Growing Up Through Video Games, Pt. 2
Aug. 7th, 2009 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanuki_greenI was 10 years old. My mother had been married for her fourth time for a couple of years, she was working as an air traffic controller and she'd bought a house and I was entertaining myself at home by reading or playing with my Merlin game.
Then one day, mom brought home a device of wonder and awe, transforming the television forever, the Atari 2600. We took it out of the box, hooked the antenna wire to the transceiver and that to the television. I grabbed the remote control, pointed it at the television, pressed the channel down button and heard the satisfying *clunk* *clunk* *clunk* as it changed to channel 3 and saw snow on the screen.
We took the cartridge out of the box. It had a label on it saying "Combat". We plugged it in and turned on the power. Suddenly the screen lit up with the most amazing images we'd ever seen. There were tanks! And we could move them around and shoot at each other! It was amazing!
As the days and months went along, we got more games and would get together in the living room, grab the cartridge out of the box, put it in the machine and start playing. For the most part, we could figure out the games pretty quickly and have a lot of fun. That was until Sky Diver.
As per usual, we gathered in the living room, pulled the cartridge out of the box, put it in the slot and powered it on. We were treated with airplanes flying across the top of the screen and pads on the ground. It seemed pretty simple - jump out of the plane and parachute on to the pad.
It was not as simple as it sounded though. We managed the jumping out of the plane part pretty darn good. What we accomplished after that was a full hour of watching our little men squash into the ground with a great little 8-bit sound effect that made us hysterical with laughter. It got to a point of being unable to breathe. It was a great time. Then we got the instructions out and learned how to open the parachutes. And the competition began in earnest.
Cross Posted to GamerDNA
Then one day, mom brought home a device of wonder and awe, transforming the television forever, the Atari 2600. We took it out of the box, hooked the antenna wire to the transceiver and that to the television. I grabbed the remote control, pointed it at the television, pressed the channel down button and heard the satisfying *clunk* *clunk* *clunk* as it changed to channel 3 and saw snow on the screen.
We took the cartridge out of the box. It had a label on it saying "Combat". We plugged it in and turned on the power. Suddenly the screen lit up with the most amazing images we'd ever seen. There were tanks! And we could move them around and shoot at each other! It was amazing!
As the days and months went along, we got more games and would get together in the living room, grab the cartridge out of the box, put it in the machine and start playing. For the most part, we could figure out the games pretty quickly and have a lot of fun. That was until Sky Diver.
As per usual, we gathered in the living room, pulled the cartridge out of the box, put it in the slot and powered it on. We were treated with airplanes flying across the top of the screen and pads on the ground. It seemed pretty simple - jump out of the plane and parachute on to the pad.
It was not as simple as it sounded though. We managed the jumping out of the plane part pretty darn good. What we accomplished after that was a full hour of watching our little men squash into the ground with a great little 8-bit sound effect that made us hysterical with laughter. It got to a point of being unable to breathe. It was a great time. Then we got the instructions out and learned how to open the parachutes. And the competition began in earnest.
Cross Posted to GamerDNA
