My Video Game Lovers

So, to my shame and pride, it occurs to me that I now own 8 video game consoles that I keep either hooked up, or close to the television. These consoles not only allow me access to all of the games I’ve ever loved, but present a distinct timeline of video games. Let’s explore.

The Atari 7800

I am of the Atari generation.

I’m not proud of this. It makes me feel old.

But I am proud of this because I learned at a young age that graphics had squat to do with a fun game experience. I’d like to say I learned to be creative with these games that consisted of little more than bleeps and fat, primary-colored pixels that forced me to internally visualize the experience in a way similar to the one I learned reading words on a page. I’d like to say that, but who really knows. The clinical studies haven’t been done. I just know for me, these games kept my mind sharp, rather than dulling it. (Actually, maybe the studies have been done.)

I was nine years old when the Atari 2600 hit its peak and I was one of those kids that were the first to play Star Wars games at home (Empire Strikes Back) and others like Pitfall, Yar's Revenge and a dozen other simple games that followed the simple formula of easy to learn, hard to master. After a few years of playing Defender while listening to Purple Rain on my walkman, it was 1986, and I was getting ready to start high school. That Christmas, rather than gift me with a Nintendo, like my neighbor, I got an Atari 7800.

The system didn't last long commercially, but I never even noticed. It let me play my old school (even then, ugh) Atari 2600 games as well as the best home versions of the popular arcade games. If I didn't have a jerky brother that took all of my games and sold them to a pot-headed friend, I'd still have that system. As it was, I had to buy another one from ebay years later. With a wonderful stroke of luck, it had an a/v mod built into it that the seller seemed unaware of.

The 5 games I play the most, and the lessons learned.

1. Ms. Pacman. It’s just my favorite home version of the classic game. Sure I can play the actual rom on my xbox, but the perfect translation of the home version with the classic controller just feels right to me. Eat or be eaten.

Lesson: You can always have a good time with a chick that swallows.


2. Spider-man. From Parker Brothers. Spidey’s first videogame, and his most depressing. After the awesome music in the beginning, guide him up the building to defuse the bomb. Repeat, until he eventually runs out of web fluid and plummets to his death -- with a splat sound effect that still haunts me.

Lesson: With great power, there also comes a great fall.


3. Berzerk (Voice enhanced). Probably just nostalgia for this one. I just love making the little stick man run like a naked Gumby through an electrified, maze filled with fat robots. For such a claustrophobic game, it brought me many hours of freedom when I needed it the most. The voice enhanced version was totally worth it, just to hear the robots yell at me like the dad I never had.

Lesson: There’s always somewhere else to go, but there are just as many things waiting to kill you there as there are here.


4. Ninja Golf. The 7800 didn't have that many original games, but of the few it did, this one was just awesome. This has got to be one of the best premises ever. You're a ninja, right? But you like to get a putt in between kickings of ass. You putt, you fight, you put. It's like having 2 games for the price of one. Oh, and there are sharks in it. C'mon, this could totally be Jean-Claude Van Damme's comeback film.

Lesson: Golf is boring, unless you are a ninja.



5. Crossbow. The Where's Waldo of videogames, except everything but Waldo is a viscious monster. (Pretty realistic, actually.) Another home translation of an arcade game that was pretty cool, but had the misfortune of coming out around the time of the videogame crash. Your little pals casually stroll across the screen as hundreds of friggin monsters bring on the slaughter. Your job is to cover them until they get across the screen, but really, you feel like a parent sending your kids out to a NAMBLA convention.

Lesson: No matter how good you are to your friends, you'll still wind up by yourself in the end.


Note: This is arcade footage. Couldn't find and videos of the 7800 version.


Next Time: The RetroDuo (a combo NES/SNES).

Tonight is the night to stop caring.

Stolen from a chain letter.....

Are you sick and tired of all those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good but never come close to reality? Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship. You will see no silly little 'smiley' faces here -- just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.

1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you are thinking of something that I would probably want to be involved in.

4. When you are scared -- I will rag you about it every chance I get until you're NOT.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.

6. When you are confused -- I will try to use only little words.

7. When you are sick -- you had better stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever shit you have.

8. When you fall -- I will laugh at your clumsy ass, but I'll help you up.

This is my oath. I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask; because YOU are my friend.

That sky is last and first next us;
those ways hath gone
In seven and twenty common days, and eke the third of one;
And beareth with his sway the diverse moon about,
Now bright, now brown, now bent, now full,
and now her light is out.

I'm staring into the abyss. This song comforts me.


When I first met you I ruled the world
What you saw, met with your desire
When I first saw you I ruled the sky
What you felt set your heart on fire

When I first held you I thought I'd pass
What you said seemed to be the truth
When I first felt you I thought I'd melt
What you were was the essence of youth

I felt the warmth filtering through your skin

I had all that I could ask for
And I thought it to last
I was so sure of your affection
And I loved the spell you cast

I was scaling incredible heights
Propelled by your radiant muse
I sustained this for a long time
But I was destined to lose

I had all that I could ask for
And I thought it to last
I was so sure of your affection
And I loved the spell you cast

I was basking in all that glory
Thought the end cannot be nigh
I made plans for our future
Humbled only by the sky

You will see, I can get back there
When all was doubt, you laughed at me
Ripped me apart
There's no future for you and me

You will see, I can climb up there
When you lost faith, you turned your back
Destroyed my trust
There's no future for you and me

You will see, I won't forgive this
When you rethink, you won't be heard
Words don't heal
There's no future for you and me

You will see, I will survive this
When I had need, you were not there
It's too late
There's no future for you and me
Mind in a Box – You will see

Love. Good God, y'all. What is it good for?

An early excerpt from this month's novel. Screw the inner editor.



Making the left from Oregon onto Delaware Avenue, both hands on the wheel, her eyes straight ahead as she speaks, I can tell Kathleen wants to know if I'm in a rush to get home.

"C'mon Paul," she says, "let's go hit the dunkin donuts or something." It's rare for her to ever come right out and say what she wants, but I doubt a jelly donut is it. Maybe I'm wrong though, I've seen her scarf down enough of those at three in the morning the last few years. As I turn to look at her, the light-purple sky highlights her profile. Her makeup is still pretty much spot on, the black smudges of her eyes and the violet accents on her cheeks looking quite a bit creepier with the sun starting to come up. Her long, straight dark brown hair moves in the wind corridor created by the open windows of her Volkswagon Beetle and I can't help but think she's hot, even if those feelings of desire are long behind us. She's my best friend, but I'd still bend her over the hood if she wanted me to, even if she's slipped off those uncomfortable heels for the slippers she keeps in the back seat.

“Yeah, ok,” I tell her, surprised at myself. The afterglow of the night is receding and I cannot let go of being with her despite my weariness. I have always had issues letting go, especially with women. The hours spent celebrating her birthday bar hopping between the goth night clubs in olde city and outlasting all of her friends, save Joey, had won us the job of taking him to the impound lot to reclaim his forgotten and towed car – a job adding another hour to the commute home and an exploration of a part of Delaware Avenue, excuse me, Columbus Boulevard, that neither of us had ever needed or wanted to visit. Well, at least I didn't, but Kathleen was still a mystery to me about where she ever wanted to be.

“So his wife lives around here,” she says, glancing at me, “on one of these side streets.” She looks at me from the corner of her eyes and back, not shifting her head away from the road in front of her.

“Hannock, or something like that.” I know where this is going now, and turn my head to look out the window so she doesn't see my grin. I'm sure she knows it's there anyway.

“Let’s see if his car is there," she goes on, flooring it through a yellow light and I note the playful lift in her tone of voice.

“Ok, sure,” I say, nodding and wondering if she has any more clove cigarettes. I had forgotten how much I missed them, their flavor now embedded in my clothing and on my lips from her stash. I will ask her for one when we get out of the car. No one gets to smoke in her baby Irene.

The car moves down the relatively empty boulevard, shooting past a blue hooptie Buick whose ghetto-fabulous driver is drinking from a paper-bag covered bottle. The night sky slowly changing, the air smelling faintly of salt and fumes, we turn left at the wawa and begin cruising the quiet streets, looking for Hannock.

Her fingers are turning white as she grips the wheel and I know better than to try and talk to her now, or to tell her how this drive is reminding me of the first time I drove Elena back to her train after we had spent the night curled up under my desk at the office.

The sky was just lightening then, as it is now, and there was a smile on my face as the expectation of a new day loomed as the foreign girl had fallen asleep in my arms. The next morning, the windows closed, the air conditioning running full blast and the car smelling of her sex and the French perfume she loved, we fell through the streets of Princeton after the light came out, passing Nassau and it’s darkened stores and on our way to the first train of the morning to new york city; the train that would have her home a half-hour before her boyfriend’s third-shift let out.

Rarely am I struck by genius.

The man below strikes me hard.