Monday, May 24, 2010

Marriage the Game: Earning Points and Leveling Up

Sitting at the dining room table in the house I share with my husband, Ben, and my nearly two-year-old son, Jhonen, I have within view two flat screen plasma televisions, both hooked up to DVR recorders. Next to one TV is a PS3 and a PS2 (the slim, black version...we have an original PS2 and a bubblegum pink Japanese version, too), and an Xbox360 all of which can be played in surround sound. The other TV connects to two computers, one is a PC my husband uses as his primary programming computer and the other serves as an arcade hard drive holding archived games. A giant arcade stick with customized buttons sits next to another Xbox360 and a piano keyboard my husband uses to compose music on his computer. Then there are the shelves. Shelves and shelves and shelves that are burdened with Ben's game collection that ranges from Ace Attorney to Pikmin to Zelda. Shelves of old consoles with names like planets from a kid's science fiction story: Saturn, Genesis, Dreamcast, Super Famicom. Then there's the elephant in the (dining) room: the giant blue plastic bin that bursts with those consoles' cables, controllers, and other gaming device paraphernalia. Bongo drums. DDR mats. Virtual On Twin Sticks. Each portable gaming device iteration and their corresponding cases and lights and chargers. Ugh!

Look around my house and it's immediately evident that I am a gamer wife.

When we met, Ben claimed that he didn't play games much. He also told me he doesn't cuss and he definitely “fucking” lied about that one, too. I figured it out quickly, though, and forgave him when he could mysteriously afford to buy Grand Theft Auto, but not lunch. The reason I could overlook it was that he had a passion for video games, a philosophy about video games, if you will, that attracted me. I correlated my passion for books and writing to his passion for video games and video game developing. Video games weren't just a mindless way to pass the time for Ben. Video games were works of art. They were entertainment as well as a creative outlet. His outlook helped me overlook the fact that I considered video games to be a general waste of time and a distraction from the things in Ben's life that I thought should be a higher priority, namely, me!

Here we are ten years, five wedding anniversaries, and one child later, and he still collects, plays, and makes video games. This element of our lives doesn't appear to be going anywhere. I hear Ben say he's going to hang out with Jhonen so I can have some time to myself. Then I hear the TV remote clicks and Mario's “woohoo” and I cringe wondering why Ben couldn't read Jho a book or play outside or build a tower with blocks instead (not that he doesn't ever do those things...it's just not always his first inclination). I'm not the sort of gamer wife who has “lost” her husband to World of Warcraft or that year's Madden or anything like that. He honestly doesn't even get the time to play games with much frequency these days. Instead, the video game industry is sort of like another member of our family. We talk about its ups and downs, its history, its future. The video game industry is like the husband's-obnoxious-best-friend-character in a comedy movie who I may not have to like, but I do need to learn to live with.

I am a gamer wife who sort of hates video games, but who loves my husband.

Now that Ben and I are parents, I see that I need to come to terms with Ben's passion for video games before the difference between his love of them and my, well, tolerance (and sometimes lack of tolerance) for them, becomes a problem. Don't get me wrong, I spent my fair share of time playing games as a kid. My Dad bought me an Atari and bag of Atari games at a neighbor's garage sale when I was eight and I loved to play Frogger so much that I learned to play left-handed after I broke my right arm in a bicycle accident. I remember playing one of the Super Mario games sitting on a beanbag chair at my best friend Sara's house in fifth grade. (The ice level was my favorite.) My Mom would yell at me to look out the window at the beautiful mountain scenery and “quit playing that stupid Gameboy already” on family road trips to North Carolina. And in those memories I can see the appeal video games must have had for Ben where the world of Final Fantasy was probably a lot more interesting than the world of Deltona, Florida, where video games could be an escape from family arguments or something to do with friends that didn't include being outside in the Florida heat. Still, I hear President Obama tell American parents to take away those video games and get kids outside or reading books and I find myself torn because I agree with the president, but I live with Ben.

Looking for a project to get me writing again, Ben said, joking, “You should play, then review all of my video games.” Laughing, I waved him off with, “I can barely turn on the PS3, much less make it more than 15 minutes into any of your games.” And although that's true, I couldn't keep from giggling to myself every time I considered the project idea. Something about it amused me and I couldn't get it out of my head. Maybe playing through and reviewing Ben's games would help me like video games more, or at least help me see what he sees in them. It would certainly give us a lot to talk about. Knowing that video games will probably be a part of my son's life, I might as well learn how to play them a bit. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? It might even be fun, and funny, for people to read about my casual encounters with hardcore games.

After discussing the logistics with Ben, we've decided that at least 52 games, averaging one per week would make sense since I am pretty busy and I do want to give a game a decent amount of time so I can give a proper review, though I'm telling you right now that I can't imagine wanting to play some of these games long enough to even get through the tutorials. He picks which games I play and in what order. He is already concocting the list of games in his head. I think he might enjoy coming up with my assignments even more than he enjoys watching me attempt to play them.I will review my impressions of each game and my experience playing each game. In return, he will owe me a trip to an art museum of my choice and a couple romantic comedies (though he doesn't know about that yet).

So here we go! First game: Afterburner Climax for the Xbox360.

5 comments:

  1. I love it! And can relate empathetically as your position is quite similar to Tara's. She's taking the steps to living with it and appreciating my passion as much as she can. Although I'm in the midst of purging the bulk of my collection, I do still have the bins of consoles (portable and otherwise), cables, and games I'm trying to sort through.

    ... over 15 years of my video game playing life that I've been toting around with me (the 8 years prior to that still in storage in Sebastian). This recent move really drove home the sensation that it's time for me to relinquish a lot of that stuff. And hopefully to homes where it'll be used and appreciated and not just collecting dust in my Gatsby'esque collection.

    Time to just ramp up my ROM collection and keep my arcade sticks dusted, while converting the bulk of my games and cases into wedding monies. C'est la vie. :)

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  2. Hooooooooooooly crap. I love after burner climax.

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  3. Oh Jess, you are a good wife.

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  4. A comment from my friend, Sara:

    Hey! I tried to post a comment to your blog but it didn't work - so I tried a few times... and if there are a dozen of my comments all repeated on your blog I am so sorry.... but anyway - I loved the blog so here's my comment! --S

    Oh buddy. The days of beanbag super mario seem so long ago. (and I love your first entry here) It's funny how we really got to loathe video games in high school - it seemed like Final Fantasy whatever-th ate the boys we knew and spit out red eyed undistractable-when-distracted-with-that-game zombies. It just disgusted me.

    But had we had friends that wanted to game instead of skip school and go to the beach, who knows, we may have chosen differently. It makes me smile that you are giving Ben's games a chance, but then again it doesn't surprise me. You are that kind of person who wants to learn about the people you love. I hope I'd do the same if I was in your shoes. I don't think I really did with Pete and it may have changed things some. Go get em tiger!

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  5. I'm trying to figure out why Sara's comments wouldn't post. I may have fixed it. If anyone else has trouble commenting, would you let me know?

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