by Wesley
Home >> My Nintendo Revolution
This was, for my family, the first and only “Nintendo Revolution.â€? It was Christmas, 1986, and Santa Claus’s “family giftâ€? was the new NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). “Family giftâ€? meant that Dad was the boss of it and that no child could claim ownership rights. In this case I say Dad because Mom lost interest after her first lethal encounter with a Goomba.
The NES came with one cartridge that had two games, Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt was boring; I never liked hunting anyway. You just shot at ducks that flew out of the bushes. We liked to get within about three inches of the TV screen, thus making it impossible to miss. When we were instructed to back up because we could go blind, the ducks got away and the useless hunting dog popped out of the bushes to laugh at us. Later an urban legend stated that there was a way to shoot the dog. I think not.
Super Mario Bros. was more fun. Oh, the adventure! Jumping on Goombas and Koopa Troopas and throwing (looked like spitting to us!) fireballs all over the place provided hours of hypnotic entertainment. I don’t think I ever got to the end of the game; video games have never been my fortĂ©. But that didn’t matter. It was amusing just playing again and again and again.
My family was a “humbleâ€? family, so to speak, and game cartridges were ridiculously expensive (at least that’s what we were told). We never had that many, maybe five after ten years of having the thing. I eventually lost interest as newer and more exciting consoles and games came out and I was stuck with my grainy Mario and the laughing dog.
One game that did attract my mother’s attention was Bible Adventures. Joy! You could pick one of three games: Noah’s Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath. In Noah’s Ark, you got to be a Noah of super-human strength and round up the animals to then shove in the Ark. If they didn’t participate, you could somehow knock them out. In Baby Moses, you were Moses’s mother and carry him to safety. In David and Goliath, surprise, surprise, you played David as a shepherd boy and then as the slayer (or not) of Goliath. During all of this action, you didn’t just get to play, as in Super Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt. No, you had to learn Bible verses, too. The joy of the Lord is my strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and all that jazz. One that I find particularly humorous but that never came up in these games (nor in Sunday School) is this one: “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horsesâ€?.â€?(Ezekiel 23:20) I wonder what game they would have stuck that one in!
Regardless of the content of my Nintendo video games, I can say that it was a revolution for us. No more Monopoly or imagination games. It was all there, on a screen and with a little control panel, we could enter a new world, a world that was not our own. Good, bad, maybe a little of both. Children today would scoff at what we thought to be epitome of technological advancement, that and the cassette tape!
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2006-05-04 10:00:00 +0200
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Hello Wesley,
When video games came out it was easy to be surprised by games because everything was new !!! . I really had a lot of fun playing Nintendo games.
Today things are different because it is hard for a game to stand out. I haven’t seen any original ideas lately, or games that really surprise me. I must admit that newer games have better graphics and sound, but that’s it.
I think that as long as we don’t abuse, video games can also help us develop different abilities and skills, depending on the type of game we play.
Regards,
Cristina
I think games producers should be obliged to make educational games too (although not like the ones Wesley had to endure).
The Playstation is a dangerous waste of time, space and money. Children become more aggressive.
In my house it is banned. When friends come to stay we ask them to tell their children that no video games are allowed. And the great thing is that the children then play quite happily with Monopoly, Risk, ping-pong etc.
Just because children can have something doesn’t mean they should have it.
Video games were never a problem for me because I was never “addicted” to them but I do realise that there are children, more now than ever, that don’t know how to do anything else.
If a video game helps develop the mind, I’m all for it. But I’m not for violence or simple time-wasting. All in good measure. All in good measure.
Recently I admitted to my friends and, mistakenly, to the children, that I had two imaginary friends when I was little. I now realise that children don’t have imaginary friends anymore because they don’t have imaginations. Call me schizophrenic, but I think that’s sad!
I thought video games were for children until I met my daughter’s boyfriend.
Anyway, in this day and age, we can’t expect children to be 100% the “wholesome,� angelic, low-tech children of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES, who invariably saw caravans of beasts when mama put out the light and watched cities crumble in blinking embers, who climbed trees to look abroad on foreign lands and sailed off to Malabar aboard a basket in the hayloft, who, when sick and abed, sent fleets up and down the sheets.
Because I am a sane, reasonable, non-obsessive, “today” parent, ha ha, I have not deprived my Oscar of his Game Boy and Play Station. My rules and regulations are sacred, of course.
One Play Station game that meets my motherly approval is actually many games in one. The range is olympic, it’s called “Athens 2004.� It’s most instructive for one whose sport culture is below par. Suddenly I know all about long jump, high jump, triple jump, pole vault, discus throw, javelin throw, and shot put, to mention only the field events. Thanks to Play Station, I’m ready for Beijing 2008.
And when the noise gets much too much too much, when I feel he’s straying too far from Narnia, I simply exercise my parental prerogative, wield my confiscation powers. One day, I yelled:
NO MORE GAME STATION AND PLAY BOY!
That Baby Moses game is ridiculous. If God’s plan was for him to be adopted by an Egyptian princess, why alter it? A good Bible game that I can think of would be something like “Pro Evolution Magi 3”, where Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar, teamed together like Charlie’s Angels, have to use their astronomical knowledge to find gold, frankincense and myrrh, and then, find the stable in Bethlehem where Baby Jesus awaits them. They have to be careful – bandits are everywhere! The game could be played in a team or competitively (who gets there first?). Advantages of the game:
1) You memorise biblical passages like “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw the rising of his star in the east and have come to honour him.” (Matthew 2: 2).
2) You learn a lot about astronomy and orientation. There were no GPSs at that time!
Well well well…..I remember playing MUCH Super Mario Brothers 2 with you when we were kids, Wesley. I must admit that while never becoming “addicted” to video games…I have devoted a great deal of time to them. Not wholly devoted to playing them, but somewhat involved in their development nowadays. If there’s art involved, I’m doin’ it. Keep in touch, Wes.