Those Were the Days is a weekly article in which Gamervision employees share video game-related memories. If you’ve got a story of your own to share, please do so! We love hearing from the community.

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I’m generally not an angry person. I usually am able to keep most physical anger inside, instead turning it into nightmares and passive aggressive tendencies towards the ones I love. I do, however, sometimes commit acts of physical violence against myself when a videogame is particularly frustrating, but it is generally only against computer-controlled players and, nine times out of ten, fighting games. It’s never more than punching myself in the arm or leg like a lunatic for a few seconds, not hard enough to bruise or leave a mark, but enough to get the anger out. Well, one time it wasn’t a fighting game, it wasn’t a few seconds, and it left a mark.

See, there’s this son of a bitch boss in Luigi’s Mansion named "The Gathering of Boos." They have the typical cheap tactic of being able to break apart into many smaller ghosts that need to be defeated, only returning to a bulbous form after time passes. When they are in their small form the Boos are more vulnerable, and can be frozen and, of course, vacuumed. The big form needs to be smacked into ice to break apart. In other words, all normal stuff.

A few years ago I was playing the game and died a few times to the boss, which was no big deal. Well, it wasn't a big deal at first...

Out of the 50 or so Boos he turns into I defeated all but one without losing any health. Practice was making perfect, I thought. However, the last one, an awful, terrible creature, proceeded to elude me and slowly, over the course of several minutes chip away at my health until I was dead. Dead, when the boss had effectively be beaten. What the hell did the game want from me? A Mission Accomplished banner?

In my anger, I swung my fist downward as a sign of defeat. Not to hurt myself, mind you, but to apply a physical signature to my failure. My perception must have been slightly off (which could have accounted for the boss killing me, now that I think about it) and my knuckle made slight contact with the corner of my desk, splattering it open. It didn’t hit bone, nothing was broken, but a significant enough chunk was taken off my hand that, if you look closely, a small scar is still on my hand. I got up, turned the game off, bandaged up, and never played again.

In short, I have a scar on my hand because of Luigi’s Mansion. It wasn’t even my first time playing the stupid game, either. I was like 16 at the time.

I’m a child.

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