I like video games. I have ever since we brought home the classic Atari 2600. Ah Space Invaders, the memories. Actually in hindsight those games were pretty lame, but it was fun playing them with your friends and family. I remember when my friend Brett got the old NES. I had a paper route at the time and did it in record time so I could go to his house and play this new game called Super Mario Bros. Shortly there after I got my own NES and played Zelda and Final Fantasy to no end. A few years later I got a Super Nintendo for Christmas (Thanks Mom and Dad!!!) and found a new source of addiction in fighting games like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Steve and I played for hours and hours on Street Fighter until our thumbs were rubbed raw, but we always had a good time shooting fireballs or applying backbreakers to each other. Hadoken!! (Seriously, if you get this reference you're uber-cool). Anywho, after I got home from my mission I started playing on the PC more, with my younger bro John turning me on to a little game called Warcraft II. Then Diablo. Then Starcraft. Then Diablo II. Then Warcraft III. Then World of Warcraft. Soon to be Starcraft II. Then Diablo 3, Warcraft 18, Starcraft 890, etc, etc, ad nauseum ad infinitum...
Where was I? Oh yeah. So I've been playing games a long time, and when my oldest son Jesse was just a wee lad he would like to hold the PS2 controls and pretend to play along with me. I tried a few games out on him to see how he's respond, and at first I had very little success. Not a big race car driver (GT3), golfer (Tiger Woods '05), or martial artist (Mortal Kombat 5. Don't worry, he only played it once and I didn't show him any fatalities). Then a little game called Lego Star Wars came out, and the rest is history. I think I gave it to him for Christmas 2 years ago, and he was pretty excited since it had Darth Tato on the cover. We popped it in and played for a while and he started to ask how to play. For those not familar with a Playstation Controller it has two analog joysticks for your left and right thumbs, four buttons on the right side with an X, O, Square, and Triangle, then two shoulder buttons on each side. Jesse would get stuck in an area and ask what to do. I'd tell him to press the square button to jump or the circle button to use the force. Soon he was figuring out how to move boxes around, was able to switch between characters and finish levels solo. He loved buying new guys and was thrilled to finally be Darth Vader. We had a lot of fun playing that game, so we got the Lego Star Wars for the new trilogy. While I won't rant on that in this blog, I will say it was still a very fun game for us to play. Jesse immediately took to Jango Fett (who since then has taught him lots of stuff). Within a few hours we, and by that I mean mostly Jesse, was able to finish all the levels. It's truly fascinating to see him play. He can figure how to solve problems faster and faster and without asking for help more and more. He loves the cartoon Ben 10, so I decided to rent the PS2 game based on the characters. I played the first few minutes, gave Jesse the quick tutorial, and over the course of a couple days Jesse beat the game! I helped him on the last boss, but otherwise it was all Jesse. It's really been fun to play games with him.
I really had to laugh when my Dad saw Jesse come over to our laptop, grab the mouse and click on the start menu, hit the internet brower icon then show my Dad how he can type his name in the Google search bar. He then went to bookmarks and selected his favorite site, played for a few minutes, then played with some toys in the family room. After I helped my dad's jaw return to its rightful place he just marvelled that Jesse could do so much. The truth is for my kids, computers and technology will be a bigger part of their lives much more than it is for me and my generation, or previous generations. I think the sooner they start learning how to use it the better off they'll be. My biggest concerns are how to deal with them when they're older. I grew up with a Nintendo when I was a teenager and occasionally played very simple games on my Dad's PC. I didn't even see the internet or send off my first email until I was 21. Jesse's done all that by age 3. Wow.
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