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SYRACUSE — For Michael Smith, a game of Halo 2 is a quest to battle alien forces and save humanity.
"It wasn't until the XBox and Halo came out that I really just jumped into video games full bore," he said.
As one of eight kids, Smith embarked on this journey in the midst of childhood.
"It was fun, it was liberating," he said. "I'd get out of the regular life."
Smith begged his parents for an Atari, and a passion was born — a passion that turned into an obsession.
"I just realized when I had 4,000 games, I was like, okay, this is enough," he said.
The spot where you'll usually find Smith battling aliens is in his garage — a garage packed with games, from floor to ceiling.
"I wanted more games," he said. "I wanted to play all the games."
He might not have "all" the games, but he's gotten closer than most.
"This has been a little bit of an addiction," he said.
Like Link saving Princess Zelda, Smith began rescuing games from pawn shops, thrift stores and swap meets, until eventually. …
"I got my own store right here … kind of."
Throwing in that "kind of" wasn't really necessary; Smith's garage is a store.
"The kids around the street would all know, they'd just come around with bags of their money. Just coins."
He gladly accepted their change, and for good reason.
"I could see that gleam in their eyes that I had when I was a kid."
Games went out, but new games kept flooding in — and he faced off against his game's final boss.
"My wife hated it," he said.
Smith couldn't use a cheat code to get out of this one.
"She doesn't like clutter."
But selling off his prized collection piece by piece was slow and painful.
"And that's why I tried to trade for the trailer."
That's right, a trade — $15,000 of games and systems for a camping trailer.
"I threw the ads on there and I got a few hits," he said.
Smith's been selling on KSL Classifieds for a while, and has made some trades for things like a new windshield or some landscaping, but this was his first attempt to completely clean out his garage. Unfortunately, none of the trades worked out.
"The trailers were too heavy, or I was like, 'What do you have?' and I'd tell them, and they're like, 'Well, I want just XBox, and I'm like, 'Well, I don't have $15,000 worth of just XBox stuff."
Smith threw in the towel and just bought a new trailer.
"It has a microwave, it has a TV, so we can take video games."
He may not be getting rid of his personal collection, but Smith's museum of video game history is still for sale.
"Keep my favorites, of course," he said.
For Michael Smith, this is a quest. A quest for an empty garage and marital bliss.
"The problem is, I have a lot of stuff that she doesn't even know about."
