Old-School Gamers
In the past few months I have realized a many-sided truth.
I either: a) am very easily amused, b) have an exceptionally bright outlook on life, or c) simply have more appreciation for things that others take advantage of.
Now, A is a given, and B is pretty unlikely; if not a pessimist, I am a realist, neither of which are particularly sunny. But what I am debating about here is C.
I am going to give an example. I have only one close friend who is a video gamer at all. A little less than a month ago I invited her (Fae) and Sami over to my house for birthday festivities, a baked potato bar with cheese and chives and green peppers and various goofings-off, followed up with a firework show that all of the neighbors came to our back patio to see (my father loves rigging these kinds of things) and going on playlist.com and doing square dances in the kitchen, rounded off nicely with a short gift-giving session, from which spawned my violet iPod, Victoria. Yes, s/he is actually named that. (Its gender is debatable.)
But I digress. After getting a massive headache from Rock Band, thoroughly knocking each other out on Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and finishing it up with a short, awkward, and physically demeaning session on the Dance Dance Revolution mat, Fae and I decided to educate Sami in the ways of the ultimate pre-modern RPG gaming experience: the Legend(s) of Zelda. I was also using this as a mechanism to prove to Fae that yes, I really did have a collector’s edition disk with all the old versions on it, so I tossed in the CD and chose Ocarina of Time from the menu.
To understand where I’m coming from, you must understand how I grew up. Which was at my grandparents’, where my grandfather, the Zelda king of the century (though it’s in the next millennium now, I may have succeeded him), had a Nintendo 64. A 64, yes. If I could have any gaming system (besides a Game Boy Advance, but that’s handheld), the 64 would be it. In any case, that is about one solid eighth of the culture I grew up on. (The rest was books and The Lion King.)
Ocarina was my game. The graphics were amazing for that time, the gameplay itself innovative; the plot old, but refurnished and polished up, with interesting characters and mechanisms, and complicated, but rewarding dungeons and, best of all, bosses. It was my game. You know, the one you sit on your bed and play for hours without getting bored.
So I was properly insulted (didn’t say anything about it, though) when Fae, after a bit, declared:
“The graphics sort of suck.”
Well, no duh. You’re looking at old-style video game-age, honey. And then, after a while:
“And this is sort of boring.”
Well, probably to you, yes; but I know exactly how to get through this first dungeon and you don’t, and you’re not playing, now, are you?
“Let’s go do something else.”
And there is where I (mentally) draw my line. Obviously we just will not go there in video games, because you’ve grown up on Spyro 3 and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Okami and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Of course, I don’t literally mean grown up, as in being raised, but rather maturing as a gamer. Surely it is sad that I can have better gaming conversations with my grandpa than with my best friend?
I know the plot is boring, at first, and that the graphics are terrible for today. But that is part of its charm, its getting-back-down-to-earth feel. This is like when she told me that eighties music was nothing compared to the nineties. No. No no no no no no NO IT IS NOT. It’s just something you DON’T SAY in my vicinity.
I need a gamer friend.
