Friday, June 02, 2006
So Many Issues To Address, So Much Time Wasted
I am not a "gamer."
Kind of wish I was sometimes, playing all the hip new games like Halo or whatever blockbuster movie turned video game is in this season. But I'm not. I don't have the will, dexterity or time any longer. I sit down to try and play Halo with my brother, and am completely lost.
"Which direction do I push if I want to walk forward?"
"How do shoot?"
"Wait damnit, that's not the gun I wanted. Wait wait... Stop shooting... I just want to find my gun."
That is pretty much how it goes with any video game I attempt to play these days.
As sad is that is, as morose as I have become over the pitiful situation of my gaming skills;
I believe now, as I always have, that video games are a great thing for children.
When I was growing up I had all of the cool new systems. I can remember my Dad buying me an Atari. One of my favorite games of all time on any system is Pitfall. I believe that I know from experience that the Atari game Pitfall, never ended. I played for a week straight one time, got to level thirteen hundred and some change, and finally just turned it off and was content in the knowledge that I had beaten the game as close as anyone was ever going to beat it.
Then I got the first Nintendo system complete with Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Awesome.
After that graduated to the Super Nintendo, oooh. Fabulous system to this day.
After the Super Nintendo I of course upgraded to the Nintendo 64, which has the best Mario game ever on anything ever.
After that I got a Game Cube and still have that system but play it rarely. As I have said, I can't really play it even if I want to because I don't have the time I once had to master these new high tech innovations that are sweeping the world.
Regardless of my ineptitude for the virtual world in today's 2006 realm of video games, I remember becoming close friends with many people over Donkey Kong. I remember learning things about members of my family that I never would have known otherwise over Tekken. Video games don't make you anti-social or unequipped for the "real world." If anything they prepare you for the woes that lie ahead. Much like a good book would. What's funny is that the people who would have video games banned are the same people that would have their children read War and Peace, or Lolita, Catch-22 or The Fountainhead. While these are all great reads, and classic pieces of literature, they scared the daylights out of me in so many more ways than a video game ever could have. I love Emily Dickinson, but playing Medal of Honor doesn't make me want to hurt something more that any one of her poems do.
Much like anything else, there are certain extreme cases that are blown out of proportion and then propagated in the media. But this does not represent a fair overall interpretation of the gaming population.
Honestly I don't know where I would be today without all of the video games that I mastered. They were a large part of my progression as a human being. And I would just like to point out that I will soon be graduating with a Political Science Degree; and from there I will take the MCAT'S and find myself in medical school specializing in Genetics.
And I attribute a good portion of that to Donkey Kong.
Kind of wish I was sometimes, playing all the hip new games like Halo or whatever blockbuster movie turned video game is in this season. But I'm not. I don't have the will, dexterity or time any longer. I sit down to try and play Halo with my brother, and am completely lost.
"Which direction do I push if I want to walk forward?"
"How do shoot?"
"Wait damnit, that's not the gun I wanted. Wait wait... Stop shooting... I just want to find my gun."
That is pretty much how it goes with any video game I attempt to play these days.
As sad is that is, as morose as I have become over the pitiful situation of my gaming skills;
I believe now, as I always have, that video games are a great thing for children.
When I was growing up I had all of the cool new systems. I can remember my Dad buying me an Atari. One of my favorite games of all time on any system is Pitfall. I believe that I know from experience that the Atari game Pitfall, never ended. I played for a week straight one time, got to level thirteen hundred and some change, and finally just turned it off and was content in the knowledge that I had beaten the game as close as anyone was ever going to beat it.
Then I got the first Nintendo system complete with Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Awesome.
After that graduated to the Super Nintendo, oooh. Fabulous system to this day.
After the Super Nintendo I of course upgraded to the Nintendo 64, which has the best Mario game ever on anything ever.
After that I got a Game Cube and still have that system but play it rarely. As I have said, I can't really play it even if I want to because I don't have the time I once had to master these new high tech innovations that are sweeping the world.
Regardless of my ineptitude for the virtual world in today's 2006 realm of video games, I remember becoming close friends with many people over Donkey Kong. I remember learning things about members of my family that I never would have known otherwise over Tekken. Video games don't make you anti-social or unequipped for the "real world." If anything they prepare you for the woes that lie ahead. Much like a good book would. What's funny is that the people who would have video games banned are the same people that would have their children read War and Peace, or Lolita, Catch-22 or The Fountainhead. While these are all great reads, and classic pieces of literature, they scared the daylights out of me in so many more ways than a video game ever could have. I love Emily Dickinson, but playing Medal of Honor doesn't make me want to hurt something more that any one of her poems do.
Much like anything else, there are certain extreme cases that are blown out of proportion and then propagated in the media. But this does not represent a fair overall interpretation of the gaming population.
Honestly I don't know where I would be today without all of the video games that I mastered. They were a large part of my progression as a human being. And I would just like to point out that I will soon be graduating with a Political Science Degree; and from there I will take the MCAT'S and find myself in medical school specializing in Genetics.
And I attribute a good portion of that to Donkey Kong.
