Unraveling the enigma of Nintendo's Virtual Boy

It's a strange feeling to project these tales of business, technology, and marketing back onto simpler memories of my own naive youth. My younger self had no idea that these people were trying to succeed in their careers and life-long creative endeavors--I was content to play Mario Tennis to pass time, completely ignorant of the human struggle and engineering effort backing the hardware.

Now I'm especially conscious of this new narrative, of careers and adulthood, yet simultaneously filled with the nostalgia of my own carefree youth and time spent playing the Virtual Boy. It's strangely pleasant. I can relate to both feelings, though one is all but a fleeting memory.

Getting old is so weird.

I guess that means it didn't make much of an impact. I remember playing Mario Tennis and getting headaches from it, but don't remember very much else.

It did for me. I was 12 when it came out, and the local Blockbuster Video had one and they let me play it from time to time that summer (I rented games from there every weekend during school so they kind of knew me). I seem to remember getting a headache and feeling queasy.

But what I remember most, and what articles about the Virtual Boy never seem to mention is that the games were dull and boring. The 3D effect was interesting, but I was a 12 year old kid used to brightly coloured characters running around fluidly and responsively in a moving world. Playing the Virtual Boy was dismal - it was all high contrast black and dark red. And making Mario Tennis feel more 3D doesn't change the boring gameplay of Mario Tennis.