Staff Report
03-19-2010
Drawing X’s and O’s for three in a row was always one of my favorite games as a kid, outmaneuvering your opponent’s tac with your tic, while toeing the line as eventual champion, once you eventually figured out where to place that initial move to ensure their doom. As trivial a pursuit as that has proved once older, the thought of the endgame has always fascinated the competitive instinct within all of us, and the heated rivalries that arise from arenas pale in silent diminution compared to the wars that are harbored in games under the roofs of families. At least it used to be. Now, instead of throwing the dice and choosing the thimble, you better be nimble with your thumbs and your feet, and your electronic acumen. You don’t have to be a pictionary artist to draw this reality — we’ve become bored with the board, and the games that go with it.
Spare the tomatoes thrown from off-stage, you virtual wunderkinds of electronic reality. Your “Wii” isn’t fit to stand against the hurricane of yesteryear, when we performed operations with tiny instruments without ever having to head to medical school. If medical school provided indigestion, there was always the banking world that monopolized our time, complete with something you can’t find anywhere these days: free parking on the way to the boardwalk as you chanced your career as banker. Let’s have a show of hands: who didn’t want to spin the wheel of fortune in the game of life, only with the thrill of winning the lottery, or inheriting your aunt’s skunk farm. It was taxing, yet a luxury all the same. And where are we now? Giving the kids the keys to Candy Land, while encouraging them that taking chutes is always easier than climbing ladders.
Before the Hunt for Red October began, I never needed perestroika to facilitate my career as a Naval Admiral that sunk my sister’s battleship in tactical warfare. I even entertained the thought of becoming the next Jack Hanna, as I tried my zoologist genes on to care for my Hungry Hungry Hippos. Still not connecting it for you? Well, it all started with the pitfalls of the arcade that led to the demise of Señor Board, and I’d probably have to dress up like Charo and do a Mexican Hat Dance to get its popularity back. Who would have thought that someone called “Donkey Kong” and two Italian mobster brothers named Mario and Luigi would be game in taking away a family night tradition?
Fun is one of those things I always thought was supposed to be spontaneous, not programmed, to achieving maximum effect. One thing that boggles my mind these days is the sheer virtuosity needed to not only play these video games, but the cost prohibitive price tag that comes with a routine “game.”
Yet we don’t want our turn to be skipped. We only want to be Numero Uno when it comes to what a game is about in the current millennium: instant gratification, mind-numbing stimulation and to be consoled by tech support rather than drawing to the support of a familial variety.
Nevertheless, you don’t have to join hands in a circle to consult the Ouija to predict how the spirits will foretell the ending of this Sega saga. We stopped playing board games the minute our stimulations trumped our deductive powers and when virtual realities outmaneuvered imaginations. Who wins in the end? I haven’t a clue, but I’ll risk it and say that Professor Plum did it, in the Conservatory ... no matter how remote the possibility.
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