I’ve started collecting again for my Game Boy’s, for the first time in at least 15 years. It’s fun to be a little older and have a little more money to pick up some of those titles I couldn’t get as a kid.

Of course when my first title Solar Striker arrived by mail a couple weeks back, I felt like a kid all over again. As I looked at the cover of an artwork of Solar Striker,  I remembered how much I had always wanted it. Suddenly, other memories came pouring back, of being 12 or 13 and looking at, and buying new Game Boy games. I remember being able to put hours into those games and in most cases beating them.

My time with my Game Boy and its games was at just the right time in my life, when I began to notice the world around me. Super Mario Land (1&2) where my summertime games, Metroid 2 was a Christmas vacation game played just before Christmas. Choplifter 2 was my after Christmas game and winter game, as was The Hunt for Red October. Radar Mission was a Saturday night buy when I was stuck at a store with my parents, and a traveling companion thereafter. Most of my games had a place, and a connection to something else in my life. I can even remember two games I wanted Top Gun: Guts & Glory, and Turn & Burn being games I wanted to buy the summer after I graduated from 8th Grade, but never had the money to.

Once I got into high school my taste changed as I became a PC gamer. But in 2000, while stuck in an endless string of hotels I bought a Game Boy Color and new memories emerged, especially with Paperboy, and SpyHunter. 

With today being the 25th anniversary of the original Game Boy, I wish I had a bigger and more in depth article in place. Frankly, the date snuck up on me, and all I can really justly do is just share these memories.