Geoff

"Video Games: Hand-eye coordinant or brain blender?"

I will ALWAYS be a video game geek. In my old age I’ve slowed down a good bit, but a great game can still draw me into that almost hypnotic state where you’re just like a zombie parked in front of the TV, so focused that you can’t hear your mom yelling at you, telling you that dinner is ready, dinner is on the table, dinner is getting cold, dinner is in the fridge, dinner is 3 days old and moldy, and even when you’re not at home you’re still playing the game in your head, trying to figure out the timing of Super Macho Man’s super spin punches.

I don’t know if video games improve hand-eye coordination, I don’t care, they’re fun as fuck! When I was 5 years old I had a Texas Instruments computer that was nothing but a keyboard with a slot for cartridges. I played the shit out of the games I had for it, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Tombstone City, and when I was bored with those games, I had a book with programs in it so I could type in 500 lines of code and store it on cassette, just so I could play U-boat. I wore out Atari joysticks on a monthly basis. And no one could fuck with me on Video Olympics (it was about 25 variations of Pong). I could beat Adventure on the hardest level in under 5 minutes. I wore out the first Nintendo I owned the first day I got it with over eight hours of non-stop Super Mario Bros. When I got my hands on Super Mario Bros. 2 I beat it in about 6 hours prompting my parents to yell at me for wasting their money. And I, like pre-teens everywhere, soiled myself the first time I saw the Legend of Zelda. Everyday I’d come home from school, watch GI Joe and Transformers (and sometimes Thundercats), and then I’d spend nearly every moment up until my dad threatened to take away my Nintendo if I didn’t get myself into bed playing Zelda. Some nights I’d wait until my parents were asleep and I’d sneak downstairs and play until it was nearly dawn.

Video games were an important tool in making friends too. Whenever Sam wasn’t grounded (which wasn’t very often) we’d hang out and play Nintendo and help each other get through tough parts of games. And when Mike and I weren’t playing music we were one of the greatest quarterback/wide receiver duos in the history of old school John Madden football. Today’s video games don’t thrill me as much as the old ones. It seemed like every other game back then was a classic, now the classics are few and far between. There’s almost too much work involved for the games to be fun. Some games are almost unplayable without buying the strategy guide, and then you’ve got to read through a hundred pages of the games history, the characters different abilities, the weapons, armor, and items you can get, and another 100 pages on how to organize the crystal fragments in your adamantium sword so that it will allow you to cast the Ice 4 spell, and then another 50 or so pages on what your controller should look like before they actually get into HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. A book as thick as the New York City Yellow Pages shouldn’t be required reading for a video game. I can see why people dig fighting games (besides the gratuitous violence), they’re simple. Push “A” to punch, “B” to kick, there, now you can go play Kung Fu. Even the sports games have gotten a little too complex. Sure it’s cool that they look realistic, but you practically need to BE John Madden in order to play his game. I haven’t even seen an Xbox or a Gamecube outside of a Toys R Us yet, but I have to say that the games don’t look all that great. Of course once the new Mario and Zelda games come out for Gamecube I’ll have to pick one up.

Right now the only game worth playing is Grand Theft Auto 3. What other game allows a pacifist like myself after a long day at work to come home and get head from a prostitute, shoot her pimp, take his money, carjack a cop, and murder the head of the mob? I take back what I said about video games not improving hand-eye coordination. After playing enough of GTA 3 I’m much better at scoring head shots with the sniper rifle now than I was when I first started playing. Anyone have an old NES and a copy of the Legend of Zelda I could borrow? I’ve got an urge to whup Gannon’s ass one more time.