One time when I was driving home from my college class, I had hooked my iPod up to my car stereo and put it on shuffle. I had just gotten my iPod and I didn’t have a ton of music on it yet, but one album I made sure was on there was the Super Smash Bros. Melee soundtrack. So I’m driving home on the freeway, and Mute City from F-Zero comes on.

This past Valentine’s Day, I received the most romantic gift ever: A boxed Sega Game Gear with a copy of NBA Jam and a rechargeable battery pack. I’ve known for a while that I was marrying the right woman, and this is just another example of the choir being preached to.

The Game Gear is a handheld system, but I wouldn’t call it “portable,” even by early 90’s standards. The thing is comfortable in your hands, but it’s still bulky and there’s no WAY this thing would fit into your pocket, especially considering how tight everyone wore their pants back then (well, everyone except MC Hammer).

I’m going to tell you a little story about a game that’s just magical.

Chex Quest is a total conversion of Ultimate Doom created by Digital Café that was packed into boxes of Chex cereal in 1996. It’s a first-person shooter based on a breakfast cereal. There’s no joke there, it’s real. I’ve played it.

I remember having a pretty good time with it when I got in in 1996, and really I just made my mom buy the cereal because it had a video game in it. I mean, Doom was fun, so this had to be fun too, even without the hell demons and chainsaws.