It’s been a really long time since I did the “gamer” thing. Back in the days of the old arcade Street Fighter and Nintendo…I was a winner…but now with all the 360 degree viewpoint and movement ability…getting me just to stay upright and not walk into walls is damn near impossible. I’ve been away too long. My brain isn’t equipped for that level of “awesome.”
…The BFF’s Fella knows this, however, and decided to go searching for something I could relate to. And he found it.
Wednesday night, for like two hours as The BFF made a chocolate souffle, The Fella and I beat the living crap out of each other…before finally devising a tag-team scenario in order to kill all the main Bosses and win the game.
The strategy went like this: PUSH THE FUCKING BUTTONS AS HARD AS YOU CAN WHILE SCREAMING OBSCENITIES AT THE SCREEN LIKE A TOURETTES VICTIM. Then, after you die, pass it to the other guy who will do much the same. Until you win. The end.
…I admit, it wasn’t the most elegantly plotted out plan of attack but we did what we could. And I learned some stuff while I was at it.
1) I should never own a game consul. They are too much fun.
2) Threatening your opponent and flinging an escalation of insults at them in psychological warfare, does in fact pay off.
3) Souffles don’t like yelling.
4) It is possible to hate a programmed Avatar more than Satan, and feel it’s perfectly reasonable to do so.
5) No one has actually ever won all the Bosses before, they just tell you they do. It’s a totally impossible feat and everyone knows it. Until you manage it. Then it’s absolutely real.
…Ultimately, video games are like a slip-stream of “uh-oh” for any person who has ever had any “anger management issues.” The frustration levels can get totally off the charts. At almost any moment you can be seen screaming at the television, pitching controllers across the room, and insisting that, “this sunofabitch is goin’ down!” Sure, you can “try” to add a bit of Patton-like reasoning to the plan of attack at first. You can set a course, and learn all the combos and pre-plan the journey. But eventually that all falls away to reveal a ten year old kid, hopped up on adrenalin, whose recently learned how to string all the cuss words they know into one long sentence.
…Like when Ralphy finally flips his shit in “A Christmas Story.”
“Rassuh-fraggin-frasta-massuh-fragga!” The ten year old “you” will say. (Only, not the PG version.)
…The moments are terrifying with intensity, sweat starts pourin’…and you become a virtual machine of gamer rage. It totally consumes you in no time at all. But, if you are savvy enough to take side view of it all, (once the night has ended), the entire thing makes total complete sense.
Just take a second and think about your day, for instance.
…That jerk upstairs who flashes you every morning with cold water because of how they time their shower, right in the middle of yours. The one asshole customer that nothing could appease, the fact the office is out of coffee again, the container loads are late, you banged your funny bone and the traffic home was total crap. Think about that wad of bills you just lifted from the mailbox, and the fact that your trash can is full but you’ve just remembered you’re all outta bags. And maybe you’ve gained a pound or two on total accident. Let all that junk swim around you in a hazy kind of cloud, that you can’t fight no matter how much you try, because it has no corporal form.
…Now lets pretend the power is suddenly granted you to assign all that irritation and anger toward something else. Something whose entire existence is in order to allow you to reclaim even one piece of your dignity back again. Something that’ll satisfy that craving to, “make the bastards pay!”…but with significantly less jail time.
…Go ahead. Put a controller in your hand. Push that little switch. Go through the next fifteen minutes of annoying selection and customization programming (I miss the days of just “off” and “on.”) Then open a Coke, turn down the volume, and pop on a super mix of kick-your-ass power tunes instead. Like this. Then GO AT IT! I DEFY you not to glory in the world of paybacks with zero consequence! You have EARNED this today!
Show all those bastards who is BOSS!
…Kill everything! And send those Alien’s packin’!
You are a WINNER!
A WINNER, I tell you!
…NO ONE is gooder than you! You just proved it! To God and everyone!
And just like that, it’s a beautiful world again.
~D
