Something I felt like sharing:

Last weekend after moving house I and a few mates cooked up some ribs and ordered pizza.
Few boxes were unpacked, the television was already standing in its full glory
but being devoid of internet and cable, all we had was snow.
So we decide to play some poker while listen to Dancedepartment ( dutch radio).
Here we encountered another problem, where did we have the cards?!
It must have been in a box but unsure which one, we decided to rip them all open.
The cards were found, so was something else.
In an old box that should have gone to the basement we discovered a Nintendo 64,
including 1080, Banjo Kazooie, Carmageddon, Diddy kong racing,
F1, Fifa 98 road to the world cup, mario kart, super smash bros and goldeneye!
Silence fell upon us, and a hushed grin started growing on our faces
imagining the mayhem we were about to unleash,
untill we discovered it had only one working controller left,
a manly tear was shed. two dieing controllers were not able to be saved
( broken stick and broken in half ) and the 4th one was missing in action.
These casualties weren't gonna stop us now tho,
for they were huge in numbers at their prime in our turf. So messages were send and
engines ROARED towards their targets, getting the replacement squads.
Within no time they return triumphantly and the games began.
Laughter and curses were heard all night long!
The games have grown older but so have we, and like a fine scotch both get better with the years.

Goldeneye felt amazing still the pace is so good but having troubles with too much smoke

And mario kart made me realise something;
Mario kart was good, i feared the new ones are outshining it ( higher pace, much more to do on track ),
but the pure racing is suprisingly fresh!
It made me think about the differences, I have every mario kart on consoles since the 64 version.
I loved the one on the gamecube for its very fast pace and awesome tracks and its nononse multiplayer.
I love the DS version for making me be able to play while travelling!
The wii one is well ye jizz in my pants I had so much fun offline splitscreen was very nice ( with minor annoyance allways gp styled )
and the online was bloody brilliant it allowed me beating you guys!

As I reread this quickly I realise Mario Kart and Smash bros will make me finally buy the wii U

We all want to be kids again and relive the past.

Beautiful story! I just got Super Mario Kart today from Nintendo Club. I swear it is not nostalgia, Nintendo games get better with age.

Story would have been better with some Shoarma and a Kapsalon instead of Pizza..

Gaming with good friends :) thats what it's all about

That was heartwarming! Nintendo games helped me get into games and will probably keep me going for years to come!

I really miss the early 90s, those years were my personal 'golden age of gaming' (SNES).

Agree with spurge, but after he says ye jizzed in my pants.

@OP. I think that's a beautiful story on how being disconnected from our overly connected modern society can help us find center in the basic joys of the past (playing cards, playing in the snow, playing some old games). The games of the past have a charm that today's games don't have, while today's games have an interactivity and usability that games of old don't. So there is some won and some lost since then.

I'm glad you had fun playing the classics. I had a lot of fun playing Diablo 1 a year ago and now just got back into SC and Diablo 2 and I'm having a great time. I still love my classics and most of my playtime on the Wii was spent playing FF, Megaman and other great classics. It's still like that.

Also, you should change the title to "A bittertweet longing for the past", to contrast with our hyperconnected twittosphere.

Lovely responses all!

and yes there might have been "kapsalons" later during the night
our local shoarmaboer delivers till 6