The Post Where I Talk About Videogames

If there's one thing I love more than Arizona green tea, it would have to be videogames. Even as a young lad, whilst I played Turrican on my brother's Sega Genesis, I knew this was how I'd lose countless hours, nay, DAYS, of my life.

But then again, videogames have also brought me much turmoil.

Recently, I was grazing the shelves at my local thrift store when I came across an old Sega Genesis with a price tag of five bucks.

I knew I had a choice. Eat tonight, or buy a game system I knew I would probably use once and never bother using again. Realizing that the system came with a copy of Cool Spot (a video game that shamelessly starred a long deceased promotional icon from 7Up soda bottles), the choice was practically already made for me.



The second I plugged it in/blew vigorously into the game cartridge, I remembered the most frustrating part about the early days of videogaming; they're essentially impossible to beat. You're given three lives, no saves, and if you ever plan on actually beating what you started you'll probably also have to plan on leaving the system on for a few days so that you don't have to start over from the very beginning again.

Now, a lot of things have changed. Videogames have stories, characters, even a philosophical outlook on the world. Admirers of the 2007 game Bioshock will occassionally give rants on the troubles associated with objectivism and the ideology of Ayn Rand. For the most part, they're still just distractions, but sometimes something genuinely different apears.
Games have managed to find their way into the art world, as in the case with Jason Nelson, a poet and artist who has spent much of his time creating online games such as This Is How You Will Die and his most latest i made this. you play this. we are enemies.

But then again, many things haven't changed at all. Games will still be grounded in the absurdly violent, the absurdly sexual, the absurdly cute, or all of the above as a means to provide unadulterated entertainment.

This year the Wii is still on the list of "highest in demand" for the holidays, and the Playstation 3 remains the proverbial "Booster" to Nintendo's "Turbo Man."



How antiquaited all this will seem in a few years, months, or weeks, will most likely astound me. In the meantime I'll prepare myself to one day reminisce about scratched disks, flashing red rings, and the long nights I spent with Halo.