On Obsessive Tendencies - Finishing What I Have Started

When I was very little, about 7 or 8, my parents bought me a Sega Master System II - the type that had Alex Kidd in Miracle World (you will notice the lack of the definite article 'the' in that title, please) built in to the console. Along with this gift, and its two magnificent controllers, we also happened to receive Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap (which is still one of my favourite games of all time), Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog II, Lemmings, Bart Simpson vs. The World, and Teddy Boy. We may have had one or two other games, but I don't recall anything, so they obviously were not very memorable.

Anyway, my story begins upon the completion of Wonderboy III, without cheating, whereupon I had a remarkable sense of self satisfaction. I kicked the butt of the dragons Meka, Mummy, Zombie, Captain, Daimyo, and Vampire, and I had rightfully gained the Salamander Cross to restore myself to human form. Right...well then...who needed saving next? I picked up the cartridge for Teddy Boy and inserted it into the system, shooting my little 'pew pew' gun at wave after wave of creatures as they came rushing towards me, preventing me from rescuing my girlfriend. All the while the time I received to clear each level became less and less, and the number of enemies just grew.

This Is One Of The Earliest Stages Of Teddy Boy

This Is What The Main Character Is Supposed To Resemble

It was difficult, to say the least, but I stuck with it and (as the days became weeks, and the weeks became months) I finally managed to memorise every strategy required to clear every level up to 50. Level 51 looked awfully familiar. I pressed on. I made it to about 75 before I was reduced to a game over scenario. The game had beaten me once more. I tried again. For years I came back to this game, only to be defeated time and time over. I needed to reach the end of this game. I hungered for the satisfaction of a nice credit scroll. But I was never sated. It was not until late last year that I discovered that the game only has 50 distinct levels, that loop infinitely. There is no end to it. Teddy Boy is, if you will, stuck in his own infinite hell - trying to find a girlfriend that no longer exists. And, for what he put me through all those years ago, he deserves it.

Flash forward, then, to earlier this year, after several episodes of behaviour at varying times in my life that should have been indicative of some kind of brain disease, including (but not limited to): watching entire TV series in a marathon sitting; reading the entirety of the available Goosebumps collection one after the other; attempting to clock every video game for the N64 that I could get my hands on; and digesting entire webcomic archives in a day. Andy and I are browsing the web at my house, when we come across Not Always Right - a collection of stories of the idiocy inflicted upon people by their hideously moronic clientele. We read the first couple dozen pages that day, pointing out the ones that manage to amuse us the most. Overall, a rather good experience.

But that's not where this story ends (because, let's face it, that's kind of pointless as far as stories go...) Instead, this is a story of addiction and...well...okay not betrayal, but definitely...well...okay not really addiction either, but certainly a story of fulfilling OCD needs. You see, over the past two months, I have completed the entire 429 page archive of Not Always Right. I have stayed up quite late, at some points, because I just needed to read a little bit more. There was no point to finishing the task - other than the fact that it had to be done, of course - but still, it needed to be completed. At least it's done now, I suppose, and all I have to do is read the daily new additions.

I Just Thought This Was A Cool Picture

As bland as that story may have been, it serves the purpose of highlighting my need to see certain tasks through to the end, lest my brain collapse in upon itself and form some kind of knowledge based black hole. It is with great confusion, however, that I find myself without the drive to actually complete important tasks, such as completing my diploma of education (so I could have been a teacher), or making my iPad app (so I could potentially be moderately wealthy.) Instead I am focussed on the completely inconsequential - almost two years ago I spent an entire night finding every single Pokemon in the picture below, because somebody told me that one of them was missing. Don't bother looking, they are all there. I know. I have counted them.

Click To View Full

But all hope is not lost for me. I'm seeing someone at some stage...Possibly tomorrow...I forget - but they'll text me later today if it is tomorrow. This person is pretty cool - they're from a free psychology service available to Australians under the age of 26 (they say "people up to 25 years old" but they include 25 year olds, so their wording is kind of ambiguous...) called HeadSpace. If you need help for anything at all, I strongly suggested that you check them out. They have free psychology and medical services. I'll be going to try and help fix a bit of the...um...anal retentiveness that I experience from time to time, and to try and get over some of my more crippling phobias (fear of the ocean, fear of flying, fear of failure, and fear of loss/being alone to start with...)


The moral of this story is that I just realised that I forgot to list a Sega game, and I am exceptionally well aware of why. The game was called "The Ninja", and it involved you running around a whole bunch of scrolling (either horizontally or vertically) levels, throwing shuriken at enemies, and generally not being at all stealthy. You were tasked with (I believe) saving a princess. The issue with this game was that you only got three lives for the whole thing. That's it. There was, in my recollection, no way of getting more lives. I completed it, after almost breaking my controller and having been sent to other places in the house to 'cool down' so I didn't hurt my younger brothers when they asked me why it was so hard. Still, that's completion nonetheless, and so it ranks higher than Teddy Boy on my list of horribly torturous video games of my youth.