Christmas 1991. We asked for a Super Nintendo, but got a Sega Genesis. We played it, but I wanted the next Mario game. We played the Sonic games, Toe Jam & Earl, and a few other Genesis hits, but not nearly as much as we had played the original NES.

Fast forward to Christmas 1997. We got a Nintendo 64, but my little brother was hogging it. I had gotten a hand-me-down SNES that summer but hadn't really touched it, so over the Christmas holidays, I played Super Mario World for the first time. In the past, I had played SMB 1, 2, and 3 until my fingers bled, but the few chances I had to play SMW weren't enough, and I never learned to like it. But that Christmas, I played it through two or three times. After that, I played Super Mario World all the way through - start to finish, 0 to 96 stars - every Christmas for several years...

Always being a few years behind is why I love retro games so much. They've proven again and again to be as much fun as, if not more fun than, the new games coming out. I still go back and play the original Mario and DKC games a couple of times a year...