“34th Birthday Haul!”

I might’ve caught some kind of weird stomach bug, but this birthday was otherwise a roaring success, insofar as retro gaming is concerned.

It all started when my wife asked the paralyzing question. “What do you want for your birthday?” How was I supposed to possibly answer that? I don’t make a ton of money but I already have everything I could ever want: a home, a family, friends, the respect of… some of my peers. My wife even let me convert our office into a game room (which will shortly be filmed for the Game Room World Tour event!).

I looked at my collection and asked what I was missing. Sure, tons of different games but I don’t have time to play the games I already own. I thought I should just look for a console I didn’t have instead and my brain went to the two gaps in my Nintendo system lineup: the Virtual Boy and the Wii U.

Honestly, I wanted that Virtual Boy, but who knew they were suddenly so expensive? As a novelty item for a collector, I couldn’t see myself shelling out hundreds for something I really wouldn’t get too much use out of. My attentions turned instead to the Wii U, a system I’ve called a marketing failure in the past, Nintendo’s biggest mistake since indirectly creating their own biggest rival in the Sony PlayStation.

But… it’s missing from my collection and I found a decent deal on one on Ebay: a deluxe edition that came with the big gamepad and a bunch of games (New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Maker, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Yoshi’s Woolly World, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, and Pikmin 3). I hadn’t played any of these games before. I augmented that collection with Rayman Legends and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, two titles I really wanted more time with.

I’m looking forward to writing my first ever Wii U review soon, if I can figure out whether I’m supposed to look at the TV or the gamepad!

For my son, whose birthday is one day before mine, I bought ye olde DMG-001. He just turned four so it was time to introduce him to more of the classics: Tetris and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. We’ll see how far he gets!

The gift I got my son for his 4th birthday (day before mine) 🥰 pic.twitter.com/z3ZFjKbHQg

— the Well-Red Mage (@theWellRedMage) August 16, 2019

I know I got spoiled this birthday. No matter how big my collection gets, I’m going to try to never forget to be thankful for it. When I was a kid, growing up on three acres of land in the middle of the Hawaiian rainforest on an electric generator, I didn’t have many video games and I didn’t get to play them as frequently as I can now. This is more than I deserve. I have a lot to be thankful for. Heck, maybe we all do.

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.