I have an interesting memory. I remember things in spurts, not entire periods of time. And I’ll have huge blank spots around certain times, but other times are extremely vivid. Thinking back through my life, one type of thing consistently sticks in my memory and that is video games. I remember games based on where, when, and how I played them. I remember everything around the game, how I felt, how the lighting was, what TV I played it on, what music was going on. I don’t remember every video game, but some are extremely vivid. In these forthcoming posts, “Great Moments in Gaming,” I’ll reminisce on some of these memories and try to flesh them out. Hopefully, it will be interesting. Bear with me and let us begin…

Somewhere around 2005 or 2006 my wife’s (girlfriend at the time) grandmother divorced her husband of 5 years (I know…). During the divorce and process of selling their house, the grandmother (hereafter called NeNe, I don’t know why she likes being called that) didn’t want to be in house alone. The family had a choice to stay there with her themselves or pay me (I was chronically strapped for cash during my school days) to stay with her. For about 2-3 weeks I went over to her house every night around 8 or 9pm and stayed till I left for school in the morning.

Before we continue, let me explain my gaming situation at the time. I still had my Nintendo & Genesis from when I was a kid, but owned no current gen system (this was the time of PS2’s and XBoxes). I was extremely broke during school, since I only worked part time and still had to borrow money from my parent’s to pay for my rent ($250). I couldn’t afford video games, so I mainly scavenged older consoles and always looked for deals. I did have a Dreamcast, and that is what I played.

Staying at an elderly person’s house sounded extremely boring to me and so I brought my Dreamcast. In honor of the new gig, I splurged on a spool of CD-R’s, downloaded lots of DC games over hijacked internet, and had  a fresh supply of games! Going through them, I found a few fun games: Powerstone, Record of Lodoss War, Skies of Arcadia. But the game that grabbed my attention and filled this memory was Phantasy Star Online.

When I first booted up the game, the first thing that grabbed me was the music. It felt so… open. I’m a total internet junkie. I love the feeling of being connected to the world and actually get depressed when I’m not connected. Somehow, this game made me feel online & connected, even though NeNe’s house had no internet. How? The atmosphere of the game, created by the graphics, music, and story (if you could call it that) create this feeling of openness and possibility. It’s almost ironic that an online game could feel connected even when it’s not.

What’s even more ironic is that so many “open-world” games that are supposed to feel like the world is open actually feel more closed than Phantasy Star Online (okay, it’s abbreviated to PSO from now on). Examples are GTAIV, Infamous, Prototype. Nothing against the games, they’re not bad, it’s just that they don’t feel open. It’s obvious that it’s all AI and that it’s just a video game.

I played through the entire game at NeNe’s house. It was way too short for an offline game, and I felt a little sad when I’d finished the last quest.  Sitting at the dark house and finding that there was nothing left to the game, I contemplated starting it all over.

A few years later (ie. last month) I somehow happened to download the soundtrack to the game. The songs instantly took me back to that world. The design of that game’s environments was so amazing. Dreamcast graphics be damned, that game sucked me in.

I’ve got Phantasy Star Universe & want to get Phantasy Star Portable. Reading reviews, I doubt that either game will supply the amazing experience that the first one did, but hopefully there will be enough nostalgia in either game to remind me of PSO.