An Education

When I was a kid, computers were kind of the "next big thing". They had awful 16 bit graphics (if you were lucky), and were not exactly the most powerful tools in the world. However, educators knew that they were the way of the future, and saw fit to drum their usage into tiny little sponge brains. This was, of course, a very good idea. No one would argue that.

A not so good idea? Educational games. They rarely worked.

For example, the Oregon Trail.

For those that don't remember it, the point of The Oregon Trail was to get your wagon of settlers to Oregon (or to get them out of Oregon, because it was flooded with Pavement-listening Hipsters? I was never sure). You stocked up on supplies, and then went out into the wilderness.

I don't think any kid every actually beat the game. It was hard, and there was a lot of reading to be done that was boring as balls. Instead, we'd just stock up on bullets and go hunting.

Hunting was this great little mini-game where you were supposed to kill the occasional buffalo to get spare meat for your journey. However, the game was definitely more fun than the rest of it (at least, it was more fun from a kid's point of view), so this was where the majority of the game was spent. Killing the buffalo with an intensity that is usually only found in warfare.

For most everyone I knew, killing stuff became the game. We'd just go up in the brush, with a South Park-style mentality.

"He's coming right for us!"

"Ha ha, I shot him in the eye."

None of us ever learned that maybe trying to get to Oregon in the olden days was hard. Or that a lot of people died on the journey. Not a single kid ever realized we were supposed to be learning history. I don't think any of us even knew that there was a place called Oregon. We thought it was made up, like Barsoom, Narnia, or the Neverland Ranch. What we learned was that it was fun to kill buffalo, but rabbits were even more fun, because they were harder to hit.

We also learned how to criticize.

"Rabbits should be worth more meat, because they're smaller and harder to hit. It's not as realistic that Buffalo are easier to kill."

"Bankers shouldn't start with more money, because that means Bankers get more bullets. There should be a Marine occupation, and he gets to start with more bullets. And a combat knife."

"This game needs a machine gun. It'd be more fun with a machine gun. Oregon Trail 2 should have a Machine Gun."

I'm pretty sure those game developers have a lot to answer for.

Blue Shells Ahoy!

My family is doing a "lame christmas" this year.  And everyone is fully on board with it.

See, most years, my mom goes a bit overboard with the presents, while often simultaneously playing cruel mind games on us with those selfsame presents.  But hardly a year goes by where our tree isn't absolutely dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of presents. 

Little nutcrackers look up at the tree and say "yeah, I could climb that thing, but only if you moved all those goddamn presents, first". 

It reaches the point where, every year, my siblings and I have a hard time remembering everything we got for the holidays.  And here's the thing - we'd rather it not be that way.  All of us are just as happy with a few gifts and a sock full of little things.  The kids in my family are not, for the most part, selfish people.  Really, the most selfish we get during the holidays is when we play the traditional game of Mario Kart, and my sister hogs all the red shells. 

My sister is a very mean person.  Luckily, this year she'll be doped up on pain killers due to her recent surgery, so I think my brother and I might stand a chance against her crazy Mario-Karting skills. 

But this year, we're going present lite.  I wish I could say we're doing it because we're rejecting the capitalist ideals of Christmas, but really, we're doing it because of the economy.  But whatever. 

I'm broke.  My sister and her fiancee are broke as they struggle with their wedding and my sister's surgeries.  My parents aren't exactly broke, but they're hardly swimming in money either, due mostly to my sister's impending wedding.  So yeah, we decided to do a "cheap christmas" this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. 

My sister and her fiancee are making everyone presents this year (he's a carpenter, you see).  My brother's girlfriend is getting everyone tea.  I'm making CDs for every family member, filled with songs hand-picked for them that I'm sure they've never heard before but will probably like.  I know they all sound like sort of lame cop-out gifts on paper, but in reality, they're something a bit more - things that you just can't buy, no matter how much money you have. 

And while I spend a lot of time on this blog bitching and moaning about the state of the world, or making snarky comments about, well, everything, the fact is I do like sappy little things like that.  I've reached that age where I'm excited about the idea of Christmas not being about stuff, but instead about family. 

Or, to be more specific, beating the crap out of your drug-addled sister in a no-holds-barred match of Mario Kart.

409 hours!?

"I am not really much of a video game person."

I say this fairly often, probably because I look like the type of person that should be a video game person.  And, well, I've recently come to the conclusion that maybe all this time I've been lying to myself. 

I would say "hey, I only play three games - Civilization, Halo, and X-Com.  I'm obviously not a video gamer."

And I would believe it.

A few days ago, I was writing a blog post when I accidentally opened up my Steam account.  This account apparently tells you how many total hours you have spent playing games.  And I was stunned to see this: 

Yyup.  Four hundred and nine hours.  And this is a game I've owned a little over a year.  To put it another way, I've spent seventeen days playing this game. 

And x-com is my least-played game out of those three I listed.  I seriously dread to see how many hours I've spent playing the various halo or civilization games.

Just dust and echoes...

I'm not really much of a video game guy.  I have an Xbox, and have about twenty games - most of which I picked up on sales or received as gifts.  After playing a game for about an hour or so, I start get bored.  My legs begin to ache.  And before you know it, the Xbox is off and I'm up and doing something a bit more productive.

There are a few games that can break down my usual restlessness, and these games are very dangerous.  Because they are so incredibly addictive.  Seriously, the surgeon general should issue a warning, and post pictures of fat gamers, which cheeto-encrusted fat guy beards, on the cover of the game so that potential purchasers know what they're getting into - "WARNING:  BUYING THIS GAME COULD TURN YOU INTO MICHAEL MOORE". 

Or something like that.

There are only a few games, thankfully, that are truly addictive.  The various Civilization games spring to mind (I don't even start playing one unless I know I have the night free).  A few rare puzzle games.  NHL games.  And, of course, the Halo franchise.

I've been playing them since the first one, when my brother got it for christmas and we spent the entire day going through the co-op mode together before laughing like maniacs during the game's climactic finish (where you drive a jeep through an exploding spaceship while being attacked by aliens).  I waited in line at midnight with my girlfriend at the time to pick up Halo 2 the moment it was launched.  I got an Xbox 360 almost entirely so I could play Halo 3.  When Halo: ODST came out, Squee came over and we ran through almost the entire co-op campaign together - and I explained at length how the cast of Firefly did most of the voices for the game. 

So, yeah.  Halo: Reach just came out.   And that means that yours truly has been on the couch for the better part of three hours every day, pwning n00bs.