I grew up in what is solidly considered the era of the console wars. Today the companies have carved out their niches (Microsoft for multiplayer, Sony for heavy graphics, Nintendo for artistic creative work, Sega for being dead), but back then it was a free-for-all digital massacre. A never ending stream of art with imagination in the past and endless possibilities in the future. It was hard to find a game that was all bad and, because of that, almost everything that came out was worth playing. Lame movie tie-ins always had something that made it great (read as Dino City). Obscure RPG titles with a borderline copyright infringement title to gain initial interest turned into an amazing story and gameplay mechanic (read as Robotrek). Heck, I don't like sports, but I drooled over NBA Jam and was desperate to play it at my friend's house.
Today any yahoo with a computer and some time can make a "game." This in itself is not a bad thing and has lead to some of what I consider to be the most creative time wasters ever imagined (looking at my iPhone brings to mind Soundrop, iBlast Moki, Carcassone, Fingeric, Ninja Ropes, and Shift to name a few), but it has also lead to an entire category of programs centered around different ways of creating fart noises (the digital whoopee cushion if you will). Now maybe I am just bitter because my parents took away my whoopee cushion after only one day, but I like to think that games can be better than that. There is however, one more problem.
I am a dad.
What does that mean? It means that it doesn't matter how late I stayed up playing Metroid Other M, come 6:30am (7am if I am lucky) I am expected by one and all to make breakfast, sing about wheels on busses, clean the house, and help a bunny, polar bear, and a pair of ducks with their adventures. Don't get me wrong, I love being a dad, but it leaves precious little time for running through Secret of Mana for the 10th time, and forget actually finishing Fallout 3.
So now to the point of all this: why a blog? After I just got through complaining about just about everything and sounding like a crotchety old man why would I spend my time writing a blog? There are a few reasons, but it all boils down to the fact that I have opinions about this and I am self centered enough to think you want to hear them (and if you don't want to, just kindly walk away cause my ego is fragile). In case you are still reading, to more specifically state my goals:
- With such precious little time, I have moved from marathon gaming sessions to snippets that can be as short as 5 minutes. For you other gamer fathers out there, I want to share these games with you.
- With nostalgia adding +5 to game awesomeness, I have been digging through my stash to replay some games that really have stood the test of time.
- With gamers like myself getting older, having kids, and some of them actually influencing the production of games, there have been multiple parent-centric influences on the storyline of newer games which I find fascinating (like the fact that I no longer care about the romantic scenes in Final Fantasy 13 but the father son scenes had me crying like a little girl).
- With children of my own, I am working hard to create a curriculum of games from the Atari 2600 era to Sonic 4 that appropriately trains my children to be geeky enough to keep them out of trouble and yet stay cool in college (I was cool I swear!).
So there we have it. I'm going to work at making this a weekly thing at least. Tell your friends. And if you have some suggestions on reviews or discussion ideas, please post in the comments. I'll try to get to them all.
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