Game Boy!

You know one thing that always has connected me with my younger days, is video gaming. I don’t know, why, or what about it, but I’ve been hooked to games since I was a kid. Having said this, the fact that the last time I played a game was when I was fourteen, is a little hard to explain. What happened was this.

As a kid, in fact, almost all through my life,  I’ve been poor. It has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I realised, just after college, when I knew my way around the subsistence level existence, and others from college struggled, but slowly and surely, we all ceased to be poor, unless my design, and those type of people are not the type who’d like video games anyway, so we may as well leave them out.

Yeah, so as I was saying, I’ve been hooked to video games, since when I was a kid, despite playing my last video game about 16 years ago...

And even then, I didn’t play all that much. Not that I didn’t want, to, but poverty and playing video games don’t go together, or at least my mother didn’t think so, which is all that matters really. I would be given Two rupees each day. Not much really, but enough for one game, each day, and if you made it count, that was enough.

Each day, on my way home back from my tuitions, I would pass a game parlour. It was barely a parlour, as much as a hollow cinder block, opening on the road. A curtain covered the interior leaving  only vague clanking, clicking and the ocassionaly tweeooooon or similar sound to greet the uninitiated. No light leaked from the dark nether world of the parlour. Once you stepped beyond that curtain, you were welcomed into a strange world. A world of complete voluntary suspension of disbelief, where physiologically impossible contortions and kicks were practiced by devout pupils of the art of button mashing, struggling to get the perfect timing and button combos to create and execute devastating attacks.

Here gurus watched their chelas, with falcon’s eyes, analysing each minute delay in button pressing and the smallest discontinuity in a combo would be recognised by them and rehearsed by their chelas, till their achieved the nirvana like stage, standing completely motionless before their screens, their entire being at peace, gone the furtive jabs of the joy stick, gone the frantic rythm of keys being smashed mercilessly, gone the sense of pride in victory, or callous defeat. No the masters of the art, enter a deep meditative trance, where their being is one with their surroundings. Slight flicks delicately co-ordinated button pressing, and they experience an almost complete tranquillity, and unity, as their mental projections on screen do battle, performing the most perplex and difficult attacks in a fluid motions like the oncoming tide.

Obviously I wasn’t one of them. On the kind of budget I was on, I would be lucky to get to play, let alone get anyone to teach me those fighting game combos. No I was definitely a gamer of a more amateurish rung. I liked games that didn’t need years of training to learn, games that just played according to the logic of their systems, rather than have several back doors, which allow their characters to become super-beings in their game world. I found one such game. It wasn’t much, just a racing game.

With a car travelling at fixed speed, we were given a steering wheel to navigate increasingly congested, narrowing streets, while seemingly randomly were informed at the end of ever stage, that we were winners. The game itself was bare a challenge, most people, even first timers managed to complete all seven stages rather quickly. This made the game quite popular with casual gamers like myself. But since it was a matter of pride, the top scores on all the game machines was considered rather important, and many of the masters of the art would try to stamp their name on these machines, via the highest score stamp.

Another interesting thing about the high score thingy, is that it would reset itself each morning when the systems were rebooted. Essentially this meant, that the gaming gurus and studs had to re-establish their supremacy each day. So all the consoles would have a New High Score each day.

This lead to interesting things for me. Once I became fairly confident at the game, and started finishing it regularly, I decided to start challenging for the High Score. It got to the point, that each day, I would go to the parlour, watch other people play, wait till the very latest I could, mum was strict about my 8 o clock curfew, and then play the game, once, and beat the High Score, that was it. That’s all I needed to do to feel like a real gamer, like I had swagger in that parlour, and generally too. I could at will alter the High Score of the game.

I stopped counting the number of times I’d beaten the top score, it became almost a ritual for me. If I day was good, this would be the crowning achievement or the dessert, and if it was a rough day, the game reassured me I was that good! I would stand at the wall, watching all these more prolific gamers perform the most complicated and devastating moves, things I could never aspire too, a kind of nirvana where I could never go, and yet, for two minutes every day, just before I ran back home, I would OWN Them!

I did it quietly though. Just leaving my initially LF, which later became Leaf, my gaming alter ego, on the machine. Everyday, Leaf would edge down about 6 other names, and I would be in heaven. For fourteen year olds that is very easy to do.

Then one day, something happened. Or more precisely didn’t happen. As usual I had been hanging out behind a fighting game, watching as these two kids battled it out for supremacy. A best of Seven bouts contest, in which every round players had to chose different characters to fight with. The game, Tekken, I think it was called, had several fighters, with their own little stories, and very different fighting styles, but still on the whole pretty balanced abilities, the difference lies in how difficult the abilities are to perform, and the comparative damage. There is a hierarchy of sorts, of which player does well, when and where, and of course each gamer has his own favourite player. Usually, the favourites were kept for last rounds, when everything was on the line. A lot of gamers played with Paul in those situations, and some played with this wrestler dude called King.

I could go on. The game was addictive even to me, an observer. Those guys could do crazy things, not to mention look good doing it. The sounds definitely left disappointed though, with war cries ranging from OoooooooooaaaAh to he he he he(school girl giggles). However, like every day, I had to leave, so I picked up my bag, and went over to the racing game. I waited for a bit, cause, the game would flash the top scores as part of it’s demo. A mock race ended, and then the screen went blank. On top in Gold Letters was announced Top Scores of @#%$#%(Damn! I still can’t remember the name of the game).

And then under it, usually would be the names of the guys whose scores I was about to beat. Except, that day, the game showed up blanks and zeroes. There was no top score. No name, no time, no score. Nothing. No one had played the game.

WHAT? How could no one play the game? Now whose score would I beat? WHAT?

Not having that top score, suddenly made the game pointless for me. I just couldn’t play it. I went back to the counter gave him my coins, collected my two rupees. They seemed puzzling, what was I going to do with them now? Why were they? Why was I? What would I do? It didn’t make sense. Beating that game, is what I did, and now there was no one to beat, so what did that leave me with? What do I say about myself? Having just my name up on the sore board, even it was the highest score ever, everyday, what point was there in that? Beating myself over and over again?

I went home in a daze and was completely distracted for weeks. I didn’t go back to the parlour, stopped thinking about games completely. Started walking alot, which I still do. And just all in all, being confused, looking for something to do, a purpose, that could found the rest of my existence. There wasn’t one. Not for a long time.

Anyway, the point of that story, was to say, why I don’t play games, though I’ve always loved them. Well, something happened yesterday, which was rather interesting. I found my son’s game boy. One of those handheld gaming devices. But they’ve become extremely sophisticated with a lot of new features that make gaming on them very similar to consoles. He had this game on, some race or the other. Except in this race, you had a cartoon car, and a racoon driver or something. And the tracks were insane spirals, and twists with boosts, and traps, and even weapons lying everywhere. Knowing the track, literally is the key to winning, not good driving so much.

The game was playing a demo version of the game and I liked it. Then it flashed the top score card, and my son’s name, Bud was all over the top. Naturally, he was the only one who played it. The next screen said, to start press start. For some reason I did, and I listened through the video manual of how to drive, and fire, and use boosts, and what obstacles looked like, and how to avoid them. And ultimately when it was over, I chose a car, it was a green and purple something, driven a female version of the main vermin.

And I tried a race. I came last. I played again, immediately, my rank rose to 8^th. I Played again, this time making note of the track. Remembering the sharper corners which needed breaking, and the boosts in different parts. That time I came 8^th again. The next time I played, I used the track, as they say in F1, and I came in 3^rd. A little more practice, and I was winning. But it wasn’t until my 10^th win, that I got a time worth posting on the High Score Board. I had the 6^th highest score. Not bad, I told myself, nodding in appreciation, we’ll get there. I typed in Leaf when asked to. And hit the big Read Key. And there it was, the new leader board, had my name on it. Surrounded by a lot of buds, One leaf!

That was fun! I wonder what Bud will think!