I’m not Amish. I have an Xbox 360. My roommate has an Xbox 360. We put both of them into the same room, which has become a black hole that sucks up time by the hour. My roommate and I sit in the room, transfixed before our entertainment system like two moths in front of a zapper. My house has also upgraded their TV—the thing is bigger than I am and displays everything in glorious 1080i 16:9 widescreen. How I am still passing my classes is beyond me.

Despite the fact that I have at my disposal a Third-World country’s worth of technology, I’m ALT + TABing my way through a game that’s 15 years old as I write this article. I’ve played Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past so many times I sometimes whistle the "Hyrule March" on my way to my 2A. I have, 10 feet away from me, about two grand’s worth of electronic devices of procrastination and a high speed connection. Yet I’m still watching the little green sprite version of Link run around his 2-D pixelated world.

It may seem odd, but retro gaming—playing older computer or console games either on their original systems or via computer emulation—is on the rise. Why would I ever choose to play a game that was developed when I was in grade school when I have a wireless controller and most planets in the Star Wars universe within arm’s length? I wouldn’t even have to get up to turn on the 360. I play it because Zelda 3 was the first game I ever beat and the nostalgic high it gives me is stronger than that other second-grade staple, Elmer’s Glue. Its 16-bit palette painted my childhood imagination. I remember staying up for two nights trying to figure out how to get that stupid book out of that stupid library (who would have thought to head-butt the bookcase?).

Video games defined my childhood and the childhoods of many in my generation. It doesn’t matter if you were the football hero or an awkward drama nerd. The appeal of video games transcends social categories. I’m willing to bet that you played Oregon Trail in your grade-school classroom. I’m also willing to bet at one point one of these happened: 1) your oxen died, 2) you drowned in a river, 3) you shot far more buffalo then you could carry back, or 4) your family died of cholera/starvation. And how many of you had your first taste of Coop bliss at a friend’s sleepover playing Contra? You could only shoot in eight directions, but that didn’t matter as soon as you got that spread power up.

These are the games we grew up with. Before Mario was shooting water out of a backpack he moved in only three directions, shooting fireballs with the aid of a flower. In the old day, the games were short on sophistication—you didn’t need a Prima Guide and a massive 20-button controller—but they did have character. There were only two buttons and a D pad, but that was always good enough before.

Now we’re all college students and whether or not our parents are well-to-do, we are poor. When faced with the option of playing some golden oldies from our halcyon childhoods or laying down sixty bucks for Bill Gates’s latest offering, homo economicus kicks in. Sixty bucks is three meals away from DDS. Sixty bucks is five handles of crappy vodka. Sixty bucks would go a long way in paying off that DASH debt. So why would someone ever spend sixty bucks on Lego Star Wars II ? I’m serious, that’s an actual game. The 360’s been out for a year now and Microsoft’s lineup has reached 100 games, but, quite frankly, a lot of those games suck. Now of course there are great titles like Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell, but the gaming industry is at a lull in game development, with developers still figuring out the best way to take advantage of computing power in the 360’s three symmetrical cores (granted, Halo 3 is coming out in less than a month).

So what are we, the cash-strapped, cost-optimizing college population to do for entertainment—besides competitive binge-drinking and less-competitive raquetball? Some turn to Dartmouth offensive tackle Lucius Alexander, ‘07. “Big Lu,” all 6’4” 340 lbs. of him, turns Microsoft’s big black box into a retro gamer’s dream when he’s not putting the hurt on the D line. After Lucius is done, the soft-modded Xbox plays all Sega, NES, SNES, and even some N64 games, all while keeping the warranty intact. “I usually do around 10 Xboxes a term, and I hear that a lot of people’s rooms become the game playing hubs for their friends after I mod their boxes,” says Big Lou. You can’t play Duck Hunt (no laser gun), but you can play pretty much everything else.

Retro gaming is on the rise. Granted, it may be another story as soon as Gears of War and Halo 3, are released, to say nothing of the PS3. But until then, gamers are turning back to their childhoods and giving Super Mario 3 another shot.