I was five years old, my brothers were eight and eleven.  We had a NES, we heard about Zelda.  It had a golden cartridge and golden promises.  Music that shook our hearts and adventures that reached further than our imagination.  Enemies that were scary, towns that held secrets, quotes we would never really understand. Meaning. 

But before we were even able to push the golden cartridge down into that magic machine we needed the money to buy it.  When we had it, i waited at home while my big brothers went out to get it.  The store was in the neighbourhood, but in the five year old world i was inhabiting i seemed light years parted from that sacred place.  

After the biggest transaction my brothers ever did was finished the journey home began.  But, just like in the game, this journey was not an easy one as an older kid followed them and threatened them with a knife.  He wanted that game. There was no way my brothers were ever going to give up that cartridge.  It was worth a fortune and it promised everything we ever dreamed of.  They would rather fight, even though they new their chances were slim.  

But they were with two.  As my oldest brother turned himself into a stone, holding on to the game as tight as possible, accepting the kicks and punches, my other brother used his brains.  He rang every bell in the street he could find.  Soon doors were opening, heads came out of windows.  They were saved.  The big people had arrived. 

After this first battle the journey could begin.  There were no walk-troughs, our English was not good enough so we needed our parents.  I was a spectator.  Not allowed to touch a button. Sometimes, when they were not around i would start the game and watch the start sequence and listen to the music.  I loved it.  There was however one thing i could help with and that was the making of The Map.  There was no detailed map in the game so we had to make it.  And it was helpful.  Eventually we finished the game.  Our parents remember it well, as the most enormous sound they ever heard came out of our room.  We did it.

The Map, however, had to go.  We made such an offer creating it, and it helped us in such a big way that we couldn’t bare the thought of someone else using it.  It was ours.  And it ad to stay that way.  The map had to go. We burned it in the backyard.  

I am glad we didn’t do the same with the game.  It’s one of my most precious possessions.

I am almost done with Goldeneye for WII, what’s next? Let’s see which games i haven’t completed yet.

Number one on my list: Fallout 3.  But should I start over again fresh, and then, will I be able to play it enough to complete it this epic game this time?

Number two: GTA IV.  Almost done, but I totally lost the connection with the story after a two month break.  Got to pick it up again.

Number three: Super Mario Galaxy.  I’ve got 70 stars but I want myself to get all 120 of them before I go and buy part two.  But I want it so bad!

And to be honest, there’s more.  I wish I had the time to play AND complete all the games I buy.  But it’s also a thing of devotion.  Some months I really get into gaming, other months I just stop completely.  And that also happens to music, movies…but the thing with games is: you can’t just stop, you can’t just start over again and you can’t just start in the middle of something.  Well maybe you can but I can’t cause I think it ruins the experience. 

Guess I have to wait till I am really old, then I will have the time and peace of mind to get to it (but it will be hundreds of games by then…)

A yearly event in Amsterdam called MuseumN8 (I think also in English the joke almost works!) allows you to visit all the museums in the city after the sun has gone down.  This event is very popular amongst youngsters, hipsters and old folks of all kinds.   One of the exhibitions was called ‘Space Invaders’.  It was about gaming, and i thought it was horrible…

Excerpt from the program:

With ‘Space Invaders’  we bring visual art and the gaming-culture together.  This exhibition shows in a playful, artistic and serious way the influence of games nowadays. 

First thing I found was a ground floor packed with drunk people dancing to a dancehall-DJ. I thought ‘when this exhibition is really good i might join in!’ As I made my way trough the hall I found the first ‘piece’ called ‘Mixed Reality Pong’ maybe some of you know it, it’s pong meets Kinect.  Funny, but it being placed at the busiest crossing point in the museum made it unplayable, and if it was playable…come on, pong! Pong is great off course but it wouldn’t be the first game I wanted to show to people. But OK.

Next a room with screens on either side.  One site showed a game of Counterstrike.  At the wall next to it there were bags of blood, one for each player, leaking fake blood on the wall when they were hit.  I though it was proof of bad taste. And it was shouting ‘games are violent’ and ‘gamers love blood’.  It was shouting something too many people already think. That’s exactly the opposite of what art should do.  

At the other side of the room you could play GTAIV.  That’s it.  I saw some drunk girl with lots of make-up discover the ‘hit a pedestrian’ button and I made my way out, just like the old folks and their ten year old grandson did.  

There was more! And not everything was as bad as discribed above.  A funny platformer with gravity shifting, an ‘augmented reality box’ which you could hold while a little guy walked through it on a big screen.  But also these more artistic parts were looking bad, were in no way inviting or beautiful or touching or anything! The only thing that really struck me was the thing with the bloodbags.  How do you come up with something like that…or well, how do you not come up with something like that. It’s too easy, too obvious! Why should people always focus on the violent part of things. How hard can it be to be a little more ahead of time, letting people meet with the more philosophical sides of gaming, the aesthetics, or just plain, but good working fun?  

Oh well, maybe i’m just a hippie…

(Source: nimk.nl)

“Why does the new Call of Duty release feels like U2 releasing a new album? Probably because I couldn’t care less about both of them, but I do read the reviews.”

As i write this my copy of Goldeneye 007 WII is on its way to my home.  Hopefully bringing some dusters with it to sweep some good old memories clean.

While fighting a battle with a new generation of gaming-consoles, Nintendo found themselves in a split between old and new times, and so did I.  But at the time I wasn’t busy with those kind of things, switching from the colourful worlds of SM64 and Banjo Kazooie to the grey and violent theme of Goldeneye.  Not even putting question marks at the fact that the last two titles I named came from the same devolper. 

I was being sucked into worlds I liked to hang out in, and it didn’t cross my mind that the transfer I was going trough (from being a child to being a adult) was perfectly combined in these different games.  And when I look at myself now, I don’t think I ever made the step to maturity as it comes to games, still I don’t consider myself as a ‘child for ever’ and I think nobody should -but that’s a different story-…

So as I’m waiting for the mail man I wonder: is this game a ticket to the fun I had playing it with my brother and my friends, or is it a disappointment in the disguise of a sweet memory… Time will tell. 

It sticked, and it still does.  As I saw my friends around me abandon their high score craving, time-and-money-eating gamemachines which they are- I am still as enjoyed and intrigued by the medium as I was 20 years ago.

         In a world where we are used to screens, buttons and digital connections surrounding us everywhere, I find it strange to notice that a medium that ties all of these things together in a creative, beautiful way can’t get out of the shadow of  misunderstandment.  And -so it seems- the millions made by this industry won’t change anything about it.  

       The fact that the release of a certain game was the ‘most successful entertainment release ever’ may be heard by the people around me, but still, when they discover I’m a gamer it’s like they found out I’ve got a disease of some kind they didn’t know about.  Nothing serious, but still pretty inconvenient in their eyes.   

       Not that I mind, it also gives a powerful feeling in some strange way, getting to think: ‘All of you don’t know what you’re missing, I’m getting all this otherworldly fun, this feeling of adventure, these worlds to find and explore. You’re giving me the feeling that I’m not sharing this with the whole world, you’re giving me the feeling that I am really the only one experiencing this in this way, thanks!’ But still, I think it’s too bad I am almost never able to explain what it does, mostly that it’s in no way an escape from real life, it’s an expansion of real life.