Awesome raffle. Really never seen anything this impressive in a forum give away, so props to ya. I've never had a Saturn. I don't even think I've ever even played one. All that being said, I have wanted to get into the Saturn for a little while now and this seems like the best possible way to get introduced. You asked for it, so I will be the first. Life story starts now:
I will start with a some video game history (this is a video game forum after all). Our first game console was an Intellivision. We had donkey kong, frog bog, and one of the trons (there were a few as i recall) but i mostly liked sea battle and space battle. Sea battle was probably a strange choice for a a young kid (it was sort of a sea-based strategy game) but the box art was incredible. Later we had an Apple II (Summer Games anyone?). Not much of a game machine since we only had a B/W monitor but there were a few games my dad copied (we didnt call it pirating back then. i didnt even know you werent supposed to do that).
When I was in the 4th grade a kid who lived down the street got a NES. I had never even heard of it, but all the kids started talking about it and we went to his house every day after school. I was blown away by the graphics and the controls. He only had Super Mario Bros, but that was all we needed. When the kid who owned it found the warp vine on level 1-2, we didnt even believe him. He couldnt remember how he did it, so we thought he was making stuff up. We didnt understand how that could be a thing in video games up to that point. That Xmas, every kid i knew got a NES and we were no exception. We had the deluxe version with ROB the robot. I remember getting Ikari Warriors (which i had asked for), Xevious (which I thought sucked at the time), and Metal Gear. 9 year old me really gave MG a shot, but it was just too much nuance for me to comprehend at the time. Little did I know that would end up being the jewel of the bunch (and a great game I still enjoy playing).
In 1990, my best friend at the time got a Genesis. Once again, I was stunned by the graphics (and once again I got jealous). My folks were not so much into shelling out the bucks for a new system since the NES purchase was still pretty fresh in their minds. No amount of begging was going to get me a new console outside the birthday/xmas cycle. My bestie had Phantasy Star II at the time and I just didnt get it. I guess I was too much of a action/platformer/sports game player at the time. We moved away not too long after that over the summer.
That summer, I set my eyes on the newest (and best, so I thought) system out there. It was going to make my buddy's Genny look like a pong machine in comparison. It was the TurboGrafx-16. And that Xmas..... I GOT ONE!!!! My first 2 games were KC and Splatterhouse (which I asked for). Splatterhouse I really liked. I was genuinely afraid the first time I got to Biggy Man. KC I was less enamored with. Frankly, it sucked (and still does). I just didnt get it (and still dont... I mean, why would you bring a video game based on a Japanese anime TV show that was never introduced to the US public to be your introduction of your system to America?). Unfortunately, those were the only 2 games I ever owned. I remember renting Bonk's Adventure and Legendary Axe I & II from the video store. This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but never could get past the first level on Bonk. I didnt realize you had to "Bonk" the lizard on the head to get him to open his mouth. None the less, I still remember renting it at least 3 times.
Unfortunately, and I wasnt the only one to do this, I sort of gave up on the Turbografx in 1991 (shame... shame... shame... *rings bell). I loved the idea of the Hucards and the Turbo Express, but it was so expensive, I didnt even ask my folks for it. Additionally, once the CDROM add-on came out, I convinced myself all the really good games would only come out on CD and I would never be able to get one. That was also way out of reach for me and my folks at the time. So time went on and I picked up a Super Nintendo in HighSchool but it was just a casual thing at this point in my life. In college i didnt do much console gaming at all. All I really had time for was a little Diablo and Starcraft on my roommate's PC (this introduced me to PC gaming which is all I really did until I got into "Retro" gaming in 2012). That's probably the main reason, I never got into the Saturn. I was a very busy poor college student with neither the time or resources for it.
Now for the rest of the boring bits: After college, I joined the Air Force. I finished my AWACS training in 2001, then 9-11 happened and changed everything. Many deployments followed and I am deployed right now as I am typing this. You know what they say "May you live in interesting times". Well, my 16 years in the AF have always been interesting. That's the short and sweet of it. Good luck to everyone in the raffle.
-dan
