It’s been almost 19 years since that fateful birthday for which I received my very first video game console, a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The pack-in game, of course, was the devastatingly great Super Mario World. But my grandmother had also sweetened the pot with the addition of Hudson’s Super Adventure Island. I’m absolutely certain she had no idea what Super Adventure Island was (or what a Super Nintendo was, as evidenced years later when she rented a copy of Double Dragon and attempted to stick it into the VCR, bless her heart). But through her gift, she inadvertently gave me an education.
