I am a Nintendo Fanboy. There, I’ve said it.

We will never tire of random pictures of gaming cosplay. Never.

Now I know that statement will not gain me many friends on this website but it’s the truth. Admittedly, I never fell asleep beneath Legend of Zelda bed sheets and my diet does not consist of Super Mario Brothers spaghetti shapes but I have bought Nintendo consoles to the exclusion of all others my entire gaming life and that makes me a Fanboy - I can see that now. But this story isn’t just about self-loathing, it’s also about self-help.

I want this article stand as a testament to mankind’s folly; a shining light to guide those other poor lost souls away from their obsessions and act as warning to others not to tread on that dark and deeply embarrassing path to Fanboyhood. So, without further ado, I invite you to listen to my tale of terror, a tale I like to call:

"The Death of a Fanboy."

It began with a malaise, a miasma, a general feeling of malcontent that I just couldn’t shake. I’ve always enjoyed playing video games, but recently something was very wrong, nothing was really inspiring me anymore. I enjoyed Resident Evil 4 (GC version of course) and I loved X-men Legends 2 (GC again) but the spark just wasn’t there like it had been before. In the parlance of this web community: I had lost the original spirit.

I thought I could perk myself up with a look at things to come, but all it took was a quick glance at the GameCube release schedule to realise that there was nothing coming. There were no reinforcements on the horizon - just a distant hope that the new Zelda might be released before I start drawing my pension. I began to panic, I remembered the dark days at the end of the N64’s life and knew that I couldn’t go back there again - I had to discover a new source of the original spirit. It was then that the first of a number terrifying thoughts struck me:

"there were other consoles... I could just buy another console."

This was a new concept, a complete paradigm shift and to be honest I didn’t really know what to do with it. However, if the pretentious-but-ace space-opera Babylon 5 had taught me anything it was that:

"faith and reason are like the shoes on your feet... You walk much further with both than you do with either one alone"

It was my blind faith in Nintendo that had got me to this point, so to get any further I would need reason and the scientific method - it was time to hit the internet.

My plan was to start on another computer game website, look at the reviews and count up the number of games on each of the other consoles that I actually wanted to play. I started with the X-Box, optimistic that my faith in Nintendo was well-founded and that there was nothing else out there for me except anticipation for the Revolution. A quick look down the X-Box "editor’s choice" list resulted in just two entries: Halo 2 and Jade Empire. So far, so good: it seemed like my love of Nintendo was going to be easily vindicated. Next I moved on to the Playstation 2.

I stopped counting at 40.

This came as a surprise. I have to admit that even in my most Nintendo-obsessed days I expressed a desire to play Devil May Cry and Ico but they were games for "other people". They were just something else in the long list of things that I could label "cool stuff that isn’t for me" - alongside hip-hop and Sex and the City. I’d resigned myself to the fact that, good as they undoubtedly were, I just wasn’t going to play these games. Not getting to play them was the price I had to pay so that I could enjoy Metroid Prime and Eternal Darkness.

I was used to this sort of attitude when there were only a few games at stake but 40 was an entirely new order of magnitude. I couldn’t understand how 40 games had passed me by over the 5-year life of the PS2. Surely not all of these games could be for "other people?" It was here that the second terrifying thought struck me:

"these games don’t have to be for other people"

It was at this moment that the illusion shattered, I didn’t have to blindly loyal to Nintendo, I could buy whatever I wanted. Just like the elated East Germans trapped behind the Iron Curtain, my Berlin wall had fallen and I could finally appreciate all the myriad wonders of Western (or in my case Eastern) Civilisation.

And now we reach the present day: I have decided to go off and buy a PS2. Admittedly, my budget is nowhere near large enough to afford all 40 of the games on my hitlist but I’ve got my hastily scribbled "essentials" shopping list (with Ico and Devil May Cry at the top of course) and I’ll be off to the shops one day this week.

Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot for Nintendo. Ironically, with the success of the DS Lite and the upcoming Revolution, Nintendo might just end up being our proverbial "last best hope for peace." But whether this Nintendo reawakening happens or not, I’ll still make a reasoned decision as to which next-gen console to buy first. I don’t really want to return to that level of console bias again.

Without wishing to labour the point, it really does feel like a new dawn - I can buy any game I want using reason instead of loyalty as my compass. Very soon I’ll be heading off into uncertain territory to go and chase down that errant original spirit. Only this time it will be a fair race: I’ll be wearing both of my shoes.

May 2006

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