This will be the first in a series of posts that will provide a personal, qualitative study into my own life as a gamer. I propose that there is a philosophical, and perhaps spiritual connection between gamer and digital games.
Part One: Combat.
For most of the gamers that I met in my undergrad studies, their first love (in gaming) was with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), or the Super Nintendo (SNES). They were the group of gamers that have fond recollections of stomping gombas, whipping Dracula to death (at least, until next time!) and getting KO’d by Tyson’s ferocious (…and did I mention “cheap”? ) uppercut. However, by the NES’s release in late 1985, home console gaming had already been around for more than a decade.
My life as a gamer began six years prior to the NES’s entrance into the lives of Americans. On Christmas of 1979, my father presented a used (from my uncle) Atari VCS or 2600 to my two older brothers and I. It was already connected to the color TV.
Side Note: Remember those TVs that had the remote control that made a high-pitched buzzing noise when the button was pressed? Remember how weird it felt to put your tongue on the part where the signal came out? (…ok, it was just me then.)
When that TV blinked into life, I was greeted with my first console game. The pack-in game Combat. Combat was the home version of the arcade game Tank! The objective was to manuver your tank (as the pixelated glob on the screen was supposed to be) into a firing position and blow away your opponent. When a tank gets hit, the tank spun like a pinwheel.
As with learning how to play chess (I learned how to play by age six) , my first antagonist was my father. In an Oedipal feat of skill, I defeated my father. Thinking on that night now, he may have let me win. Either through pity or inexperience, that was the only time I beat him at Combat.
Up to the age of ten, my father was the one who introduced me to home gaming experiences. For good or ill, I have him to thank for my start.
NEXT: Chuck E. Cheese, P.J. Pizazz, Showboat and Divorce.
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