Retro Game Challenge for Nintendo DS: Final Review

I promised that I would write a new post as soon as Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS had any substantial impact on me. When I chose the word impact, I intended it to mean “a forceful consequence" or "a strong effect” as used in the sentence, “the game had an important impact on my thinking.” Then I arrived at game two, stage three, the Ninja Robot Haggle Man challenge where I have to clear level four without dying. I now know that "impact" was the correct word to use, but the more appropriate meaning of the word, in this case, is found in the dictionary as follows: “the striking of one body against another.”

In the thesaurus I found three similar words that may be even more appropriate to describe my experience:

Contact – the physical coming together of two or more things - as in level 4 little blue enemy guys continuously coming together with my little blue Haggle Man and killing him after playing through the first three levels completely unscathed. Why, level four? WHY?

Bump – an impact as from a collision – as in the collision of my Haggle Man and challenge three. I played challenge three for about 75% of the car ride from Deltona, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia and never cleared it.

Slam – a forceful impact that makes a loud noise – as in the sound a DS Lite makes when being thrown across a car.

Yes, this game made impact. The third stage and I had a head-on collision and my Haggle Man did not make it out alive. (The DS, luckily, proved impervious to my assaults.)

To use the previous definition of the word impact, this game did have an impact on me. It taught me that old games are hard!

I expected Afterburner Climax to be difficult for me as it did not involve a plastic guitar or colored blocks. Then I played it and, although I was terrible and didn't know what I was doing, I somehow beat that game. I still can't quite believe it. The game was just really forgiving. Then I heard I had to play God of War III and I thought there was no way I'd be able to play that game, especially after I saw the hordes of skeleton beasts. But then I cracked my fire-whip a few times and BAM, before long my God hands were slapping high fives and giving out nanny-nanny-boo-boo waggles at those panty-wetting she-skeletons! The God of War puzzles got me a bit stuck, but that was mostly because I just didn't care enough about the game to solve them, not because I couldn't eventually solve them if I tried hard enough.

Then I arrive at Retro Game Challenge, a game that featured cute children playing old arcade-y games. I thought to myself, "This is great! I can do this! It's going to teach me to play video games just like Arino is going to teach little Clover!" The game was all so silly with its crazy demon head and its game geek magazines and its pro-tips and cheat codes and its cheesy diologue and then...oh Sh$t I can't play this F#$%ing game!! What the f#$%?!?

I already admitted to you that Ben played one of the challenges for me, but I didn't want that sort of cheating to become too regular an occurrence. I figured I'd let him get me to the next game and then I'd hopefully sail through a few challenges before things got really super hard. That did not prove to be the case. Determined to beat RTG on the long ride to Atlanta, the first hour went by quickly. I was glad to have something to entertain me. Then the second hour came and went and I noticed Ben beginning to laugh at me. I was starting to nervous-jump a little higher than normal. Towards the end of the second hour I had slammed the DS shut a few times, putting it in my lap for a moment to do some deep breathing exercises. By the third hour my eyes were stinging and the DS was almost in as much mortal peril as my poor little Haggle Man was in level four.

After that third hour Ben was telling me to put the DS away and try later when I could calm down a bit. I refused to stop. These level four enemies were not the boss of me! I could DO this! Knees up around my chin, my blazing red eyes wide and crazy, I clutched the DS like Kratos clutched his bloody swords. The more agitated and intense I became, the worse Haggle Man performed! I tried again and again, Ben chuckling anxiously, my Mom hiding in the backseat, Jhonen pretending to sleep. Finally, I chucked the DS across the car; My Retro Game Challenge road trip experience giving new meaning to the term road rage.

I had to stop playing. Haggle Man had defeated me and I had defeated my Haggle Man. I had failed. These old games are hard.

The failure had more bite than normal because I actually do like this game, especially Ninja Robot Haggle Man. In that game, you are dropped into a stage with several raised platforms with lots of lettered and differently-colored doors. You can go in and out of the doors to either hide from enemies or kill enemies. If you go through the doors in alphabetical order, the doors will change color to match the previous letter. Same-colored doors open simultaneously, allowing you to kill multiple enemies at once. After a certain number of enemies are killed, you face a boss. The boss from that stage becomes the enemies of the next stage. It's fun, but it's hard!

I think I failed because, unlike Clover, Arino, and my own Grand Master, Ben, I wasn't playing these difficult games in the eighties. When games were at their hardest, Ben and other little Charles in Charge watching, scrunch-sock or Jams short-wearing boys and girls were mastering them. They say the younger you introduce kids to a foreign language the better their chances of fluency. Well, as I've mentioned in previous posts, video games have a language all their own and I'm getting a really late start at learning it.

However, like little Clover, I have my own Arino to help me learn. While playing this game, it was fun to imagine that the boy and girl were little Ben and little Jess hanging out in my childhood living room playing these games. I've always liked to look at old pictures of Ben as a kid and imagine him playing with Transformers and reading comic books and talking about video games. I don't know if he would have given a girl (gross!) the time of day back then, but if he did, and we had been friends, I bet he would have been the patient, kind video game coach that he is today. I saw it firsthand this evening.

Ben bought Jhonen the new Toy Story 3 game for the PS3. Jhonen brought him the game case and said “Buzz Show!” Ben played it for him for awhile and Jhonen seemed to like to watch Woody jumping onto a train and riding his trusty horse, Bullseye. Then Ben let Jhonen play as Buzz Lightyear. I was trying to write this review at the time, but I couldn't stop watching Jhonen trying to play this game. First, he tried every button and seemed to really like rotating the joystick best. I watched his face as he began to realize that he was controlling Buzz Lightyear's movements. He started to explore. He ran Buzz in circles. He ran Buzz into a rock. He got stuck...and then unstuck! He was learning to play and he's not even two years old.

He will surely be fluent before we know it. Yet I wonder how his skills will differ from the gaming skills of those 1980's kids who grew up with Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and Mega Man (games Ben tells me are really hard.) I don't know enough to speak with any real conviction, but it seems that perhaps slick marketing and sales figures and must-have-new-features and amazing 3D graphics have watered video games down a bit in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. Still, I watched Jhonen learn a lot tonight. He learned about cause and effect. He learned about problem solving. He learned about hand-eye coordination. Plus, he connected in a new way with Buzz Lightyear, his very favorite character.

Tonight I learned that beating hard games is satisfying. The harder the challenge, the more satisfying the win. I didn't have many wins, but the ones I had felt good. I can only imagine how good a cleared stage three of Ninja Robot Haggle Man would feel!

Speaking of challenges, my Game Master Ben has given me my next game assignment. The fun and coincidental part of this assignment is that, like Clover and Arino, Ben and I will be playing together! I will be playing Pokemon Heart Gold while Ben plays Pokemon Soul Silver, both on the Nintendo DS. I have been challenged to get four Pokemon to level ten, perform at least three trades, and collect the first gym badge. Sounds so romantic.

I wonder what sort of impact Pokemon will have on me. I already know how dorky I felt just now, writing that I have to collect a gym badge in a Pokemon game. The Pokemon games are possibly nearer and dearer to Ben's heart than I am, though, so I'd better just hope that this next game assignment has a positive, rather than negative, impact on my marriage.