A Little Ray of Sunshine

The year was 2006. I had been married for two years and my wife and I were expecting our first child. I was officially an adult. I had a family and was knee deep in my first career. I was working at a chemical factory in a lab doing product testing. Pretty much what I had always dreamed about doing right out of college. The only real problem with the job was the hours. The plant never closed, running 24 hours a day for most of the year. Which meant for me anyway 12-hour shifts, two weeks days and two weeks nights. After several months of working there I was exhausted, and I needed a break. My wife decided to plan us a surprise miniature vacation. During one of my weekends off I came home to packed bags and we went and stayed at a local hotel, just disappearing from the world for two days. It was a huge relief for me even though it was literally just down the road and was great fun. It also led me on a path of self-discovery that I did not realize I needed.

You see when I got married, I came to the conclusion that now that I was an adult I needed to put away “childish” things in my life and grow up. As such I took all my video games and consoles to GameStop, traded them in for a dollar and walked away. I spent those first two years of marriage enjoying my time with my wife and watching late night television together. But when I finished school and took on a career, I realized that watching TV was not enough of an interactive hobby for me. I tried a few things, but nothing seemed to fit what I was looking for. That changed the weekend my wife planned for us.

When we got to the hotel room and settled in, I realized that attached to the TV was a GameCube controller. You could rent and play games in your room. I rented Super Mario Sunshine, which I had at the time never played before. But Mario 64 was one of my favorite games of all time, so I was eager to give it a go. I was hooked, I played the game every moment I could spare that weekend and when Liz and I checked out we made a be-line to GameStop and bought a used GameCube and a few games. It took me a few years to track down a copy of Sunshine however.

The game itself is excellent and while many have complained over the years of the use of flood as a mechanic for traversal or other aspects of its design I have always enjoyed the game immensely. I have also heart people complain about the story, but if you came to a Mario game expecting a high concept story then I think you are missing the point. The biggest draw for the game to me is how perfectly its design melds with the near perfect GameCube controller.

The game started my journey as a collector and now I have several consoles and games that I share with my children. Our living room is literally built around the hobby and I have played and enjoyed many games since. But Sunshine is kind of special for me, it taught me that you are never too old to play. Being adult does not mean you have to put down “childish” things. Indeed, all of us should look for our own way to foster our inner child. I am an adult who plays games and while today that is not all that embarrassing to admit, like it once was. Sunshine was the game that made me remember how much I just enjoy the freedom of playing games.