A Neon Sign in the Winter
There used to be a simple time when you’d plug a cartridge into a console and instantly be playing. No loading screens. No updates. Just action the moment you hit start. Nintendo and Sega paved the way for what would become the era of PlayStation, an age of story-driven, graphically intense games. But before the first PlayStation took over living rooms, there was an era of early 3D magic in our house with the Nintendo 64.
When I close my eyes, it’s 1996. Friday night after school. My brother and I had just stepped off the bus and started our three-quarter-mile walk home through the woods. It was always quiet there. You could hear the little critters scurrying through the leaves, the wind pushing through the trees like a soft whisper guiding us home. When we finally reached the house, Mom would be waiting in the driveway, cleaning up, greeting us with that warm “hello” and a hug that reminded you that you were home. A little later, Dad would pull in, honking his horn as he celebrated the end of another work week. It was Friday night, and Friday nights were ritual. A family tradition. We always went out to eat together, usually Pizza Hut or Pasta House.
That night, it was Pasta House inside the mall. I ordered my usual toasted ravioli. The place was alive, crowds of people everywhere, laughter echoing through the open halls, and not a single person staring down at a phone. Everyone was present. Everyone was alive. The fountains roared, coins glimmered under the surface, and every store was bustling. This was normal. This was life.
When we left the mall, Mom & Dad drove us through the suburbs and we passed a small local video game store, one of those hidden gems that felt different from every other one. The moment we stepped inside, the warm glow of CRTs lit up the room. I looked up at a TV mounted high in the corner and froze. Mario. In full 3D. Running through a world that looked impossibly alive, colors bursting like neon signs against winter snow. My jaw hung open. It was the Nintendo 64 I’d only heard whispers about. I remember thinking, this is the future. Even the strange M-shaped controller felt like it came from another world.
That night, when we got home and fired up our old Sega Genesis, I remember feeling like I was playing something ancient. My brother and I played Gunstar Heroes, but all I could think about was what 3D worlds awaited us someday.
Fast forward to Christmas morning, 1996. We woke to find notes taped to our bedroom doors, messages from Santa, giving us clues that led us from room to room in a scavenger hunt through the house. Eventually, after what felt like forever, we found ourselves downstairs. At the end of the hallway, in our family room, the same glowing colors I’d seen in that game store filled the room. Mario. Running. Jumping. Laughing. In 3D. I looked at my brother in disbelief as he dropped to the floor pretending to faint. We were ecstatic. The future of gaming had arrived, and it was sitting in our living room.
Now, nearly thirty years later, I’m sitting beside that same Nintendo 64. It’s loaded with Super Mario 64, and beside it, a small stack of cartridges, each one holding memories that feel more like living snapshots of another lifetime. Every game has its own mood, its own era of my life tied to it. I flip through them and it’s like flipping through time itself, smells, sounds, feelings, all still there. Even the save files are like fossils, time trials and scores that haven’t changed in decades. My brother’s old record in Wave Race still taunts me: 1 minute, 21 seconds. I can’t beat it. I text him, “How the hell were we so good as kids?” He just laughs and says, “Lol I don’t know, man.”
The Nintendo 64 was my first 3D console. But just a few years later, we’d discover the magic of the PlayStation. I still remember seeing Resident Evil 2 for the first time at my cousin’s house on his small CRT. It terrified and amazed me. The atmosphere, the sound, the realism, it was beyond anything I’d ever seen. So once again, we begged our parents for another console. “You already have a Nintendo,” they said. But we persisted, and eventually, we got our PlayStation.
Within the next year, I bought my first console with my own money, the PlayStation 2. I still remember being number 93 in line at Babbage’s to reserve it. I put down $100 and slowly paid it off over the next year. When release day came, my dad surprised me by picking it up while I was at school. I came home to that big blue box sitting in my room, the same feeling all over again, like stepping into the future. My first game was Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, which I’d fallen in love with from a demo disc in PlayStation Magazine.
From there, the years blurred together. PS3, PS4, PS5. Each one carrying that same DNA of those early days. They’ve never quite hit the same way as the PS1 or PS2 did, but they still carry that familiar spark, a reminder of when games were made with heart, when they felt like passion projects instead of products.
Now, here I am, surrounded by my old consoles. My N64, PlayStation, PS2, Sega Genesis, and even my Wii. The Xbox 360 would’ve been there too, but after three consoles and three red rings of death, that chapter ended for me. Great games, but Kinect and all that, that’s where Xbox lost me.
So what does this all mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. All I know is that I’m going back, back to my retro collection, to the games I missed or never finished. Recently, I’ve been playing Banjo-Kazooie for the first time, one I skipped as a kid. And even now, it’s pure magic. You can feel the love those developers had. You can feel the soul in every detail.
And as I open my eyes, it’s 2025 again. I’m playing games that are three decades old, my CRT glowing like a time portal back to those woods, back to my old house, back to the crowded malls, the video game shops, and the family dinners. Back to that kid who stared up at Mario in 3D, eyes wide open, heart full of wonder, and a dream of what games could someday become. Glowing bright in my mind, like a neon sign in the winter.
_brandon