(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 17, 2011.)

Back in my hometown in California, I had a job at GameStop. It was one of the good ones, though, with a helpful staff, a fun manager, and good customers. My good friend Tim and I used to even hang out there when we weren’t working and just talk games. He even introduced a concept to me that I thought was awesome and worth sharing: The “Unicorn Game”.

The Unicorn Game isn’t a game with literal unicorns, mind you. What the Unicorn Game is, according to the wise master Tim, is a game that is so rare and sought after but rarely seen. You know, like a mythical creature.

I was introduced to this concept by Tim who was telling me about his Unicorn Game, Valkyrie Profile for the PlayStation. He had been looking for it for years, but everywhere he looked it was far too expensive and usually incomplete. eBay was even more ridiculous, with most auctions weighing in at over $100.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I do for my day job, I work in the administration department of a natural and organic grocery store chain. My job entails counting cash and working with store financial reports, so as a result I have an office that has no windows and requires a key code to get into. My job is one that must literally be done every day, and as such I have a backup who works on weekends while I’m doing cool things like saving the world and winning NBA championships.

A while back Christina and I were at our local Newbury Comics and they had some of the American Legend of Zelda gashapon figures. They were less than $5 so we bought a few. We got a Darknut, Tetra and two Links. I took the spare Link to work, where I set him up on my computer so he could protect me from Keese and Stalfos.

Last week, I came into work on Monday after a weekend of bench pressing Buicks and tempering swords to find my Link figure broken. The figure ITSELF wasn’t broken, but the peg that connected him to his base had snapped. There was no note and no email. There aren’t a lot of people who have access to my office, so I figured it was either my backup or my store team leader. No big deal. I’d just take him home, glue him back together and set him back up.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on April 28, 2011.)

I’ve been playing the Gears of War 3 beta for the past couple of days, having a blast chainsawing people and making my team lose. I was never into the multiplayer modes of the previous games (except for co-op), but seeing as how this is the last game in the series, I wanted to try to spend a little more time with it and see what it has to offer. As I’ve been playing the beta, I’ve actually started to understand myself a little bit better.

The first thing is no surprise: if you tell me something is limited, I want it. Part of why I wanted in on the beta in the first place was so I could unlock the special characters and weapons available only to those who completed certain tasks in the beta. I’m playing like a madman trying to get this stuff. Unfortunately, as I got beta access by pre-ordering Gears of War 3 and not by purchasing the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm, I missed out on week one of the beta and thus I can never obtain the flaming Hammerburst weapon. You have NO IDEA how much that is going to haunt me.

The other thing I learned about myself I actually figured out while showering this morning. I’ve never been good at multiplayer shooters, first- or third-person. I was never able to figure out why; my reflexes were fine (I’m pretty good at competitive Street Fighter), but whenever it came down to me and another person one-on-one, I’d lose damn near every time.

As long-time readers may remember, I listed Phantasy Star Online as one of my favorite games of all time. I’ve been playing it pretty much non-stop for the past three days, and I’ve been wondering why. I can only play it single player, and it’s redundant as hell, but I can’t put it down.

A little backstory, though, before I get into it: while I did play a lot of PSO on the Dreamcast when it was released, I mostly played it on the GameCube with some friends of mine from the Animal Crossing website I used to work for. I had the GameCube broadband adapter and everything! However, when I was buying my original Xbox, I had to make up a little extra money, and since my friends had all stopped playing, I traded in my GameCube version and my broadband adapter, since PSO was available on Xbox as well so I figured I’d just buy it again, no harm no foul.

It was a big mistake, of course, and I’ve regretted it since, especially since I NEVER trade in games. Now my Dreamcast looks really bad on my new TV and my Xbox isn’t even hooked up. I’ve wanted the GameCube version for a while, so I could play it on my Wii with component cables and everything, but it regularly went for about $50 on eBay which I had a hard time justifying to myself. Last week, though, I finally re-purchased it and I’m having a blast re-living it.

It might just be me, but do you guys feel very fond memories of the first games you play for a new system, even years after they’re new?

I know for me when I feel in a “vintage” mood on a given night, the games I typically turn to are the first ones I played for whatever system is currently striking my fancy. For about a week now I’ve kind of had a hankering to play Viva Piñata for the 360, which is one of my favorite games for the system.

The three games to me that resonate the most for the 360 are the first games I played for it: Viva Piñata, Dead Rising, and Gears of War. When I first started working at GameStop in California, the “next generation” of systems had just started, meaning that the Xbox 360 had just come out and of course I couldn’t afford one. I went over to my coworker Elliot’s house and just watched him play for a while, and I was absolutely blown away by those three games. They were the first three I bought when I got a 360 of my own, and they’re still the ones I think of when I think “Xbox 360.”

Am I the only one, or is this a common thing?

I’m not trying to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but I like to think that I’m a pretty good person. I’m honest, I don’t steal, I always try to help out people when I can and I rarely put my needs in front of those of others. Despite this, I’m actually a pretty good liar.

I don’t lie to hurt people or to hide anything I’ve done, because I am of Lawful Good alignment and that goes against my moral code. I’m actually really bad at that, which sucked when I was a teenager because I could never sneak around anywhere because whenever I’d tell a lie to my mom I’d feel awful about it and fess up ten minutes later. No, I lie to entertain, not to manipulate.

I like to think up little stories and get people to believe them, and Christina and her sister fall for them EVERY time. I don’t really know how I got started with it, but sometimes a little fact will pop into my head and I make up reasoning for it and try to convince them it’s true.