231: Are You Happy Now?

[300lb. Samoan]

This piece brings back bittersweet memories of my PC gaming heydays (or are they now?). I was 12 at that time, luckily, I could play Jedi Knight, but all the other hot titles of that season escaped the reach of my Pentium 90Mhz machine (gosh, 90 Megahertz, that's a figure just about indistinguishable from "640 K RAM"). That never got any better, the year after that, my father bought a Pentium II machine, but without a proper video card, and at that age, I just couldn't shell out the kind of money I needed for a Voodoo 2. It went on like that until 2000... and just a few months after that, gaming became a mere afterthought in my everyday life. So worrying about hardware specs is maybe THE feeling I assosiate with PC gaming.

Nothing in our modern lives is as frustrating as booting up a game and not being able to get past the "not enough extended memory" message. Is the memory not configured correctly? Are there programs running I just don't know about? Do I really need another 4 megs of ram to run a game that claims to only need 2? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

 

[Octorok]

My Dad does not approve of gaming as a hobby. That is about understatement of the year, but I'll leave it at that. He also disapproves of my religious beliefs and uses them as an excuse to punish my gaming.

Just reading this, and I'm thinking that if you ever want to justify computer gaming as a hobby, you should mention the story of William A. Higinbotham. A nuclear physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, Higinbotham was a strong supporter of nuclear non-proliferation. In 1958, when he was 48 years old and working as Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he designed one of the first ever video games, Tennis for Two, using an oscilloscope and some analogue components.

This was a man who held the power of the atom in his hands, one that said, in a sense, "We have this almighty power in our hands. Let us use it to transform the earth, not turn it into dust." If this man could see the merits of video gaming, I don't think there's any need to be ashamed of it.

I'm not ashamed of it. He's just an idiot.

And a crazy idiot at that. He's very, very racist and homophobic. He votes BNP, because he wants to get rid of Muslims and Gays. He once complained to my school because there's one gay guy in my year, and a few Muslims.

He likes to use the following arguments against gaming -

"It's bad for you soul."
"It's not helping you get into heaven."
"I'm your Father."

He loves the last one, he really takes the "Because I say so" approach to parenting.

I think that unless the Pope starts playing Assassin's Creed 2, he doesn't give a crap who plays videogames.

 

[Octorok]

He's very, very racist and homophobic. He votes BNP, because he wants to get rid of Muslims and Gays. He once complained to my school because there's one gay guy in my year, and a few Muslims.

In that case, I suppose the best thing to do is just to get out of there as soon as possible. Sorry for your troubles, obviously, because faced with that argument against your parents isn't easy. If I were faced with somebody like that, not having them as my parents, you'd start to see spit flecks from my mouth and a twitching eye after five minutes as I waited to line them up with an incredibly pedantic argument about why everything they said was wrong.

But that's not the best example of how to behave - I'm simply an argumentative asshole.

He's my legal guardian and runs my life for four more years.

*Shudder*

 

[DojiStar]

Perfect story. As you get older, you realize it's all about giving, not receiving. And the best gift you can give? GUILT.

 

[karmapolizei]

Nothing in our modern lives is as frustrating as booting up a game and not being able to get past the "not enough extended memory" message. Is the memory not configured correctly? Are there programs running I just don't know about? Do I really need another 4 megs of ram to run a game that claims to only need 2? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

I'm really glad I dodged that bullet. By and large, I've only really been gaming since the Windows 95 age, which was a huge step forward. Then again: BSODs, Windows installations cluttering data trash all over themselves like an infant, constant driver issues, DirectX versions not backward compatible for no good reason at all being released in 9-month cycles, 300 $ video cards coming all the way from top dog to really, really old in the space of a year - I really think things have improved. The PC gaming heydays might be over, but in a way, PC gaming has never been better than now.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

The PC gaming heydays might be over, but in a way, PC gaming has never been better than now.

Oh yea. It's really, REALLY nice that I can still play new games on a system I built five years ago - absolutely unthinkable back in the days of Windows 95. I like the infant analogy, too. Windows 95 was a lot like managing a small child while DOS was like raising a retarded dog.

"Go, boy! Fetch the XMS! Go on!"

WOOF

"There it is, right over there, get it!"

WOOF WOOF

"Go on, god dammit! I can see it! Just fetch the damn memory and load Wolfenstein OK?"

WOOF

 

[Ericb]

Major guilt trip story there, but I'm glad it turned out ok before your Christmas was up!

Yeah, most of us have those moments when we are unfair with our folks. The best thing to do is forgive yourself and never forget, because if you're lucky, you'll go through the same thing on the other side of the situation.

Lucky and unlucky, but still a blessing.

 

[Insanum]

very heartwarming ^^ Great Story.

 

[tetron]

That was quite the heart touching christmas tale, even got a little choked up inside *sniffle*. Haha but really a beautiful article. I've known what it's like to not be able to play the game that everybody's talking about just because your computer's not good enough and it sucks it really does. Although thankfully I could use the computer I had ten years ago and still be able to play my favorite games lol.

 

[rebus_forever]

I thought that was a really well written article, im going to copy it out and leave it with my perents with a note reminding them im yet to get optimus prime from the 80s, santa, my perents I donno who for sure, but someone dropped the ball on that big time.

 

[Phoenixlight]

Kind of sad how at 14 you could be like that but it was interesting anyway.