Thöja and SMS

It all begun during a trip to somewhere with my parents, I saw an arcade machine that really hooked me up: Out Run. I was maybe 7 years old, in 1987, and when I finally found the way to accelerate, it was time to leave...too bad! About a year later, in May 1988, I was with my mother wandering in a store when I saw a TV with a strange black thing hooked-up to it, and on the screen was...Out Run! my loved arcade game. Because of some stupid religious event soon to come, I could afford asking my mother to buy me the strange black thing, so she did and made me the happiest child on Earth! So I was the new owner of a SMS1 with Hang-On (card) and of course Out Run. The problem came when, at home, noone of us (mother, father, sister and grandmother) could make the sms work...too bad again! So, the day after, my poor mother had to go to the store to ask and find out how did it worked. Finally, that day at night, Out Run was running on my screen. I don´t know how many hours I spend those days playing the Ferrari game, but it was like a drug...everyday running from school to try to finish any damned circuit...Hell, I was only 8 years old! I can remember what games I bought later, it was for my birthday I think, at July, it was Saturday and I went to the same store (the only place to buy sms games in Zaragoza, Spain, back in 1988) and picked up Wonder Boy (what good memories), Double Dragon (same or more) and Alien Syndrome (I didn´t like it, so a few days after I swapped it for Choplifter...the bad thing is now, 10 years later, I´ve been looking for it for a really long time, until I finally found it). The following 5 years or so I was getting games for Christmas and birthdays, and every new game was exciting. I can remember my Alex Kidd the lost stars, Shinobi or Ghostbusters sessions... I had almost nothing more to do, too many free time. By July 1990 I got Miracle Warriors, but I hated it. I didn´t know a shit of English and I didn´t know what a RPG was, so I swapped it for Penguin Land, and years later I got Lord of the Sword instead of P.Land. Duh, I still don´t know why I did it, I´ve been looking for Miracle Warriors again for nearly 6 years and have had a really hard time finding it (fortunately now I even have two copies), being now one of my favorites, and almost a part of my life. Well, during these 5 years I had a friend who also had a sms who traded some games with me (he even had a Light Phaser, too expensive for me!) His name was Alfonso, and with him I discovered Rampage, Alex Kidd in Miracle World (which I bought later), Secret Command or After Burner. But in 1993 or so, I had grown up, too old for videogames, I was interested in other things (girls, alcohol and bass guitar appeared), so I stopped buying games and took my sms somewhere into a cupboard. The last time I used my old sms1 it didn´t work, and I lost it when I moved in 1994, but I didn´t care about it. 4 years later, in October 1998, searching the internet I found some pages about the sms with reviews, manuals opinions, it was great! (I´m talking about the Sega Notebook, PAF, SMS Zone...) and my interest for the sms came back, so I decided to make a BIG collection. So I´m now working on it, now not as a child player but as a collector (when I have time, playing the games, of course). I found some shops where to buy games, I got a new sms1 and...looking for games again!!! It´s interesting to see things from today´s perspective. Games are not as amazing and interesting as they used to be, while going "game hunting" and trying to find some certain titles or the ones I always wanted to have as a child is a really nice hobby. It´s all about the memories from the past, most of them sweet, and trying to bring back those times when games were made with faith, charisma, fun, addiction and gameplay, not minding the graphical side so much.