get a GameBoy Pocket. I believe it was an early Christmas gift, but whatever the reason, it was going to be my first handheld system. I was then given the option to pick out two games. I looked through the glass counter at all the used games and began making my picks. My first choice was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan for obvious reasons. Which kid my age didn’t like the Ninja Turtles? The second choice I made was Dr. Mario. I had been raised with Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart and Super Mario All-Stars, so to me Mario = greatness. Imagine my disappointment when I got home. Luckily, it still turned out to be a good game, but I wasn’t expecting a puzzle game at all. I had no clue, and sometimes having no clue can be a bad or a good thing.

A couple of years later I got a GameBoy Color. I was very intrigued by Mortal Kombat at the time and couldn’t get Mortal Kombat 4, because I didn’t have a N64 or PSX yet. However, one day when I saw a local game shop had Mortal Kombat 4 for GameBoy Color it made me have to have that version. My family didn’t have that much money at the time, so getting a video game was a rare occurrence at that time in my life. Thankfully, I never got it.

Years later I finally tried the game out, and I can only imagine how disappointed I would have been. On second thought, I would have probably convinced myself it was a good game. I would have probably played it all day and night just to make the purchase worthwhile and to make it feel like my parents wasted money.

This is probably something that still happens all the time too, and it’s sad. I can see it now, unknowing kids entering a GameStop to get Call of Duty for Nintendo DS, because they don’t have any of the consoles. Or even worse, kids entering a game store to purchase a Nintendo DS wrestling game. It’s making me cry right now, especially for kids who come from families that may not have that much money. Imagine blowing your only Christmas gift on a horrible game. That must be the worst.

The bad thing about not knowing what’s going on in the video gaming world is making horrible game purchases, but on the flip side sometimes not knowing is a good thing. As a kid, it was nice to see games just popping out of no where. When you see a trailer of a game you really like for the first time how did that make you feel? It made you want to play the game.

As a kid you see a game you really want on the shelf for the first time and that excitement can automatically be gratified. There is no wait, no anxiety and no anticipation. That’s the cool thing about being an ignorant kid. You also save yourself from game spoilers and other stuff like that when you were a kid. I wish I was still a kid sometimes. And to close, I just thank God I dodged so many bad game buying bullets.