Back at the apartment, I toss the hall closets, hoping there might be something, anything, buried in the effluvia of my old life here in New York that will allow me to play videogames for one night. Damn it all, there must a console of some kind in here somewhere, I think.

During my hasty search, I uncover a stash of old Penthouse magazines, which is the pornographic equivalent of owning a derelict fleet of antique cars. For years, I’ve considered putting the lot of them on Craig’s List with the description “free to a good home!” but I’m terrified to meet the sort of people in the market for a previously owned, slightly used stash of Penthouses. I’ve been in a Craig’s List limbo ever since, torn between wanting to get rid of something yet not wanting to see exactly who would want what you’re trying to get rid of. Also: why does the word “stash” always feel like the right word to describe a collection of old pornography?

Things start looking up when I find my Dreamcast, the one that my friend John Galvin gave to me as a gift in 2000. John is the one who introduced me to DOOM in graduate school. John is the one who always made me feel OK about playing videogames. Right from the start, he recognized how much I loved these damn things–which was far greater than any love I might have had for the work I was doing in grad school at the time–and he encouraged me to put aside the petty guilt I felt over them, and to love games with impunity. I’ll always owe John for that.

I still remember one especially giddy night together in Syracuse. We’d taken a break from DOOM-ing, and had gone out to buy burritos and more beer. On our way back to his apartment–his high-end PC could run DOOM at what could only be described as a smooth-as-glass frame-rate–as we waited for the rickety elevator, a full night of DOOM ahead of us, we began joking about the monsters–the Hell Barons, the Cyber Demons, the Imps–all getting together for a town hall-type meeting. One of the demons stands and calls the room to order. “Whoever is leaving the stray ammunition around the space station,” he says, “the shotgun shells, the rockets, the plasma bricks. It needs to stop. Now.” Another demon stands and says, “I agree. The other day I walked into Hell Keep and found a health pack the size of a picnic basket, just sitting right out in the open. We can’t have that.” A third demon adds, “Worst of all, behind a secret panel in Dis, I found this.” He produces a B.F.G., and places it on the table. A collective gasp goes up.

“This is unacceptable,” the first demon announces.

That elevator ride up to John’s place was only 20, 30 seconds long, but by the time we reached our destination, the two of us were doubled over with laughter, tears streaming down our faces.

Ah, those were the days.

And now, let’s make a run at stage 6-1, shall we? Welcome to the very first of the AIRPLANE stages. Yes, for the duration of this section of the game, all the action will apparently take place at 34,000 feet. Fasten your seat-belts, and keep your tray tables in an upright position during takeoff and landing, etc. etc. The stage’s design is standard-issue. We’ve got three tiers: an upper, middle and lower tier. The exit door is on the bottom, where you begin the stage. The key is in the middle tier, but in order to get to it, we need to cross the marginally dangerous upper tier.

Let’s begin.

Move to your left and jump onto the moving platform, allowing it to carry you to the elevator on the left side of the screen. Next, jump onto the upward-moving elevator. Below: a bed of game over-inducing sharpangles. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Well, complicating matters is the strong, invisible wind blowing from left to right across the screen. No matter where you stand in this stage, you are always being pushed to the right, making every surface, no matter how small it is, feel as slippery as a conveyer belt.

At the very top of the elevator, you’ll encounter the only real threat in this stage (beside those aforementioned sharpangles): a pair of automatically firing cannons located on the righthand side of the upper tier. They spew volleys of cannonballs at regular intervals which cut a path directly across the upper tier. Be sure to 1. duck (press down on the directional pad) and 2. keep in mind that the wind is constantly blowing you towards the cannons. Also: there is a do-it-yourself bridge power-up up here, though I honestly never sussed out why it’s there, or what it’s for.

Directly in front of the pair of cannons, note the opening in the floor. Drop down through this opening, into the middle tier of the stage. Claim the key. Then, run into the wind, key hoisted above your head, and–employing your skillful falling techniques–drop down to the lower tier where the level began. Hey, look–it’s the exit door, everybody. Our first AIRPLANE stage is in the books.