Saturday, January 03, 2009

Press Start to Continue

In today's geek-friendly world, there's nothing fundamentally wrong about a guy not having a boner for sports. But if said guy doesn't know shit about video games either, then he is one emasculated little girly-man. Well buy me a bra and call me Suzie because when it comes to video games, I have the skills of Glass Joe and the manly attitude of Don Flamenco.

To be clear, there are certain video games that I like. I am such a whore for Mario games that my sexual fantasies involve dressing in a raccoon suit while an unnamed floozy in red overalls begs me to eat my mushrooms so that I can "grow bigger." I also have a certain affinity for Sonic the Hedgehog games, but sexual fantasies involving a hedgehog seem a bit hazardous to me.

I think time passed me by at some point. I remember spending a lot of loving time with the original Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and I recall many hours playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. But somehow I lost interest in video games about six years ago (just before going to college I believe). This excludes, of course, every Mario game (even in Kart form) that is released.

Why can't I love video games again? My life is hardly filled with extraordinary challenges and hours of spellbinding fun. I could really use a game that absorbs me so fully that I can go to bed sobbing because my entire day was wasted in a virtual environment. I want to be able to cheer like I did when I first destroyed the giant Dr. Robotnik in Sonic 2. I want to giggle with glee as when I discovered my first warp zone. I want to experience the same passion and fury that I had when I tried to swim through the electrified plankton, laser beams, and time bombs in the Dam level that was designed by the Marquis de Sade for the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.

Today's shoot-em-ups seem too repetitive. How many different ways can you blast your way through an army of Nazis or space aliens. Now when a game incorporates space alien Nazis, they might have my attention. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games... or so I'm told) are too damned slow. I have no patience to spend time hacking down rabbits and spotted owls so that I can build up my attack points and become a tenth-level dwarf in the land of Azeroth. Fuck that noise. That would be like popping in the first Mario game and being told, "Sorry. You can't use the fire flower until you stomp on 10,000 goombas."

I do love Wii Sports. It's the first time since Mike Tyson's Punchout that I've actually been able to hold my own in a sporting event. I may not be able to tell "30 Love" from 30 Rock, but on the Wii, I'm like the love child of Bjorn Borg and Serena Williams. (Actually I'm not all that good... but it gives me an excuse to call myself a Borg.) Of course, on the Wii, you don't get the supreme Manifest Destiny-esque satisfaction of taking down Piston Honda, White Tiger, Don Flamenco and the other minority rejects from Mike Tyson's Affirmative Action Day. Little Mac was quite the Aryan wonder!

What was my point again? ... Oh yeah. The world needs more racist video games!

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I'm sorry, Mario. But your virtual manhood is in another castle.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your last 4 posts have a total of 1 comment. I'll make it 2 for ya.

emother said...

I'm too old for a cute name and probably going to endure ridicule for posting, but JP, have you ever SERIOUSLY considered making this blog material into a book? It reads better than half the stuff out there, and a savvy publisher (peacoat AND silk scarf) would be able to market this to the X gen with little effort. You are incredibly funny with an over-the-top snark factor.

Anonymous said...

Snark Factor.
Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!
Snaark.

Yark!

Unknown said...

I thought one of your resolutions was to stop making obscure Star Trek references in your blog posts.

Don't go thinking you slipped one past me in 2009....

Unknown said...

Nothing was slipped past him...that knife was slipped THROUGH him.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

JP said...

Dave: I know... I need to get into a 12-step Trekkies Anonymous program.

And you have no idea how timely your CSI: Miami reference was. :)

Aardvark Man and The Shit: You two are the wind beneath my wings.

Karen: I've thought about it.