Video games

Video games – bringing family and friends together one console at a time

For me it started with Jay's Atari game system. Going to his house to play Atari Pac-Man and Pitfall was just amazing. Andy let me tag along with him pretty frequently to video arcades where you could get 4 tokens, 5 tokens, or even 10 tokens for a dollar. Now you could play as many video games as you wanted to by bringing the video games home. Before I realized this, my only dream of this was how I heard of some people who had full-size Pac-Man or Centipede games in their basement. We were entering a whole new world. My family visited Larry and his wife. They had Intelevision (remember that?) I think we were playing football. Andy was screaming at the screen because his guys weren’t moving the way they were supposed to based on how he was maneuvering the controller. As it turned out, the whole time Larry was somehow controlling Andy’s guy without Andy realizing it.
Then I finally saved up paper route money to buy my family our first home video game system – a Colecovision. We all played it. We all got a kick out of Mom playing Smurf. My dad got pretty good at Venture despite his interesting style of controlling the rounded joystick with his thumb. We played games like Q-Bert, Donkey Kong Jr. and we had a crazy baseball game with giant controllers. I guess Blake Renaud came down to play once. We sat down to play Venture, but I had gotten so good at it, my game actually lasted well over an hour after Blake’s game lasted all of five minutes. I remember that year (I must have been in 5th grade – 1982) that Colecovision was my Christmas gift to my family that year. Christmas Eve day I wanted to have something for each person below the tree, so it seems like I remember buying everyone Twinkes from stop-n-go and wrapping them up. (I’ve often thought that wrapped up cheeseburgers – if you could keep them warm – would be the most amazing Christmas gifts.)
Fast forward to college. Freshman year we didn’t have much in our dorm rooms. Jay (different Jay from before), Bob, and I shared a room meant for 2 people. I had an old black-n-white TV, and Jay brought up his Atari. But man that was fun. Playing soccer, baseball, track-n-field. Bob and I would get so pissed off as Jay kicked our butts.
How about junior year? We had the classic video game football tournament. I can’t remember the name of the game or the system. Somebody help me out with that. We had a classic 8-person tournament. Nate came back to win it even though he was the 4th seed after the opening rounds. What an upset. There was a lot of Tetris played those later years. Remember how you would like dream tetris? You’d play so much that you would just imagine blocks dropping and you’d have to twist and move them just right.
Almost 15 years after college graduation. We haven’t had much in the way of video games since college. We got a plug-n-play Pac Man (plus 4 other games). Kylie got a kick out of that. Finally 2 weeks ago we purchased a Nintendo Wii. Kylie is hooked. She started playing this afternoon. I did some things around the house, talked on the phone – all of a sudden I realized 2 hours had passed. Kylie, that’s probably enough now. But it is fun watching Kylie and Davin box, bowl, golf, and play tennis on the Wii. It’s amazing to me that Kylie totally has my number in boxing. She just moves those hands so fast. In tennis we are evenly matched. I don’t remember any other game system where a 6-year old can compete with a 37-year old. Maybe 10 or 12 –year olds, but a 6-year old? My dominance in home video game systems is slipping away. I could follow up Nate’s famous guest column in the Wartburg Trumpet entitled “The Rise of the Nintendo Athlete” with “The Fall of the Nintendo Athlete” (Yes, I guess I could have come up with something wittier there. )
Anyhoo, I know video games can be seen as a waste of time. And I think people are getting a little carried away when they are saying how good the Nintendo Wii is for people because of all the exercise they are getting – they still are sitting indoors and are not really getting bumps and bruises that you would get from actual sports.
But on the flip side, video games are pretty cool. Yes, when you get a new game or a new game system, you tend to spend a little too much of your time playing video games instead of doing constructive activities. But it does instill the thrill of competition and help you have some fun times with friends and family.
Any suggestions on which game we should purchase next? Then in a month or two we’ll try to get outside and play some more when it warms up.