Shiny happy people
Video games are capable of evoking every human emotion. We've cried at the end of a sad game, fallen in love with characters, raged at difficult boss battles, and laughed at hilarious moments. The most common emotion we've had when playing games, though, is happiness--and that's what we want to talk about today.
Henry Gilbert, Features Editor
I loved the crayon-colored world of Yoshis Island more than its papercraft N64 sequel Yoshis Story, but the latter is the one that almost had me overdosing on its sugary sweetness. Yoshis Story follows a rainbow coalition of Yoshis as they battle Baby Bowser and his evil minions. Once the young King Koopa is defeated, the Yoshis get back their Super Happy Tree (seriously, thats what its called). The credits then roll and the Yoshis sing a sickeningly sweet tune over a guided tour of the game you just played. Most times itd just give me a stomach ache, but for whatever reason the Yoshis happiness was infectious and I found myself humming along to the tune.
Greg Henninger, Community Manager
The day my dad purchased TIE Fighter for me, hands down. Unfortunately he had no idea what he was doing when it came to installing games on MS DOS, so he gave up after about 10 minutes. I was crushed because I wanted to destroy the Rebel scum as quickly as possible.
Justin Towell, Associate Editor
When I was given my Sega Game Gear in April 1992, it was the standalone solus package plus a copy of Super Monaco GP. That was amazing enough, but after playing for half an hour or so with my parents, I went back to my own room. After half an hour or so, the battery light started flashing. Doh.
Ryan Taljonick, Associate Editor
My fondest gaming memories are composed of all the days I spent playing games with one of my cousins as a kid. I'd go over to his place (or he to mine) every Friday for a night of pizza, soda, and video games. We started this tradition during the NES days--we played a ton of Contra--and it endured up until the PS2 era.
Lorenzo Veloria, Associate Editor
I didn't grow up in a family of video game players. So when one of my family member's interests overlapped with a game I was playing, it was an extra special time. When I was a kid, my dad was really into watching war movies involving the Vietnam War and WWII. For some reason, my dad got drawn into a certain side-scrolling shooter on the NES. Maybe it piqued his interest because the characters reminded him of all the war movies he'd been watching, maybe the music got his attention, or maybe he just wanted to live out a war hero fantasy and shoot a bunch of aliens to kingdom come.
Hollander Cooper, Lead Features Editor
It's hard to pin just one memory--every time a new game I'm excited for comes out I'm ecstatic, and every new console release is met with an absurd amount of happiness for the future of gaming. If I had to pick one, specific moment, though, I'd go with a somewhat strange one: a boss battle in Dragon Quest VIII.
David Houghton, Associate Editor
Theres just a purity about Street Fighter that creates an unassailable alchemy of fun and camaraderie when youre playing it foir long enough with the right people, and thats something Ive really come to appreciate since Street Fighter IV came out. And the favourite moment Im going to include here is the night that all of that fell into place.
Andy Hartup, Head of UK Content
In recent years, my happiest memory was first seeing the teaser trailer for Skyrim, back in 2010. I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan, I'd been waiting for TESV for ages, and the stirring music mixed with the beardy lore read out by Max von Sydow was pitch perfect. However, it wasn't my happiest gaming memory of all. That, like most of my fellow GR editors, resides in my childhood.
Tom Magrino, Managing Editor
Alright, reaching way back for this one. As a kid, my brother and I would hop on our bikes and ride down to Scottie's. Now, Scottie's was a liquor store's liquor store, full of booze, porno mags, skeezy-old-man clerks, and, perversely, jars and jars of homemade pickles. However, it also had Street Fighter II and Smash TV arcade cabinets, and said skeezy-old-man clerks were more than happy to raid the cash register for quarters and let us play to our hearts' content. They didn't even try to molest us afterward, so I guess they weren't that bad.
Sophia Tong, Editor-in-Chief
I've always loved cooperative games, mainly because some of my fondest childhood memories include playing video games with my brother and sister. Well, mostly my brother. Three- to four-player games weren't as common then, considering this was pre-N64/Internet days. The Secret of Mana was the only three-player game we had and it was perfect for us. My sister got to play as the pink princess (she was too young to be of use, really), my brother wanted to be the boy, and I wanted to be the genderless sprite who got to cast tons of cool magic.
