Can't. Stop. Playing. This. Game.

I wouldn't consider myself a big video game player. Occasionally I'll waste a day away camped out in front of the tube in my pajamas, with large quantities of soda and junk food, playing some game until my hands are hooked and cramped. More often than not, though, I'll just sit down to play for an hour to unwind before bed.

As a result, I more often play old arcade-style games. Now, don't get me wrong - I really like more involved kinds of games, the Legend of Zelda games being my all-time favorites - but it's fun to be able to play 5 games in fifteen minutes, too.

Back in the early eighties, Star Wars was one of my favorite arcade games. In 1983, when this game was released, I was eleven. There was a recreation center in town that was a popular place to hang out, ice skate and play video games in the arcade. Lacking the funds to play the night away myself, I would play as much as I could and then hang around and watch the older kids play, wishing that, one day, I might be as good at shooting fireballs and blasting tie fighters as they were.

Little did I know that my modest dream would one day become a reality, though if I had known, I may have been a little disheartened to learn that it would take twenty years. Nonetheless, here I am, an adult, with my own copy of the game that I can play at my leisure, without having to send countless quarters clattering away into the bowels of a machine hungry to receive them.

As it happens, I didn't have to pay anything for my game. A preview edition of Rogue Squadron III Rebel Strike came with a full playable version, free for the taking. Since that time I can play the game as often as I want, and that is what I do.

Again. And again. And again.