On a Saturday (or maybe a Sunday) in December of 1993, my mom left the house for the day in the morning. I can't remember if she was going to work, or going shopping. But what my little brother and I did know was that she wouldn't be home until that evening. We had the house to ourselves for hours and hours. And our Christmas loot was completely unprotected.
We had been pestering her for months to get us a Sega CD. 16-bit cartridge graphics and MIDI sound weren't good enough anymore. We needed pixelated FMV intros and poorly aligned redbook audio. We pulled out all of the stops. Every article we could find on the Sega CD and its games got clipped out of EGM and Gamepro, and glued into a college ruled brochure that we put together for her, to help her understand just how important it was that we should be on the cutting edge of this new technology. But more importantly than that, we wore her down. Day after day for months, most days multiple times per day. She didn't stand a chance.
So there we were. She was gone. We had been told to go to our rooms as large shopping bags had come into the house. The loot was here, we could smell it. And there were only so many places she could hide it. The worst case scenario would be the attic. Neither of us were sure how to get up there or what to expect if we did get up there. So we naively checked under her bed. No luck. Then we went to her closet. We dug our way back into the corner, past all of the girl stuff like long dresses and shoes. And there it was. A large Toys R Us bag. Bingo!
My brother was still pretty young, and I wasn't much older. But I was old enough to realize we were playing with fire here and we needed to be careful not to leave any tracks. We pulled the bag out of the closet and agreed to document what was where inside of the bag. Because of course my mom had done the same and she would know if anything within the bag was slightly askew. Fortunately for us, there wasn't much to document. Inside of that bag were two boxes: a Sega CD and Lunar: The Silver Star.
So now we knew we were getting it. We could rest easy and count down the days to Christmas morning. One. Second. At. A. Time. But we couldn't really do that. We had to play it. Our Genesis was in my room, hooked up to a small CRT that we had owned for as long as I could remember. That TV was so old, the Genesis was hooked up to is using a VHF adapter. That just wouldn't do for state of the art Sega CD games. So we moved the Genesis to the living room TV. And we dragged out the Sega CD box. We carefully opened the packaging and removed the Sega CD from the packaging, along with Sewer Shark, the pack-in game. We couldn't wait to play Sewer Shark. The entire game was interactive FMV. The future! We hooked up the Genesis to the Sega CD and loaded Sewer Shark into the top-loader and had our minds blown! For a few minutes, anyway.
In hindsight, Sewer Shark isn't a very good game. It certainly hasn't aged well. (Note: if you grew up in the years after the Sega CD and you haven't had the chance to experience Sewer Shark, spend a few minutes checking out what passed for mind blowing in 1993, if you get the opportunity). And it didn't take us long to realize we needed more. We needed Lunar. But we had a problem. The cellophane packaging. We had to get through that cleanly, leaving no trace. I had an exacto knife and that was the answer. My brother and I were able to make some clean cuts into the cellophane, slicing off the bottom of the packaging cleanly and sliding the CD case out.
We spent the rest of the day playing Lunar. We were already big RPG fans. We loved Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Quest). We knew we'd love Lunar and it didn't disappoint. I can't remember how far along we got. I do remember that we put in several hours.
The entire time we were playing, I was watching the clock. I knew that around 4pm, we'd have to pack it all back up and put it back where we had found it. We managed to slide Lunar back into the cellophane (hoping my mom wouldn't notice the missing side). The Genesis got disconnected from the Sega CD and moved back into the bedroom. The Sega CD went back into the box, the box back into the Toys R Us bag, the bag back into my mom's closet.
That evening, my mom got back home. We played it cool. Looking back, we were never terribly concerned that we would get caught. My brother and I were sure we would get away with it. When I knew my mom was wrapping the presents (we were ordered into our rooms, having done nothing wrong), I was slightly nervous. But she said nothing.
On Christmas morning, we put on an acting clinic. We were both so surprised and excited to get a Sega CD and Lunar! We tore right into Lunar and started playing it immediately. We started from scratch, so that we wouldn't give anything away (because surely my mom knew the game was supposed to start in Burg). That game was not shut down for two days straight, not until we had beaten it in a single sitting.
In hindsight, it's amazing we even got a Sega CD. My family was not of means, but my mom always managed to pull out all of the stops for us. We were incredibly lucky. I still think of this story today, when I think about the crazy stuff my brother and I would do. Most of the time, we got caught. But this time, we didn't just pull it off, we nailed it. To this day, my mom has no idea.
So Era, I shared my story. What's yours? Holidays, birthdays, anything else fun to share!
Thanks to mattiewheels for the thread idea. This was originally a short post in Lunar: The Silver Star was released 28 years ago (Dec 1, 1993) for Sega CD .
We had been pestering her for months to get us a Sega CD. 16-bit cartridge graphics and MIDI sound weren't good enough anymore. We needed pixelated FMV intros and poorly aligned redbook audio. We pulled out all of the stops. Every article we could find on the Sega CD and its games got clipped out of EGM and Gamepro, and glued into a college ruled brochure that we put together for her, to help her understand just how important it was that we should be on the cutting edge of this new technology. But more importantly than that, we wore her down. Day after day for months, most days multiple times per day. She didn't stand a chance.
So there we were. She was gone. We had been told to go to our rooms as large shopping bags had come into the house. The loot was here, we could smell it. And there were only so many places she could hide it. The worst case scenario would be the attic. Neither of us were sure how to get up there or what to expect if we did get up there. So we naively checked under her bed. No luck. Then we went to her closet. We dug our way back into the corner, past all of the girl stuff like long dresses and shoes. And there it was. A large Toys R Us bag. Bingo!
My brother was still pretty young, and I wasn't much older. But I was old enough to realize we were playing with fire here and we needed to be careful not to leave any tracks. We pulled the bag out of the closet and agreed to document what was where inside of the bag. Because of course my mom had done the same and she would know if anything within the bag was slightly askew. Fortunately for us, there wasn't much to document. Inside of that bag were two boxes: a Sega CD and Lunar: The Silver Star.
So now we knew we were getting it. We could rest easy and count down the days to Christmas morning. One. Second. At. A. Time. But we couldn't really do that. We had to play it. Our Genesis was in my room, hooked up to a small CRT that we had owned for as long as I could remember. That TV was so old, the Genesis was hooked up to is using a VHF adapter. That just wouldn't do for state of the art Sega CD games. So we moved the Genesis to the living room TV. And we dragged out the Sega CD box. We carefully opened the packaging and removed the Sega CD from the packaging, along with Sewer Shark, the pack-in game. We couldn't wait to play Sewer Shark. The entire game was interactive FMV. The future! We hooked up the Genesis to the Sega CD and loaded Sewer Shark into the top-loader and had our minds blown! For a few minutes, anyway.
In hindsight, Sewer Shark isn't a very good game. It certainly hasn't aged well. (Note: if you grew up in the years after the Sega CD and you haven't had the chance to experience Sewer Shark, spend a few minutes checking out what passed for mind blowing in 1993, if you get the opportunity). And it didn't take us long to realize we needed more. We needed Lunar. But we had a problem. The cellophane packaging. We had to get through that cleanly, leaving no trace. I had an exacto knife and that was the answer. My brother and I were able to make some clean cuts into the cellophane, slicing off the bottom of the packaging cleanly and sliding the CD case out.
We spent the rest of the day playing Lunar. We were already big RPG fans. We loved Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Quest). We knew we'd love Lunar and it didn't disappoint. I can't remember how far along we got. I do remember that we put in several hours.
The entire time we were playing, I was watching the clock. I knew that around 4pm, we'd have to pack it all back up and put it back where we had found it. We managed to slide Lunar back into the cellophane (hoping my mom wouldn't notice the missing side). The Genesis got disconnected from the Sega CD and moved back into the bedroom. The Sega CD went back into the box, the box back into the Toys R Us bag, the bag back into my mom's closet.
That evening, my mom got back home. We played it cool. Looking back, we were never terribly concerned that we would get caught. My brother and I were sure we would get away with it. When I knew my mom was wrapping the presents (we were ordered into our rooms, having done nothing wrong), I was slightly nervous. But she said nothing.
On Christmas morning, we put on an acting clinic. We were both so surprised and excited to get a Sega CD and Lunar! We tore right into Lunar and started playing it immediately. We started from scratch, so that we wouldn't give anything away (because surely my mom knew the game was supposed to start in Burg). That game was not shut down for two days straight, not until we had beaten it in a single sitting.
In hindsight, it's amazing we even got a Sega CD. My family was not of means, but my mom always managed to pull out all of the stops for us. We were incredibly lucky. I still think of this story today, when I think about the crazy stuff my brother and I would do. Most of the time, we got caught. But this time, we didn't just pull it off, we nailed it. To this day, my mom has no idea.
So Era, I shared my story. What's yours? Holidays, birthdays, anything else fun to share!
Thanks to mattiewheels for the thread idea. This was originally a short post in Lunar: The Silver Star was released 28 years ago (Dec 1, 1993) for Sega CD .
