(written by Meetholas Redspell, translated by Thöja Enwizz)

Meetholas was my first Spanish SMS friend. He was from Barcelona, and appeared on the SMS list when I was starting to think I was the only SMS freak in Spain. He was a really nice guy, and we shared our SMS opinions and lots of stories not related to the SMS. We even made a great trade, but suddenly he disappeared from the internet. I lost his postal address, so I couldn´t mail him. This is a tribute to Meetholas, with this long story he sent me for the web site. I guess he will have an internet connection soon, so if you´re reading this, e-mail me! :)


Well, I´ll start explaining that until 1987 I enjoyed playing with Playmobils and not much more, until one day I went to my friend David´s house, to see somethig that would change my life completely. It didn´t take much time for me to get to his house (about 400m. from mine) and take from his hands that little box with two buttons, a plastic square and a wire, that hooked up to that black thing made that dressed in black character jump and hit: he was playing Kung Fu Kid!! A bit later, after completing the game once or twice, my friend took out from the cupboard three white squared boxes, with more carts like the other. We played Bank Panic, Pro Wrestling and Super Tennis until our fingers bleed (really, it´s not good for a 4 or 5 year kid to hit a Master System controller with his weak thumb!). That did last until December 25th of the same year, when my uncle (who´s like an elder brother for me) bought one of those machines with more carts. Soon I got hooked to the SMS controller, making the characters hit (My Hero), shoot (Teddy Boy) or even disappear (The Ninja) with it.
All right until that, but a while after, I made a school trip with my sister. I didn´t know what was happening at home until I arrived: my father had bought another of those machines and was playing breathless Aztec Adventure, Double Dragon and Secret Command with my mother!! When I arrived home they didn´t let me play, they sent me to my grandparents´ to visit them (one lived 4 km. to the south and the other lived 4 km to the north L). You can imagine the time I stayed in their houses... So I got my beloved Master System, the female of my dreams (sorry Miriam!)

Affairs with my mother
I had had the console with games for three months. I had beaten Aztec Adventure (sweating blood) and Double Dragon (it was never hard), and I reached the police cars stage in Secret Command...I had to get more games! My mother said that I had to beat Secret Command before buying more games. So it was done: she hadn´t finished telling me that when the last arrow made explode the last target in the game! The next day we went to buy another game. I think it was Altered Beast. And it was the same again, I finished the game and we "talked" about getting a new one. We made this deal: I was finishing the games and they were buying me another ones. When we got My Hero I had to explain them that it was a never-ending game. The same went to Teddy Boy in screen 75, I think, and to Enduro Racer. That great deal ended some years after, when a heavy box arrived to my house... IT WAS POPULOUS with its two instruction manuals and its 2000 levels! Since that I only got games for birthdays and when I had money (I definately wasn´t going to beat the 2000 levels, although I reached the 100th or more).

My uncle Manuel
He was my uncle, the one who bought the console before me (the one who seemed (seems) my older brother). He was then about 25 years old and lived two floors above me (my grandparents lived there then). We made challenges about who would be the first to end the games, but we weren´t going to buy repeated games, were we? This is what we did: when I was in class he borrowed my house keys and took the game. Then I found it out and hid the game. Since he went out on Saturday nights, he used to sleep on Sunday mornings, so I used to get into his house and took the game, I used to do that when he bought new games: His game-buying time was Saturday afternoons. He went to "El Corte Inglés" (Note from Thöja: this is a large chain of stores in Spain, you can read more about that in the "Spain and SMS" section of the Ela Fountain), Alcampo (Note from Thöja: more or less the same), or other shop and he bought them. He could not play them until Sunday afternoon/evenings, but...I had them! J Thanks to him if my new game disappointed me I always got his games. But it has happened twice that I´ve gone so happy to show him my new game (i.e. Action Fighter) to find him playing Action Fighter with his frend Francisco (a totally nerd guy). The other game was Rescue Mission, game that I still have repeated. Now he´s not interested in the SMS anymore, he likes the PreyStation better. Now I have now all his games, but I´m really bothered, because he lost my Danan and Rastan somewhere (I have now another Rastan though).

Why do I collect SMS games?
Well, because I think it´s the right time: they are more or less cheap , they´re more or less easy to find (rarities and so), and you always have an excuse to fight with someone because he doesn´t want to sell you his Golvellius (Jorge, this is for you, just kidding about fighting!) (Note from Thöja: Ha! Last year a guy from my class gave me his little collection of 8 games). It was suddenly when I decided to start collectiong, I used to buy games every now and then (AKSW for about $1,5) (Note from Thöja: Hell! I think I´ve to go to Barcelona!), or card games that I had never seen in this format, until I thought about the jewels that were out there (Phantasy Star, Kenseiden, Ys) and I decided to start the collection. Since then I´m stopping the people in the street asking them if they have a Miracle Warriors with map (Note from Thöja: I was about to do the same with Miracle Warriors, I was like mad back then!), an Ultima IV, or even a Street
Fighter (people thinks I´m crazy because of that). Well, my sources for games are: The "Mercado de San Antonio" (cheap games that you can trade even for soccer stickers and quite varied) (Note from Thöja: I suppose this is a kind of flea market), Cash Converters (chain of second-hand stuff shops where you can see people trying to sell their mother for a buck) (Note from Thöja: Mphahahahaha!) (I saw someone selling a boxed with games SMS 1 for a peseta -much less than a  dollar-), friends (damned Jorge and Javi) (Note from Thöja: You seem to really appreciate your friends, huh?). I´m not going to stop getting games until they won´t fit in the shelf.
My friends think I´m mad for walking 26 km to get to a Cash Converters, for spending 700 pesetas (about $5,5) buying a Columns there.

Well, with this I´m saying that I´m not crazy, it´s only we have to do something about the crap that´s out there nowadays (Pesteixons, Nintendoses -Note from Thöja: these are Spanish jokes, ha ha ha- Dorimucastos -readed literally from Japanese- and PC games, all rendered with messed polygons that don´t make any noticeable character, they only tell you that that thing is Lara Croft and you have to believe it (Note from Thöja: Lara Croft was not so badly made, at least the human one J) and that the other thing is a place where you can jump and mess around and imagine that the other thing is a raging lion or something like that. Sorry, but I get excited (Note From Thöja: Yes). Seems like the only company that doesn´t forget that games are made with SPRITES is Sega (SMS, GG, MD, SS -don´t forget all those Saturn sprites games), although it seems that they have deserted with Dorimucasto.
Well, that´s all, no? (Note from Thöja: I whish this was longer, but next time send it in ENGLISH!! :)). One last thing is that my nerd friend David traded his SMS after 5 months of having it for a toaster (this is how we call the NES here) (Note from Thöja: Not here, hmm...Nice!)













Click the image to visit Meetholas' SMS web site,
created on August 2nd, 1999
Me and the Master System