Wading in the Velvet Sea

Then again, maybe I need you, because where else can I talk about the mixed blessing on The Girl’s part that was giving me “Guitar Hero” in front of her folks in Jersey on Christmas? The look was one part “I know you will love this” and six parts “This can’t help my parents’ opinion of you in the slightest”. Trying to explain to them what the game was, without sounding overly excited, proved to be an unattainable goal. (Unlike completing “Smoke on the Water” on “Rock!” level…that was wicked attainable.) Oh well. The fact that I’m a Red Sox fan has already put me behind the 8 ball. No harm in making the 6 ball in the corner pocket shot any more difficult I suppose.

If you’re too lazy to actually go to the link above, “Guitar Hero” is essentially “Dance Dance Revolution”, but instead of stepping in rhythm to heinous Japanese remixes of Right Said Fred, you’re wailing away in rhythm on a faux-guitar to Ozzy Osborne songs. The difference, as one comedian once put it, is like the difference between throwing a bullet and shooting one. That is to say, huge. The guitar looks ridiculous in the cold light of day, I agree, but in the dark of my den, with the surround sound amped up and the lights turned low, the guitar is a freakin’ weapon.

Gaming for me has always been an isolated incident. Well, at least lately. Back in the dizzay, when Mario ruled the world, there would be 10-12 of us in a room watching, dispensing advice, and generally chomping at the bit for our turn. My brother was clearly the Rain Man of our family when it came to gaming. He’d get three levels ahead before I’d figured out, “Oh, you’re NOT supposed to avoid the mushrooms. Got it. That makes much more sense.” One of the best home movie clips we have is a family party during which you hear the “THUMPA THUMPA” in the background as Casey comes rushing up the stairs, only to pass through frame hurriedly and have this discussion with me.

“Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan!”

“What?”

“8-4!”

“You did? Nuh uh.”

*pause*

“Ryan, I almost made it to 8-4.”

“There you go.”

If you played Super Mario, this is funny. If you didn’t, I just managed to waste more of your time. Go me.

The next generation of social gaming for me was in college, where, like most heterosexual college men that didn’t know how to meet girls, I played Super Tecmo Bowl with my roommates. The only in-house rule was that you couldn’t play with the LA Raiders, since they had Bo Jackson, the single most powerful game character in the history of gaming. Even more powerful to that characters in “Contra” after doing the Up UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A B A trick.No matter what defense you threw up against him, he would break it for a touchdown. Unreal. You could stack seven Sherman tanks at the line of scrimmage and he’s destroy them all, Hulk-style. So he was right out.

Super Tecmo Bowl only allowed you four offensive and four defensive schemes. If you picked the right defensive scheme (a one in 16 shot), you immediately knew it before the play even started, which allowed you to taunt the other player mercilessly. “Oh, shizzle…son, you going down like Tara Reid at a frat party!” Not that any of us knew who Tara Reid was at the time, mind you, but I couldn’t be bothered to look up “Sluts of 1996” on Google. And then the play would start and you’d get sacked for an approximately 87-yard loss. Unless you had Bo Jackson would who incinerate linebackers with a piercing glance from his laser vision.

After college, though, I basically stopped gaming all together. Missed approximately six generations of gaming. When I stopped, I thought Super Nintendo was the omega of gaming. Wrong. By the time I got a PS2 was Christmas two years ago, I’d long forgotten how to use the gaming part of the brain. Even moreso, that gaming part could handle an A button, B button, and directional button. That was the extent of it. Getting a PS2 controller afterwards affected the same mental panic that math instills in Freddie Prinze Jr. So I essentially didn’t use it for the first six months I owned it, since when a challenge presents itself, I run quickly in the other direction.

Now, though, as I enter my 30s, well, suddenly the desire to strap James Bond into a jetpack and shoot down a helicopter in front of Big Ben sounds IMMENSELY appealing. Zipping through a virtual Manhattan as Spidey? Bring it on, in the words of Kirsten Dunst. Taking down LA gangs? Awesome. Spending time with my girlfriend? Um. Uh. Let me get back to you on that. But, and here’s the point I’ve been trying to make for like five paragraphs: I want her to watch me play “Guitar Hero”. I want to watch her play it. I wanna get a case of beer and six friends and hook this bad boy up for a night. Now, all I have to do is get six friends and I’ll be good to go.

So, sweet blog o’ mine, I won’t be leaving you. Don’t worry. But if I ramble on about gaming a bit more than usual in the near future, I hope you forgive me. I’ll strew in inappropriate comments about celebrity cleavage, same as always, so that should give you a touchstone to normalcy. Just lookin’ out for ya. Like always.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rawk.

UPDATE: Just bought four used games on my lunch break. Clearly I need help. Let's see what all this fuss about "Madden" is...