My 20 year Love/Hate relationship with Video Games

I am a gamer. Have been for many years. So is my current husband. I am convinced that gamers need to marry other gamers in order to have successful relationships. I am also certain that our Golden Years will find us side-by-side playing the latest games. (I remain convinced that by that time, some Gen X-er will have invented a prosthetic device that will allow us to continue to feed our gaming addiction despite the fact that our hands will have been rendered all but useless from the RSIs we've been collecting through the years from using keyboards, phones, etc.) I role-played in a friend's basement for the better part of fifteen years, and naturally, I play video games at home. I love them. I also hate them. I recall great triumphs as well as absolute misery in my gaming. I've been reflecting on some of those games the past few days.

In the beginning ...

Well, I don't want to date myself, but computers in the home were pretty uncommon when I first started gaming. I recall when I was very young that a Pong game somehow made it into our home. How exciting it was to hit a ball back and forth at a speed that rivaled growing grass. No wait ... I think the grass grew faster than this game played. If I recall correctly, it would speed up with time, but how we ever thought that was challenging and/or entertaining remains a mystery.

Now, we had open campus in high school. That meant we could go to the local stores when we had a free period. That in turn meant pumping quarters into Centipede, Pacman and Galaga machines. If I could have all those quarters back and have invested them in an IRA or something, I'd be a happy (and prepared for retirement) woman. Oh well.

Then came Nintendo. *smiles wistfully* I spent hours helping Mario save a princess, guiding Link through Hyrule, and jumping over barrels in Donkey Kong. Fun.

I believe the next game system we had was Sega. I thought the game that came with it was called Sewer Rat, but I can only find it referenced as Sewer Shark. It looks like the same game because I do recall being called dogmeat. That was an awesome game. I remember getting home and immediately firing up the Sega (and to this day, I can't think of the word without hearing the creepy "Sega" soundbyte that accompanied the warmup). With the next generation of Sega came my Sonic the Hedgehog obsession. It was so bad that I bought a handheld game that played it for my first husband when he was in the hospital. Looking back, that was silly because he only ever played car games like Twisted Metal. What can I say? I was young, stupid and obsessed!

Then I got my first PC. While most of my time on the PC was spent writing programs for school, I was (not surprisingly) immediately drawn to PC gaming. I believe the first game I got was a Laura Bow mystery - The Dagger of Amon Ra to be specific. This was a DOS-based game that loaded from 3.5 inch floppies. Looking at the graphics and play offered by current games, it may seem difficult to understand how anyone found those enjoyable, but I had a lot of fun playing that one.

My next obsession was Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. I was a huge Monty Python fan so clearly, I had to play this game. Somewhere mid-game, I found the Tetris-like mini game. At that point, I believe I stopped playing the main game and stuck to spending hours piling up falling plague victims trying to make complete lines. The game itself was fun, but the falling victims kept crying out "I'm not dead yet" in such an annoying manner that my first husband (and a couple of the neighbors in our apartment building) alternated between pleading, begging, and threats to get me to shut the game off. I have to admit that they were correct about the sound effects. Even I would get annoyed and at least turn the volume off.

About this time, Spycraft: The Great Game came out. At that time, the only novels I was reading were Cold War spy thrillers, so this game was a no-brainer. However, mid-way through the game, I found the Mahjong mini-game. As with the great Monty Python Tetris incident, I became obsessed with this one. In fact, to this day, I keep a simple Mahjong game on my PC and play at least one game daily although I have no idea how the actual real-life tile game is played.

Phantasmagoria. I can't remember at what point I started playing it, but it was the only game I played until I had finished it. Now that I remember playing it, though, I recall feeling isolated and alone in that world, especially when compared with how it feels to play the MMORPGs of today. Of course, some of the desolation I feel when I think about it might be related to the dark nature of the game. Despite that, I still played the second game, A Puzzle of Flesh, even though it evoked the same dark feelings. The older, more wise version of me can't figure out why. My life was dark enough - although maybe that's what attracted me to it.

At some point during my PC gaming, I had discovered Castle and I loved it. You had to build castles, manage resources and engage in diplomacy with other leaders. I recommended it to a friend whose husband became so obsessed with the game that I took to calling him Napolean (hey, he was short and had obsessive world domination aspirations - I thought it fit, although my friend was less than pleased with the name).

Then there was the great Ripper disappointment. This only slightly rivaled the Great Wooly Mammoth disappointment. I can't recall the channel (probably Discovery), but they spammed every cable channel with advertisements in the late '90s (I think) about unearthing a wooly mammoth. All my friends and I waited for the special with bated breath. It ended up being so bad (and again, I can't recall why, but everyone felt the same way) that we have referred to it as the Great Wooly Mammoth Disappointment ever since. But I digress. Back to Ripper. I received the game as a gift and was enjoying playing it, but one of the play discs had a problem, and I was never able to finish it (very frustrating for someone with OCD). I put the game down in frustration. I did try to purchase another at some point, but I couldn't find a copy back then.

An insurmountable addiction and my descent into madness: Civilization II, III, IV ...

And then came Civilization. This is my longest running addiction, even topping smoking (which I thankfully quit eleven years ago). I had never played the first Civ version, but I was given the second by a 'friend' who was convinced I would enjoy it. Enjoy? I became completely obsessed. Wait, did I say friend? I believe I meant 'addiction enabler.' I've played Civ II, Civ III and am currently still playing Civ IV. I bought Civ V, but I did not find it nearly as enjoyable as Civ IV, which I immediately went back to. I have notebooks detailing my city names, plans for each city, and so on.

Civilization is also a game for which some of the funniest videos have been made. This video makes me laugh because my husband hates going for a cultural victory. He's something of a warmonger when it comes to Civ. Also, anyone who has ever played and had a WTF moment regarding a combat loss will appreciate it: Hitler Plays Civilization IV. The CivAnon videos are very funny, and even though I didn't like Civ V, I can appreciate Edna's enthusiasm. I usually name my leader 'Somebody' so the game will announce 'Somebody has joined the Game' and 'Somebody built the Pyramids.' It's the poor man's cure for low self-esteem.

As much as I loved Civ, though, certain aspects of the game can be maddening. For instance, early in a game when I only had ships that could travel along the coast, I was minding my own business working on my culture because my island nation was too far from other land for my ships to reach. Suddenly, along comes another of the same type of limited travel ship from one of the computer player's civilization. This led to me crying foul (words) at my monitor. I also tend to engage in shouting matches with my PC when a lowly group of archers and spearmen mysteriously defeat my army of marines and infantry. But none of that has ever stopped me from playing, although I confess to having gone back a few turns via my saved games in order to properly decimate the offending nation.

Other games I enjoyed during that time were Getaway, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid and Loaded. Loaded was probably my favorite of these. I just loved mindlessly blowing away everyone and everything in my path (oops, score one for those who think video games desensitize people to violence). In fact, hubby and I have gone on Bonnie and Clyde style two-person rampages in this one. Fun for the whole family!

The Modern Era of my Gaming Addiction

When my second husband came along, he brought with him his love for RPG PC games. Despite all of my role-playing, it was the first time I'd played the D&D games. He introduced me to Baldur's Gate, Throne of Bhaal, Tales of the Sword Coast, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, etc., and they became my new obsession. (It's okay because I got him back by introducing him to Civ!) Two of my worst gaming moments came during this period of time. The first was when I played hookey from my programming job to play Icewind Dale. It's the only time I ever missed an obligation to instead play a game, and it remains one of my greatest sources of shame. The second came when my husband arrived home from work and asked what was wrong - I may have been throwing things and providing some other visual clues as to my displeasure. "Kobolds," I told him. "The &%*# kobolds keep killing my party and I can't get out of the mine," (or something to that effect). At any rate, my husband/hero logged in to my game and rescued my party from the mine. I should note that this was the last time I had to ask for his help. Unlike him, I finished them all (thank you OCD). I soon surpassed his abilities in playing the RPGs, and I'll never forget the joy during one (I think it was Shadows of Amn) when I was having difficulty defeating a dragon until my Wand of Wonder (better not write about that out of context!) randomly petrified the dragon, and my group was able to saunter past at a leisurely pace. Unfortunately, I never liked Neverwinter Nights II and stopped playing them at that point. I have since bought a compilation that plays on Vista, but it appears that sadly, those games' time is past. It wasn't as much fun as I remember, probably due to my playing more modern MMORPGs.

Occasionally, in my gaming life, I've experienced what I'll call 'disruptions' to my behavior. This was particularly true during this period in my life when the majority of my communication with my husband was accomplished via dialogue from the game. Anyone who had played these games will recognize them: "I'm getting a bit sleepy", "Don't touch me, I'm super important" (not really one you want to use with your partner), "So I kicked him in the head till he was dead" (that one is very difficult to fit into normal conversation), "If none are better", etc.

Then I was introduced to World of Warcraft by 'friends'. "Here," they said like the man with the creepy van offering candy to a child, "Try this." And like a drug-pusher handing out 'samples' of crack, Blizzard provided a 10-day free trial. (I have got to find new friends!) Sadly, as with my prior gaming addictions, I spent far too much time playing this game. However, after a time, I became disenchanted with the overall attitude of the community. As with the Internet as a whole, players find it far too easy to be rude, mean and even cruel to the other faceless (faceless other than that all important avatar, that is) players they meet. Everyone seems to forget that there is another living person sitting at the other end. The limitations on my ignore list size prevented me from enjoying the game and the later expansions seemed to take away from the Azeroth experience for me. The game seemed to be little more than a daily grind, and eventually I just stopped playing. One thing that did always make me laugh as a programmer was the fact that all the kids playing thought the game had been created for them. Little did they know that there is an entire generation of now middle-aged people who were raised on gaming and like to use their skills to create entertainment for themselves and their peers. In fact, I met plenty of players who were quite a bit older than I was. You could usually tell because they were kinder and more helpful than the others. I went back to it once but quickly remembered why I had quit.

Now that I was done with that phase, I again looked for more PC games and found Virtual Villagers. It may seem like a silly and simplistic game compared with others I've played, but I found them quite enjoyable. The worst thing about that game is the incredibly annoying sound bytes you hear when you pick up the characters, especially the children, whose least annoying sound is a laugh that's nearly impossible to recreate (I've tried) and whose worst is the annoying, high-pitched way they say 'hey' when you try to put them to a task. Once I realized I couldn't make them work (somewhat annoying early in the game), I tried to deposit them in shark-infested waters thinking that would provide at least some entertainment. To my disappointment, the adults were able to out-swim the sharks and the children just ended up back on dry land. However, by far the best part was that I could tab back and forth between the game and Word. When I hit a snag in the writing of my books, I checked on my villagers. There was one sad occurrence where I forgot to pause the game (it continues running if you don't) and forgot about the game for a few months. When I logged back on, all that was left of my villagers were a bunch of skeletons and an elderly couple that was nearly dead of starvation. I felt like some kind of mass murderer and stopped playing it for a while, although I've just downloaded another one and started playing it again (unfortunately the graphics get screwed up in Windows 8 if I tab away, which is limiting my play time), as well as the word games I've always loved: Scrabble, Text Twist and Super Letter Linker.

Then I found Plants vs. Zombies. Fun! I love this little game, especially the bowling and whack-a-zombie puzzles. I've just realized that I have yet to install that on my new PC (here's hoping it will work in Windows 8) and will have to start all over again. Darn. :P The best part was that I experienced few life-interrupting effects from this one apart from walking around the house saying, "Brains."

Oh and I can't post this without mentioning Drench, a simple flash game that I just love to play.

I did start playing Guild Wars II, but by that time, I was too involved in writing my own books to spend much time with it. Any time I did logon, I always felt I should be writing instead, which I am ... with the exception of the fact that I am still in the middle of two different Civ IV campaigns. I told you it's my longest running addiction. I just can't seem to stop. Maybe I should go to a CivAnon meeting ...

Pay it Forward - a new letter writing campaign

Bear with me while I share the story that led to my campaign. Many years ago when I was still in college, I was required to take a senior seminar, the only requirement of which was that it had to be outside your major area of study. For me, that meant no math or computer science. I had transferred to the school as a senior and didn't have four years' worth of experience with the faculty or student rumors, so I didn't know anything about the seminars. I selected "The Politics of Revolution" because I thought it sounded interesting. I was to learn later, that most seniors tried to get into classes that were known to be easy or taught by lenient professors, but I didn't know any better.

I took my form to the registrar's office and the clerk shook her head. Apparently, the seminars - which were a graduation requirement - filled up quickly. "Which professor?" she asked. I answered and she said, "Oh, yeah, that one'll be open." Now, that should have been a warning, right? What can I say? I was naive.

There were 30 students on the first day of class. How am I so sure of that number? Because the professor made a point of counting aloud. He handed out a fairly demanding syllabus. 90-110 pages of reading for each class, one 10 page critical analysis of A Brave New World, and a 15-20 page thesis on a guerrilla group. The professor gave two grades per class (one before the break and another after). He made sure every student was asked two questions per class. Papers were due at 5:30 (the start of class). He took off five points for each minute it was late. Additionally, if your paper was only half of the required page count, your grade started at 50.

I am a literal-minded geek, so I loved it. I knew exactly what I had to do to get a good grade. I was kind of tired of students failing the required work and asking if they could write an extra-credit paper to make up points. How is that fair to a student who actually studied and did all of the required work on time?

At any rate, I did the best work of my academic career in that class. I was proud of my thesis, and it won a writing award for being the best senior thesis that semester. The night he handed back the papers, I was leaving the building to go home when I was stopped by other students. I should point out that there were only 14 of the original 30 left by that point, the others having dropped the class weeks before. These students were getting together to write a letter of complaint about the professor. I had received an awesome grade and wanted no part of their rebellion.

I went home but the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed that they were complaining. So I sat down and wrote a glowing letter to the deans about him and the awesome experience I had in his class. I wrote that his class was a credit to the school and a shining example of quality education. I never knew what happened with that letter (except that the professor is still teaching there), but it opened the experience of writing positive letters to me. And I liked it.

Most people only write letters of complaint. I hate doing that. First of all, everyone has had a bad day at one time or another and not responded well to a difficult situation. That silly letter you write could be held against someone receiving a raise or a promotion. I don't like that kind of karma. Don't get me wrong, there are situations in which it is warranted - if you were cheated of money or services, or someone was cruel or hurtful beyond just having a poor stress response. Generally speaking, however, I avoid complaint letters.

Instead, I write glowing letters of thanks and recommendation. I wrote one to a financial institution after their representative spent hours helping me transfer 401K money around and explaining my options, etc. To my surprise, a few weeks later, I received a call from the representative's supervisor telling me that the employee would be recognized at the company's annual meeting because of my letter. I felt awesome and all I was getting was a thank you! Imagine how good the gentleman who helped me was feeling!

Karmically speaking, I suppose I was paid back when a few years later, a client wrote a letter of thanks to my employer for my help in fixing some long-standing programming problems they had been having. And I was right - it did feel really good to have someone write a nice letter about me.

Anyway, writing letters of thanks has become a thing for me. To date, I've received four or five responses from companies, thanking me for taking the time and noting that the employee would be recognized or have a positive note added to their employment record. And it's much easier these days - for a lot of companies you can submit them on-line. No stamps, envelopes or mail boxes involved! If you want to do something nice for a deserving stranger, I highly recommend this.