Video Games: My Gaming Pedigree

To remind myself why I got excited about going to Penny Arcade Expo in the first place, I’m going to peer back through the mists of ancient history and review my gaming track record.

I’ve been playing video games for a long time. It’s hard to say exactly how or when I started: I think it might have been in 1985, when Oregon Trail appeared on the Apple IIe computers at my grade school. My parents had already bought a Commodore 64 for our home by then, and bought me my first IBM-PC two years later in 1987, but they wanted me to use computers to learn how to type and make spreadsheets, not to shoot squirrels, ford rivers and keep my oxen from dying.

Old school video games

In 1988, at age ten, I changed schools and found a partner in virtual crime – Christie, my best friend of many years. The first clear memory I have of gaming with Christie was playing Rogue in her dad’s office on a computer the size of a convection oven. We boldly explored the Dungeons of Doom together, quaffing potions and battling kobolds on maps constructed entirely out of ASCII characters. Once we’d gotten a taste for character creation, it was on to Wizardry: I can still remember sliding in the 5 1/4″ floppies and waiting anxiously, pencils paused over grid paper, ready to map out levels and show that Mad Overlord who was boss. After defeating Werdna, we were well and truly hooked.

Sierra and Brøderbund defined our pre-teen years with Carmen Sandiego, Myst and King’s Quest, and even an illicit peek at the sexy pixel ladies in Leisure Suit Larry. Trilobyte and MicroProse carried me through the mid-90s with The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour and the original Sid Meier’s Civilization. Eventually Christie got her first console (classic NES) and we fought our way through Mega Man, Dr. Mario and some less-known titles like Disney’s Adventures in The Magic Kingdom.

In university I wanted to study and run after boys, so gaming took a backseat. Bookended by one incredibly epic PC gaming session of Sid Meier’s Civilization II with David in first year and a near-crippling addiction to Bejeweled in my last year, I was relatively game-free.

Then I finished university and moved in with a boy who was a dedicated gamer and who introduced me to the new breed of consoles: the Gamecube and the PS2. I got so excited I bought him an Xbox to round out the collection, and for a year or so went haywire exploring what game developers had been up to while I was busy getting my B.A. I was wooed back into gaming with Fable and Syberia, Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damacy, Psychonauts and Time Splitters. When I moved out I decided to leave the Xbox behind, but bought my own PlayStation and spent a lot of money on one of the first hard-to-find Wii systems that I got from a guy who knew a guy (thanks, Petar).

Nowdays I still game, but I have other, far more time consuming hobbies as well so I do it in moderation. The most excited I’ve been in recent memory was seeing Little Big Planet‘s world-building capabilities and multiplayer goodness, and of course hearing Stephen Fry’s amazing voice work. Keeping my eye on Dante’s Inferno (though the English major inside me quails at the transformation of that epic poem into poop and vomit battles), and always hoping that Tim Schafer will bring in another home run with his soon-to-be-released Brütal Legend action-adventure game. I mean, it has voice work by Jack Black and Tim Curry, so all seems well, but I do have trouble with loud noises, and I’ve never been a big fan of guitar-based video games. Bongos? Sure. Maracas? Sure. Guitars? Require too much coordination from my flailing limbs.

To close out, some short but revealing lists…

Games I own:

  • PS2 – Bully; Burnout 3: Takedown; Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories; The Guy Game; Ico; Katamari Damacy; Odama; Okami; Psychonauts; Star Wars Battlefront; We Love Katamari
  • PS3 – Burnout Paradise; Ghostbusters: the video game; Little Big Planet; The Orange Box (Half-Life 2; Portal; Team Fortress 2)
  • Wii – Rayman Raving Rabbids; Super Paper Mario; WarioWare Smooth Moves; WiiFit; WiiPlay; WiiSports; World of Goo; Zelda: Twilight Princess
  • Gamecube – Donkey Konga; Donkey Konga 2; Donkey Konga Jungle Beat; Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker; Metroid Prime
  • Gameboy – Defender of the Crown
  • NintendoDS – New Super Mario Bros.; WarioWare

Games I’d like to own:
Bioshock; inFamous; Fat Princess; Grim Fandango (hey, I missed it the first time around); Lego Star Wars; Ratchet & Clank Future; Super Smash Bros Brawl; Wii Sports Resort

PAX = Penny Arcade anXiety

I’m going to my first ever Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle in a few weeks, and I admit to having performance anxiety. This is not my first time at a large gathering of nerds – I’ve been to many conventions of the comic book variety, including San Diego, but this is different. These are gamers. They’re YOUNGER. A lot of them are TEENAGERS. I’m almost as old as PONG, dammit.

At a comic con, nobody’s going to ask me to sketch a panel for them, but at PAX, I will likely be invited to join a game where there is an actual “skill” component. There are tournaments. People bring laptops. At a comic con, the only real requirements are the ability to read sequential panels and to be able to talk shop. I speak Geek fluently, and can jump into a sober conversation about Alan Moore or Frank Miller at the drop of a hat. Gamer is a totally different language (and I don’t just mean 133t). I am way, way behind on recent G4 news & reviews and it doesn’t help that my taste in games runs to obscure puzzles, side-scrollers and Japanese weirdness rather than the ubiquitous Halo franchise. What if the other kids laugh at me when I say my favourite games that don’t involve Italian plumbers are Psychonauts, Chibi-Robo and Portal?

Speaking of kids, I’m also feeling a bit age-conscious. I keep telling myself that there are upsides to being an adult gamer. At 31, I have nearly infinite disposable income, once rent and groceries are covered, so I can buy all the consoles and peripherals and software I want. If I want to stay up all night, or even all weekend, playing an uninterrupted online tournament, nobody can tell me to go to bed or turn the machine off. But unlike the swarms of teens and 20-somethings who will form the bulk of the attendees at this event, my reflexes and hand-eye coordination are slowing down, decaying really, and I simply don’t have the time or attention span to dig down and play through every side-quest, map out every dungeon, read every walkthrough and try every cheat code.

My advancing years kept me from entering the draw to be part of the annual Omegathon, where 20 lucky gamers get to compete in a variety of games for the championship title. Why would I avoid such obvious fun and adventure? Because, dear reader, the odds seemed extremely slim that the final round would involve Dr. Mario for the N64, which I spent years mastering, and inversely rather good for a death-match in Halo2, where I’ve spent at least 8 hours mastering the trick of walking into corners and accidentally blowing myself up with my own grenade, then throwing my controller at the wall. I was completely sure, right down in my gut, that if I had the hubris to shoot for glory in these gamer olympics, I would be picked, would be one of the only females in the chosen twenty, and would then promptly get pwnd by some pimply pre-teen boy in Round One, probably playing something I have zero experience with like Magic: the Gathering. Emotionally and spiritually crushed, I’d be dragged from the dueling grounds, sobbing out, “What in the Hell *is* mana, anyway?!?”

In lieu of joining in the potentially-humiliating Omegathon, I decided to participate in the softer, gentler side of gamer culture and bring with me a large, personal donation to Child’s Play, the Penny Arcade children’s charity. Here it is: I am handing over my beloved Super Mario Bros quilt to Tycho & Gabe for their annual auction. Bid on it if you want to own something awesome and totally one-of-a-kind.

Mario quilt photos