The year is 2002.
You have just finished installing Microsoft’s brand new Windows XP operating system, while the news in the background celebrates the completion of the International Space Station. Later, you will be heading out to watch France vs Senegal in the opening game of the FIFA World Cup (hosted in Japan and South Korea) but you have some time to kill first.
You were thinking about going to watch Spider-Man, but you have some reservations about the actor (who is this Tobey Maguire guy, anyway?) so instead you power on your next-generation Nintendo GameCube and load up the only game worth playing: Super Metroid Prime.
Hours go by. You don’t even bother to go watch the football (France won) because you’re having too much fun playing the only Super Metroid game in first-person. You’re blasting monsters with your wrist-mounted laser canon, while exploring a fully 3D world of things to do and places to see. You think to yourself, this must be one of the best-looking games in the history of gaming (and you’d be right).
But then, calamity ensues. Your brand new Apple iPod with a 5GB hard drive (capable of holding up to 1,000 songs) falls off the shelf and straight onto your head, rendering you unconscious. Not even the low-fi synth beats of the Super Metroid soundtrack can rouse you, and you slip into a deep comatose state.
Years pass. 21 to be exact. Your family has checked you into a hospital. They don’t bother to come visit anymore. You are taken care of by a kind orderly named Gail, who checks on you every hour or so. You have the old man beard of someone who has spent decades asleep. If you had any hope of waking up, you’d have given it up years ago – but that’s not for you to decide.
No, the universe has other plans for you and on one quiet afternoon in March you suddenly sit bolt upright. Gail comes running, yelling for the doctor. She’s never seen one of the coma patients wake up before. Not many have.
The doctor explains you have been asleep for a very long time. The world has changed; the World Cup was held in Qatar, iPods don’t really exist anymore, and there have been eight Spider-Man films (Tobey Maguire was in the last one too, he’s a big deal now). You are confused. You’ve lost years of your life.
The doctor understands. He hands you a Nintendo Switch and says it sometimes helps people with their confusion. You power it on, and it automatically loads up the only game worth playing: Super Metroid Prime: Remastered.
You smile. And as you get to grips with this faithful re-creation of one of the world’s greatest first-person shooters (upgraded with better graphics and a new movement system) chuckle to yourself and think, “Hey, maybe the world isn’t that different after all”.