Jo Garcia, Lingerie and Duck Hunt Photos

The last few weeks I've been on a retro kick. After pushing past 20k followers on my Twitter account @gamernextdoor, we kicked things off with a wallpaper that had me wrapped up in all my favorite games and game controllers. Last week I took scissors to some of my favorite retro gaming t-shirts for another fun gaming gallery.

This week, we have some more photos of me and my favorite games. Rather than wearing nothing or retro t-shirts, I decided to break out some lingerie. Play in whatever you're comfortable with, right? I hope you like them.

Duck Hunt was the first game I ever blew on. It came with the NES, and blowing the dust out of the game was a ritual to get the thing to play. Blow in the cartridge, stick it in the console, jiggle it to the left and if you were lucky avoid a blinking red light or corrupted title screen.



Hunting ducks and shooting skeet were game changers. I usually shot ducks because it was easier and the dog that popped up was my favorite. I've had every color gun in my life. Orange, grey, and even an off brand Pro Beam gun that my dad bought pre-Craigslist off of some guy on the street. I got to a point where I could beat my dad and my sister and I'm still pretty good to this day. I played it earlier this summer with my dad. I bought him one of the of all-in-one NES, SNES, Genesis units so he can play old cartridges. We were playing with my nieces and nephews. They all have Xbox or Playstation, so they don't know a thing about old -chool gaming. The kids loved the game, but they were shocked by the wires attaching the gun to the system.

Mario Kart 64 was another game I've played in every form over the years. I used to be Yoshi on the N64 and I had the banana-peel yellow N64 controller. I was horrible at Mario Kart in almost every version, but I love it. I thought maybe the Wii's more intuitive controls would help, but for the longest time I held the Wii Remote wrong and didn't know it. Finally someone gave me the steering wheel attachment as a gag gift to tease me about my horrific Kart-ing skills. Turns out it was all psychological. With a wheel in hand I finally had a bit of swagger as Yoshi in Mario Kart Wii. My friends weren't laughing when I was suddenly drifting like a pro.

Space Invaders really takes me back. Maybe because it's the oldest game in these photos, but I loved it all the same. I'd blast for hours and hours. Space Invaders is a game that I played mostly on an arcade machine. My uncle had a unit at his bodega, basically his small grocery store. It was part-deli, part-grocery and part hangout. To me it was a place to play hours and hours of Space Invaders for free. My uncle used to stick a milk crate next to the machine so that I could reach the joy stick. It was definitely one of my favorite video game memories. Maybe it's time I found an old Space Invaders machine and tried playing without a milk crate lifting me to the joystick.

Photos: Jared Ryder
Illustrations: Nigel Dennis
Producer: Ben Garbe