ghostlyjoe
Member
I worked late last night. Still feeling the crunch of long-past deadlines, I crept up the concrete stairs of our apartment building and slipped into the house at 1:30 in the morning, careful not to let my tired feet lumber too loudly on the creaky floorboards.
As is always the case on these late nights, the house was dark and quiet and welcoming. Everyone else had gone to bed hours before, and I felt momentarily giddy, relieved that my work was now behind me and nothing loomed for the rest of the night. So I poured a small drink -- just a little taste to calm my nerves -- and headed to the living room.
My wife was slumbering softly on the couch, and still too anxious to sleep, I gave her soft kiss on the forehead, watched her eyelids flutter lightly, then ambled over to the entertainment center. It was game time. I had a good two hours of uninterrupted gaming ahead of me, and I knew nothing could relax me quite like losing myself in a simple fantasy. On nights like this, a good adventure game is better than a good book. So I rifled through my collection and, passing on last year's Madden (too much to think about) and F-Zero GX (my most recent and most frustrating addition), I settled on Wind Waker. I had beat it two years prior, but the game had been swimming through my mind lately, and I tonight was the perfect night to revisit it. Into the Cube it went, and, Wavebird in hand, I melted like warm taffy into my easy chair and propped up the footrest.
No sooner had the GameCube logo tiled onto the screen, I heard -- or rather felt -- a stirring in the hall: the puft, puft, puft of 3-year-old legs. A moment later, my daughter stumbled into the room, her mouth wide open in a yawn and her little fists rubbing wildly on her eyes. She looked up, smiled, and came right to me, and I could tell immediately -- as she flung herself over the arm of my chair and into my lap -- that she wasn't going back to bed anytime soon.
"You should go to bed, daddy," she said sternly, mimicking my wife's corrective tone.
"I just got home, sweety," I said.
"Are you playing your game?"
I nodded and started a new game, figuring that Zelda was a safe choice to play in front of a 3-year-old. Sure, there's some swordplay, but the cartoon look and classical storyline seemed right up her alley. And it has a princess! She might dig it, I thought. At least it's not Resident Evil.
"Daddy?"
"Shhhhh." I cradled her in the crook of my arm and gently pushed her head against my shoulder. She'll go right back to sleep, I thought.
"Daddy, what is this?"
"It's Zelda," I said. "It's a story about a little boy named link and a princess named Zelda, and they go on a long adventure."
So I started reading the storybook opening to her in soft voice, stopping on occasion to explain about the lost kingdom of Hyrule and the hero Link and the evil Gannondorf. I could see right away she was fascinated. As a veteran of Disney films, she was quite familiar with the archetypes at work in the Wind Waker, and, as I had suspected, she took right to the story.
So we played together. I was in charge of reading the text and moving the control stick. She was in charge of pushing the A button and asking, "Who's that?" and "Why does he have a booger in his nose?"
By the time poor little Aryll was kidnapped by the "mean birdy," my daughter was fully engrossed, calling out directions, offering her own made-up sidestories and making excited exclamations at each new discovery.
She'd never really played a game before. My wife and I figure she's just too young to expose her to what is often a complex and violent medium. We're careful about what and how much television she's exposed to, and, though we bought her a V-Smile for Christmas, she had hardly played it. So at first, her excitment confused me.
But then I remebered my first gaming experience. My closest friend had recently received an incredible birthday present: an Atari 2600 and a copy of Riddle of the Sphynx (our parents were just clueless when it came to games). We didnt' understand the game at all, but we loved it. It was like our daydreams being played out in full color before us. It was a living fantasy. And we had control.
Now, more than 20 years later, I was reliving that experience with my daughter. I could feel her wide-eyed imaginative joy, her happiness at watching these living cartoons respond to our wills. We were crafting the storybook even as it unfolded before us. And we were both happy just to be together, staying up late in secret, sharing something that both of use could relate to well, if for very different reasons.
It was the best multiplayer gaming experience I've ever had. And it reminded me why I love games. Beyond the textures and bump maps and polygon counts and processor speeds, there is a simple story, a play world, a picturebook. And you get to direct, to be in control. It's a meeting of imaginations: the gamemakers', my daughter's and my own.
After nearly two hours, and despite her protests, I saved and shut it down. TIme to go bed. For both of us.
As is always the case on these late nights, the house was dark and quiet and welcoming. Everyone else had gone to bed hours before, and I felt momentarily giddy, relieved that my work was now behind me and nothing loomed for the rest of the night. So I poured a small drink -- just a little taste to calm my nerves -- and headed to the living room.
My wife was slumbering softly on the couch, and still too anxious to sleep, I gave her soft kiss on the forehead, watched her eyelids flutter lightly, then ambled over to the entertainment center. It was game time. I had a good two hours of uninterrupted gaming ahead of me, and I knew nothing could relax me quite like losing myself in a simple fantasy. On nights like this, a good adventure game is better than a good book. So I rifled through my collection and, passing on last year's Madden (too much to think about) and F-Zero GX (my most recent and most frustrating addition), I settled on Wind Waker. I had beat it two years prior, but the game had been swimming through my mind lately, and I tonight was the perfect night to revisit it. Into the Cube it went, and, Wavebird in hand, I melted like warm taffy into my easy chair and propped up the footrest.
No sooner had the GameCube logo tiled onto the screen, I heard -- or rather felt -- a stirring in the hall: the puft, puft, puft of 3-year-old legs. A moment later, my daughter stumbled into the room, her mouth wide open in a yawn and her little fists rubbing wildly on her eyes. She looked up, smiled, and came right to me, and I could tell immediately -- as she flung herself over the arm of my chair and into my lap -- that she wasn't going back to bed anytime soon.
"You should go to bed, daddy," she said sternly, mimicking my wife's corrective tone.
"I just got home, sweety," I said.
"Are you playing your game?"
I nodded and started a new game, figuring that Zelda was a safe choice to play in front of a 3-year-old. Sure, there's some swordplay, but the cartoon look and classical storyline seemed right up her alley. And it has a princess! She might dig it, I thought. At least it's not Resident Evil.
"Daddy?"
"Shhhhh." I cradled her in the crook of my arm and gently pushed her head against my shoulder. She'll go right back to sleep, I thought.
"Daddy, what is this?"
"It's Zelda," I said. "It's a story about a little boy named link and a princess named Zelda, and they go on a long adventure."
So I started reading the storybook opening to her in soft voice, stopping on occasion to explain about the lost kingdom of Hyrule and the hero Link and the evil Gannondorf. I could see right away she was fascinated. As a veteran of Disney films, she was quite familiar with the archetypes at work in the Wind Waker, and, as I had suspected, she took right to the story.
So we played together. I was in charge of reading the text and moving the control stick. She was in charge of pushing the A button and asking, "Who's that?" and "Why does he have a booger in his nose?"
By the time poor little Aryll was kidnapped by the "mean birdy," my daughter was fully engrossed, calling out directions, offering her own made-up sidestories and making excited exclamations at each new discovery.
She'd never really played a game before. My wife and I figure she's just too young to expose her to what is often a complex and violent medium. We're careful about what and how much television she's exposed to, and, though we bought her a V-Smile for Christmas, she had hardly played it. So at first, her excitment confused me.
But then I remebered my first gaming experience. My closest friend had recently received an incredible birthday present: an Atari 2600 and a copy of Riddle of the Sphynx (our parents were just clueless when it came to games). We didnt' understand the game at all, but we loved it. It was like our daydreams being played out in full color before us. It was a living fantasy. And we had control.
Now, more than 20 years later, I was reliving that experience with my daughter. I could feel her wide-eyed imaginative joy, her happiness at watching these living cartoons respond to our wills. We were crafting the storybook even as it unfolded before us. And we were both happy just to be together, staying up late in secret, sharing something that both of use could relate to well, if for very different reasons.
It was the best multiplayer gaming experience I've ever had. And it reminded me why I love games. Beyond the textures and bump maps and polygon counts and processor speeds, there is a simple story, a play world, a picturebook. And you get to direct, to be in control. It's a meeting of imaginations: the gamemakers', my daughter's and my own.
After nearly two hours, and despite her protests, I saved and shut it down. TIme to go bed. For both of us.