I selected a GameStop well off the beaten path for me, out in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for my illicit Xbox trade-in. My plan was this: I’d unload the dirty-disc-error Xbox at this store, which I’d never been to before; then I’d bid so long to those suckers and head to one of my usual GameStop haunts and use the store credit to purchase a new (hopefully fully functioning) Xbox.

Gamers are a relatively un-diabolical lot. For the record, this is about as diabolical as we ever really get.

I called in sick to work that morning, stuffed the Xbox into a GameStop-branded shopping bag (Pro Tip: If you’re making a return to a store of any kind, always show up at the store with your merchandise in a shopping bag that is actually from that store), then took the F train out to Brooklyn. Once I finally stood in front of the store on 7th Avenue, I felt sweat start to bead up on the back of my neck. Be cool, I told myself, then walked through the front door.

The store was as quiet as a church. A doughy man wearing eyeglasses too small for his head sat on a stool behind the counter reading the current issue of Nintendo Power magazine. “I’m here to trade in my Xbox,” I announced in the stiffest manner possible, sounding like I was reading lines from an informerical script. I pulled the Xbox carton out of my bag, making sure to angle the GameStop logo on the bag in the clerk’s direction. I set it on the counter.

He gave me a wary look. “Why do you want to trade in your Xbox?” he asked. “My customers seem to really love the machine.”

It was a fair question, and one that I foolishly hadn’t anticipated. “You want to know why I want to trade in my Xbox?” I asked, stalling for time. I had a roommate in college who was a masterful liar. He was this otherwise sweet man who had to live his life with a peanut in his lung because, as a child, he’d put a peanut in his nose as a joke and wound up inadvertently inhaling it. Once, when Peanut Lung missed a deadline for a midterm assignment, he phoned the professor and informed him–using a tone that I would come to recognize as his liar voice–that his sister had recently had an abortion and that he was too distraught to finish the assignment. “If you believe that a lie is real, so will everyone else,” Peanut Lung told me after he hung up the phone.

Me, I’d always been a subpar liar. I always got caught, or always wound up confessing my lies. I couldn’t live with them, not the way that Peanut Lung could live with them.

“It’s just not the machine for me,” I said, while the words, Believe the lie is real ran through my head like a meditation mantra. “Me?” I said, glancing at the Nintendo Power magazine on the counter. “I’m more of a GameCube man myself.”

The clerk still seemed suspicious. “What about Halo? Didn’t you try Halo?” he asked.

“It was OK,” I said, “but I honestly don’t see what the fuss is all about.” The truth was I knew quite well what the fuss was all about. I had finished the campaign no less than four times, with the fourth and final time being on the game’s highest difficulty level. There were moments when I was playing Halo where I was sure that the Covenant had nightmares about me, and still other moments where I was convinced that Cortana, after seeing my “skills” (she spends most of the game riding around inside my space helmet), had fallen madly in love with me.

Finally, the clerk cracked a smile. “I completely agree with you,” he said quietly. “I don’t see what the fuss is all about either.” Then he did something that I also didn’t anticipate: he began to unbox my Xbox.

I asked him what he was doing. “I can’t take your trade-in until I make sure this thing is in good working order,” he said. “I’ll hook it up to the TV here. If it works fine, we’re in business. This is standard procedure.”

A fresh round of sweat beads broke out on my neck. “OK, do what you’ve got to do,” I said.

Suddenly, the small door at the back of the store swung wide and a second clerk appeared. I had no idea that there was a second clerk to concern myself with. I felt like Al Pacino’s wild-eyed bank robber character in Dog Day Afternoon.

The second clerk was shorter and louder than the first clerk. He sussed out the nature of our transaction, then said, “You want to trade in your Xbox? That’s crazy, man.”

“Well, I don’t happen to think it’s crazy,” the first clerk said, plugging the red, yellow and white A/V cables one by one into the back of the television. “In fact, I think it’s perfectly sane.”

The second clerk scoffed in the first clerk’s direction. “Pffft. Nintendo fanboys. For the life of me, I will never understand you sad, pathetic people.”

Once the Xbox was powered up, clerk one popped in a copy of Halo. I watched it slide neatly into the belly of the Xbox. The machine emitted the usual clicks and whirs. This, I realized, was the moment of truth. A dirty disc error not only would mean that I’d still be saddled with my faulty Xbox; it would also reveal me as a wool-pulling fraud. This could end badly, I thought. I could wind up being banished from GameStop stores for life.

The three of us stood there together in silence in the late afternoon Brooklyn light, staring at the blank television screen, waiting for a sign. I could feel my heart beat pulsing in my temples.

Then I heard a sound that is truly one of the most beautiful sounds in gaming: it was the mournful “ahh-AHH-AHHHHH-ah” Gregorian chant that opens the game, and really distinguishes Halo as something more, something weightier, than a mere first-person shooter. Then the Halo: Combat Evolved logo appeared onscreen.

I was in business.

The first clerk quickly processed the trade-in paperwork. The second clerk picked up the controller and began to play what he proclaimed “the greatest game ever made.” “You’re making the biggest mistake of your life, man!” he shouted after me as I walked out the store, credit slip in hand.

So long, suckers, I thought, then headed towards the subway.

Stage 6-6. Guess what? The wind is back. You can always tell when the wind is around in the AIRPLANE stages because there are fast-moving cloud graphics that flit across the foreground every few seconds. Today’s stage is a two-screen-wide, horizontal endeavor. The stage is divided into two tiers: top and bottom. On the bottom: Mario and the exit door. On the top: the key. Let’s begin.

Climb the only ladder you can climb–the one in the far lefthand corner of the bottom tier. Feel like cursing out the wind for slowing your progress? Don’t. You need the wind today, like you’ve never needed it before. Once you’ve reach the top of the ladder, note the incredibly large gap between the two platforms. It’s too far to jump, right? Wrong. Jump and let the wind carry you to that too-far platform. Whoosh. Feels good, right? Don’t worry, you’ll get to experience more wind jumps before this day is through.

Ride the pair of cloud platforms to the right, then jump to the platform that has half of a ladder attached to its underside. Safe and sound? Good. Now, jump up to the trapeze wire above your head. Spin–hold up on the directional pad, in case you’ve forgotten–and once you’ve got a healthy head of steam going, let your upward momentum carry you to the second trapeze wire. Instead of spinning here, start inching to the left–keep going–until you’re positioned on the diagonal stretch of trapeze wire. OK, now spin. Once you’ve got a healthy spin going, set Mario free and watch him fly across not one but two un-jumpable beds of sharpangles, not unlike Evel Knievel, who was such a big childhood hero of mine that, between grades four and seven, I considered becoming a stuntman. If this sounds exciting, that’s because it is. Honestly, who knew that Mario could even climb on these diagonal trapeze wires let alone use them to fly in a great arc across stages? The little guy is still surprising me, even 62 levels into the game.

After flying through the air with the greatest of ease, note the fact that you’ve landed right next to the key. Well, isn’t this serendipitous? Pick it up, and head back the way you came (to the right). Remember those beds of sharpangles that you just safely flew over? Now, with key in hand, you need to jump over them. Trust me, you can do it. Remember: you have the wind at your back in this direction. Once the wind carries you back to the far righthand side of the level, use your skillful falling techniques to get down to the first tier and the exit door. If you should lose the key during your fall, no matter. Pick it up and carry on. Once you’re at the door, the stage is done, thanks in no small part to our new, best friend, The Wind. I’d tip my hat in your direction, Wind, but I’m pretty sure you’d snatch it off my head and send it tumbling down the sidewalk.