A few months ago, I stepped into Retro Games Plus in Lawndale, CA for the first time. Originally there to ask about putting up a flyer for Draakula (my debut 8-bit album: more details here!), I was struck by two things. First, an unexpected wave of 90’s and 2000’s nostalgia. Second, after the starry, shimmering sheen of memory had faded: an urge to get planning. Let me explain.

If you talk to me long enough (admittedly, not that long), I will open up my “wild ambitious goals” folder, and inside is, in either my future house or office, the plan to make a “90’s room.” More specifically, a room where everything inside it had to be released between January 1, 1990-December 31, 1999. If I am allowed to continue, you’ll discover one themed room is not enough, and I need a room covering the years of 2000-2004 as well. Please note, these are not meant to be museums. Rather, they are places to hang and chill, and are mere “snapshots” of rooms at those times.

In a trice, I realized Retro Games Plus would be an excellent resource for stocking these as-of-yet unrealized rooms. So join me in this briefing, as I boomerang between memories of yore and blueprints of tomorrow!

VHS TAPES

These racks are more or less the first things you see when entering the store, and here was nostalgia’s first genuine right hook. The memory of when I last saw this many VHS tapes in one spot is long gone (20 years ago? 25 years ago?). For my 90’s room, VHS tapes are absolutely essential, as these things were absolutely everywhere. Seeing so many multi-colored spines like this reminds me the bygone visits to my aunt and uncle’s house, where VHS tapes took up an entire wall. Enough space even to house a collection of what seemed like a hundred Shirley Temple clamshells. I’m not a fan of clamshells (or musicals, mind you), so those can be left out! These VHS tapes here, with the standard box, are glorious.

THIS NBA JAM MACHINE

Look at how 90’s this thing is! Honestly, I wouldn’t catch up with NBA Jam until many years later, after college, when I would play with my frequent creative creative collaborator Ralph Blanchard. For the most part, our games ended in the utmost frustration, with Ralph (loudly) accusing the game of cheating. Turns out he was right, as an Ars Technica mini-documentary on YouTube would later confirm (the game is programmed to help out the opposing team if you’re winning). Even if this machine was not made in the 90’s, you still have the 90’s players and team logos, which is a plus.

JURASSIC PARK FIGURES

Jurassic Park, the Greatest Film of All Time, will always be welcome in the 90’s (or any) room! I actually owned the tanned-clothed figure when I was a youngin, so he’d be fun to reclaim and have sitting on the coffee table. Whether this man is intended to be Alan Grant, I am still not sure. By 90’s action-figure-facial-sculpting technology, it could pass as Sam Neill, but then again, is this supposed to be Alan in the employ of Jurassic Park? Who is this man?

WILLIAM T. RIKER ACTION FIGURE

I would hate Star Trek until my late twenties, and am still surprised that I am now a big giant nerd for it. “Why isn’t it action packed like Star Wars? Why is there never any fighting? All they do is talk!” said my stupid younger self. Well, I have since seen the four lights and would gleefully welcome Trek, either TNG, DS9, or Voyager, into the 90’s room. I should get this particular figure not only because I love Riker, but this disguise is in the episode that also stars Bebe Newirth. For those sadly unitiated, she was Lilith on the 90’s sitcom classic Frasier. Being a follower of, and commenter on, multiple Frasier social media accounts, this is something I need!

THIS SNES CARTRDIGE FROM SAFEWAY

Look at this glorious relic. I absolutely adore authentic rental copies. (I still have an Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me VHS with my hometown video store’s stickers on it!)

I do not recall my childhood Safeway having a video rental department, but a few other grocery stores did. My friend and I rented Star Wars: Rouge Squadron for N64 from Albertson’s (if that sentence doesn’t date me, I don’t know what will). Since NCAA Final Four Basketball came out in 1995, this scrawled “1987” must refer to either the Safeway Store number or the SKU for this item at that rental department (I imagine customers were trying to return cartridges to any and all Safeways). Absolutely outstanding. Real rental copies like this would lend authenticity to the 90’s room, and must be acquired with all haste!

THE 2000’S ROOM

Moving onto my second themed hang-out room. Originally, I had planned to “time-stamp” the 2000’s room at December 2003, right before the theatrical premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Nerd hype was off the charts in this moment, not to mention that I, as an aspiring filmmaker, was still high off The Pirates of the Caribbean, Underworld, and the two Matrix films that had come earlier that year. It was a great time (I’m surprised I did not explode!) But to cap the room at December 2003 would be to miss out on one gaming goliath of the early 2000’s, Halo 2.

HALO 2

If The Lord of the Rings was something I filled my time with (re-watching the films, reading the books and lore, creating games, writing fanfic), then Halo 2 might have been of equal significance, just in the social realm. The campaign was fine, but the overwhelming majority of Halo 2 was played with friends. And not just playing with some friends some times. I mean to say that Halo 2 was being played at nearly every single social gathering from release to my graduation two years later. Didn’t matter whose house it was or what dungeon-like room we were in, Halo 2 was there. Friends hauled their giant CRT’s across town and plugged their AV cables into fickle televisions. Sometimes we had up to 12 people playing at once!

My budding-filmmaker prowess allowed me to record and synch both the video and audio from these playing sessions. Upon re-watch for this article, they are exactly what you’d expect: Varying skill-levels of trash talk, with a heavy dose of “dude!”, and the standard serving of Northern Californian “hella” (note: a lot of “hella”). I’ve said it before, but truly, what a time!

I have not gamed seriously by any means for nearly 20 years, and am therefore confused (and saddened) to hear that split-screen multiplayer is no more. Is this really true? As I said, nearly every single social gathering was accompanied by Halo 2. Halo and Halo 2‘s massive influence will have to loom large in the 2000’s room.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ACTION FIGURES

I was and still am obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I did not have any of these action figures, but my friend Michael did. He had the entire Fellowship! (He also had a For Your Consideration VHS of The Two Towers for all of 2003, which he NEVER let any of us borrow or watch and I still do not forgive him for that!) These figures would be, to borrow a line from Aragorn, “most welcome.” I must state, however, that I would open them up and have them posed around the room. The packaging is a little bulky for my taste, and don’t you remember, Éowyn hates cages.

EARLY 2000’S STAR WARS GAMES

When I wasn’t blasting my friends with sticky grenades, I was most likely playing against bots with Star Wars: Jedi Outcast. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic might take the cake for the best story in a Star Wars game, but Jedi Outcast is right up there, and it might have also been the first game to actually make you feel like a Jedi. A Kyle Katarn stan ever since I can remember, this game is true tentpole of the Casey Poma gaming history. It’s a game I still play today and a game I will borrow heavily from if I were to make my dream game (more on that in a future article!)

The Albertson’s-rented copy of Rogue Squadron impressed my friends and I enough that we dutifully playing the Gamecube’s sequel, Rouge Squadron II: Rogue Leader. I was let down that the game’s narrative just goes through the original trilogy (again), but the graphics were a great improvement at the time. I would never play Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, but I do remember the excitement around the idea of a game having both flying levels and run-around-on-foot levels. At the time, Star Wars games were flying-only or run-around-only, so it was a brand new day when you were able to do both (even if it turned out to not be so good)!

I MUST LEAVE YOU KNOW, BUT . . .

There are a very many things I didn’t even mention: a wall full of PS2 games. Glass cases of figures and rarities. A basket overloaded with loose game manuals. How fun! If you want to see more, you’ll have to go there yourself and check it out (or maybe I’ll write another article about my next trip!). For California, they have a location in Lawndale, as well as Huntington Beach. In Connecticut, you can find them in these 3 cities: Norwalk, Newington, and Orange.

Visit the stores, go to their website, and check out their entertaining and informative YouTube channel!.