Despite seeing Christmas decorations showing up at my local Lowes store, Halloween is a month away. It's Noah's favorite holiday, as he loves dressing up...and the free candy is a big bonus as well. Last year he went as several characters, one of which, as you can see in this picture, is Mario. The costume is the same one you see being sold just about everywhere today. The only original thing from the costume was his basket. Although you can't tell from the picture, but there's a Starman on the front of the basket that my wife made with some yellow foam fabric. The basket itself was one that was in the shape of Spiderman's head, but she used that fabric to cover it up and place the Starman in front. So the question was asked of what he wanted to go as this year. And his response was Luigi. Should we just buy the same type of costume again? I wanted to do something different, as in, buy some actual clothes, i.e. jean overalls, long sleeve shirt, white gloves, make look more organic at least instead of that all-in-one catsuit type of costume that are usually made. I haven't started out on looking for these items yet, but I'll be sure to show the final result if I do find the items I'm looking for.

See that picture? It's supposed to have the number 49 in it. I say 'supposed to', because I can't see it. Yes, I'm color blind. It's a funny thing to have, as I see the world just a little differently than others. At a stop light, the green light appears a greyish-white. When playing Uno, the red and green colored cards will look identical. And if some T-shirt has some brilliantly colored design on front, it could look dull and bland or really awful to me. It does have some disadvantages and I've never heard of any advantages in being color blind, except maybe you can really say that graphics don't matter, because it'll look crappy with all of the dull colors you see (ok, bad example). But overall, it's nothing to get upset about, really only hampers the little things, and is nothing to fret over, except...


It can have a frustrating effect when playing certain video games. Take for instance Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for the PS1. Years ago, I was looking forward to this as something both the wife and I can play together. When we started playing against each other, she was wiping the floor with me, as she kept beating me over and over again with ease. She then wondered why I was placing these red gems with the green ones? I asked, "Wait, that's green?" Next match, same question from her, but now questioning the greens and yellows together. My response? "I thought that was yellow!" Game was unplayable for me, unless I changed the tint of the television set to where it made the four colors more distinguishable to me, but at the same time, it made the presentation of the game in general, butt-ugly.

Then there are other action/platformer type of games, where everything is fine, until I come up to some sort puzzle that is color based. If it has any combination of red/green/yellow or blue/purple involved, then I'm screwed. Before, I have to get someone, like my wife, to tell me what this color is and that and try to move forward. Thankfully, it hasn't dampened my enjoyment on playing video games throughout the years and it's just something that comes around rarely, if at all.

Noah doesn't seem to be inflicted by it...so far, which is a good thing, cause if that one time that I get stuck due to color ever arises, I know he's right there, watching me play, and will be able to help me out with correct color identification.

Toys, toys, toys. Who doesn't love toys? Seeing some of the toys that are made today, really makes me envious in that, "Man I wish I had that as a kid," type of feelings. But there's still some things that today's toys cannot match in awesomeness in regards to what I played with and seen in my youth. But one of the things that I didn't get to mess around with are video game themed toys. The only thing that came close to that to which I owned were the board game versions of Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man and the best one of the bunch, Pac-Man. Now, there's tons of stuff out there, which are mostly in toy figure form, but that was better than nothing back then.

This past year, while out Christmas shopping for our nephews and nieces, my son had spotted something in the remote control car section at the toy department at Target. "Dada, come check this out!" I went over and saw on the shelf, miniature remote controlled Mario Karts. I couldn't believe how small these things were. Of course he wanted them right then and there, but I told him to wait until it's Christmas, while at the same time, making a mental note of possible things to get him for Christmas or what to recommend to relatives if they ask what he wants for Christmas. So he got three of them, Mario from us, Wario from my parents and Bowser from my wife's parents.

So how great is it? Eh...it's alright, but these things have some issues. First off, the rubber tires in the front always comes off. Why the front tires are not secured on there, like the back tires, I have no idea. Second, the range to how far the kart can go from you is limited, very limited. In the picture, you see the white square remote, which is also small itself. You have to keep pointing it to the kart in order for it to move. And if you're thinking of racing the kart from one end of the house to the other, well do your best impression of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and hunch over, keep pointing the remote to the kart and walk behind it in order for it to keep it moving.

But still, it's pretty neat to mess around with. We would create our own race course with Legos or Lincoln Logs and have some live action Mario Kart racing in Noah's room. No throwing shells or drifting, but with some ramps for jumps, its all good.

There was always that one arguement that folks (parents usually) have against video games. "Video games makes you fat and lazy from sitting around all day and eating junk food. Go outside and play!!!" My parents always gave me this lip service when I was young. Thankfully I don't have this problem with the little guy, as you can see from the video below.



This is the way he plays games, always. He'll go into his room, play for a while, then an hour later, he'll come out, dripping in sweat as if he ran a marathon. Being that he's currently growing up on the Wii, the motion controls kind of got him that way, even when he's playing Super Smash Bros. Melee with a Gamecube controller. Sometimes when he's watching me play and I'm in an agressive situation, he'll start jumping around like that as well. The guy is going to have some strong legs.

In my second post, I had mentioned how fascinated I was at the etiquette of people knowing when their turn was when playing a video game at an arcade, especially when swarms of people are crowded over one game in particular. In my years of wasting, quite possibly, thousands of quarters at arcades, I'm pretty lucky in that I've saw very few instances to where someone would vulgar scream someone down or start a fight at an arcade. I've always consider arcades safe and friendly place to go to and hang out at, with or without quarters.

Whenever I'm playing against someone, I try to say "Good game", win or lose. I don't always say it as I'll forget due to myself getting caught up in the moment of "Damn I was so close!" Most of the time when I do say it, I'll get the same response from the other player. It felt good, showing respect to the other player while they returned the favor.

There was this one time that I dealt with someone who was more interested in winning than actually playing. I was playing on Marvel Vs. Capcom, and had gotten pretty decent at it. Some guy comes up, "NEW CHALLENGER!" Picked my two fighters, he picked his, and we both eliminated one fighter. Almost down to the wire and I managed to come up with a win at the end. The same guy plops down more quarters for another game. Deja-vu, almost, except this time, I managed to keep both of my fighters. More quarters drop, my win count goes up to 3. The guy is getting frustrated and goes for game number four. Now something strange is going on as he's starting to lean over my side and start slapping his hand down on the control board, as if a spider was running loose and he's trying to kill it with his hand. Then he found his target, the Player One Start button.

If you're not familiar with what this button does in Marvel Vs. Capcom, it's pretty much your taunt button. Press it and your character does this taunt pose for a few seconds to the point that you cannot control them at this time. So he's slapping down on the Player One Start button, but the problem with this is that I'm Player One. This guy is trying to make my fighters go into this taunt pose which basically makes them vulnerable to his attacks. Throughout the whole fight, he did this tatic. He managed go get some hits in to deplete both my fighters life bars down to a quarter. But I didn't say anything. I don't know why. He wasn't this menacing figure head and was a few inches shorter than me. But I kept going as if not noticing. I made some adjustments in how I played by keeping my fighters in the air and with me playing in this approach, it had thrown him off of his gameplan of how to attack me and then game is over. Player One win count: 4.

Here's the one time I can actually say "Cheaters Never Win" and have proof.

When it comes to gift giving around Christmas time, the wife and I always keep it to a minimum between us. Nothing expensive, nothing fancy, keep it simple. So this past Christmas, my wife, who is a high school teacher, asked one of her students to knit something for her as a present to me. This is the result.

This fine set of embroidery you see are Pac-Man coasters. Really came in handy for our rustic coffee table.

And a yarn ball Pac-Man, complete with...a red tongue? I don't know what use I would have for it, other than throwing it around as a ball. Noah would get it and run around with it in the air and saying, "Wucka-wucka."

I liked them both and it put a smile on my face.

My kid is a Super Smash Bros. freak. Loves to play it all the time. I'll post his total play time another day, so that you can see what I mean. But for now, think back to your elementary school days and all those arts and crafts projects you did, especially around the major holidays. Hand shaped Thanksgiving turkeys, Easter eggs colored with crayon, and a Christmas tree paper cut-out with glitter all over. And when it comes to Valentine's Day, what do you usually make? Right, a Valentine's Day card.

So this past year, my son's pre-K class was given this task to do, cut-out and paste hearts, write or draw something on it, whatever. When he finished and was able to bring it home, below is the result.



So what the hell is this? This is his Valentine's card to us, adorned with Super Smash Bros. Melee characters. He explained the card as follows:

1. Adult Link - with swords and a bow and arrow.
2. Olimar from Pikmin - big nose and the fishbowl like spacesuit helmet. Oh, and the little stick men on his right are the actual Pikmin.
3. Toon Link - same as Adult Link...but smaller.
4. Pit from Kid Icarus - with wings and a bow and arrows.
5. Snake from MGS - and yes that is his bandanna flowing in the wind.

In the lower left corner, he explained that there was some sort of Pokemon fight going on, but I couldn't tell and he just got frustrated with me in explaining it over and over again.

So there you go, Super Smash Bros. Melee drawn by a 5 year-old.

Now that you know about how I got introduced to video games, how did the little one, Noah, get into it? His curiosity started when he was around three.

Then and now, his interests are the same as any other boy, loves dogs, Hot Wheel cars, Thomas trains, and Marvel superheroes. TV viewing habits are, as you can predict, anything on Nick and the Cartoon Network. Usually when I'm playing something on TV, he'll look at the screen for a bit and then wander off looking for a toy or something. Then one day, he saw that I was playing Pac-Man Championship Edition and was amused by it. He liked that I was eating the ghosts and seeing the eyes scramble away. I asked him if he wanted to play it and he did for a little bit, but then got frustrated right away. He gave the controller back to me and wanted me to play so he can see some more ghost chomping action. A few days later, he came up to me and asked, "Can you play wukka-wukka?" When I heard that question for the first time I responded with the accurate, "Wukka...what?" And then I finally understood. He was talking about the sound Pac-Man makes when he eats the dots. I should've realized this right away, because everyone knows that wukka-wukka is the interational standard sound for Pac-Man. Later on, he got more interested in video games and requesting me to play them with his question asking techniques that reflect his visual interpretation. For instance, I was playing the first Lego Indiana Jones game for the 360 and he liked it a lot to the point he would ask, "Can you play Cowboy game again?"

When Super Mario Galaxy came out, the infatuation began. Mario mania had infected my boy and he is still infected today. Mario this and Mario that, he couldn't stop talking about it. And then when I was able to play as Luigi, he thought that was the most awesome-est thing ever. At the time, all the time, Super Mario Galaxy was the only game he wanted me to play. And hey, I love the game, but jeez, I can only take so much. So then I wanted to see what his reaction would be if I started playing something else that had Mario or Luigi in it, but from the past. So let's go back one console generation and see his reaction to Luigi's Mansion. With his cartoon rotation viewing habits that included Scooby-Doo, the mix of scary ghosts, a haunted mansion and Luigi was just about perfect for him. Alright then, let's go a couple more generations back. Dusted off my SNES and popped in Super Mario World. Pique interest was shown, but the minute I got the feather power-up, he flipped out. "Mario super hero? That's awesome!" We got this far, might as well go all the way. Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES. Verdict? "Mario raccoon? That's crazy! Hit the goomba with your tail da-da!"

This is all great, but there's one problem. For all this time, he had just been a spectator and not a participant. Lot's of times, I would ask if he wanted to play, but again and again, he would reply "No thanks." I don't know for sure if it was because it was too complicated for him to play, or just liked being the spectator and watch the game being played. But when Mario Kart Wii came out, it changed all that. His head nearly exploded at the fact that two of his favorite things, Mario and cars, are together in one package. When he saw how I was controlling the cars, he just couldn't resist anymore and started playing. That's my boy!

So there you go, that's his introduction. I really can't pinpoint as to why he got involved into video games, or why I got involved myself, for that matter. Was it the sights? Sounds? Tech? All of the above? I don't know, it's all different now as it was then, but still familiar.

So how did I become an addict? It goes all the way back to Pong. This one day out of the blue, my Dad had pulled out this Pong console from the closet for everyone to play. He hooked it up to an old black and white TV that we had lying around and we all had a chance to play it. I think I was six at the time, I wasn't that good at it, but it didn't matter, I was having fun with it.

It was soon after that moment that I had started noticing arcade games popping up around town. I saw Space Invaders for the first time, in cocktail table format, at our local Pizza Hut. In the summertime, I would always go with my Mom grocery shopping cause, at first, I always liked looking at the toys they had there. But then, I had a new reason for wanting to go. The store started hosting arcade games and that's where I got my first look at Asteroids. Seeing the multiple buttons, the side cabinet artwork and the wire frame-like graphics, it just caught my attention instantly. I attempted to play it, but I wasn't that good at it, and being a six-year-old at the time, there was no way I can. But I loved to watch people play it, no matter what their skill level was.

A year later, with more and more arcade games coming out, the grocery store seemed like it had a new game every couple of weeks. And then out of nowhere, this small portable trailer just got stationed there, just outside of the grocery store. But inside it, to my surprise, was an arcade. Five pinball machines, two cocktail table games (one of them my brother and I fondly remember it being Radar Scope) and around 10-15 upright arcade games, all stuffed into this small portable trailer, with lots of people in there all the time. I remember crowds of people waiting their turn with their quarters lined up all on the marquee, and watching someone play Donkey Kong, Centipede, or Tempest.

Getting off track here a little, you know, I still find that very fascinating to this day, that people would put their quarters up along with a dozen others on the arcade's marquee for their chance to play. And it wasn't like they had their name on the quarters themselves or a sign-in sheet as to who goes when, but it was all done in a friendly manner, no quarrels or fighting on who goes next, everyone knew when it was their turn.

Anyway, it was Christmas time in 1981. I was eight at the time and my brothers and I were unwrapping presents, and there was one in particular that was for all three of us. We opened it and it was the Atari 2600 system. Now, I was very naive about the existence of this system or what it was and had never asked for it as a gift. I do remember playing Combat on it before at my uncle's house, but that was it. Now we have our own Atari 2600 with Combat, Asteroids and Space Invaders to play. Both of my brothers wanted to play Asteroids, I want to play Space Invaders. Soon, we were all getting good at the games to which we were holding competitions on who can get the highest score, but in a different way.

As most people know, Atari 2600 games never saves scores and don't have a "High Score" screen that arcades do. Also, the number of digits displayed were limited to four places. So what happens if you're playing, your score is at 9999, and you score again? Simple, it "turned over" to 0000 and starts again. So for us, to get the high score, it wasn't the number itself, but the number of times each of us were able to get the score to be "turned over". If you "turned over" five times and the score was at 7840, then the only thing that matters is that you "turned over" five times and that's it.

As we kept getting more games and trying to get the high score, in the end, it was I who was on top for all the games we had, except for one...Asteroids. My second oldest brother beat my "turned over" count of 10, with his 11.

This pretty much cemented on video games being my main interest from here on out. My parents hated it, cause they felt the system would ruin the TV (which it didn't) and they felt it would keep me inactive and I would become a sloth and anti-social (it didn't as I would go outside and go over to my neighbor's house and play Atari with them). But hey, I still came out OK, I guess. Hard to believe that I've been a video game freak for over 30 years.

Hello and welcome to the fourteenth billion and some odd gaming blog. So what makes this one so special and different from the others? Nothing really, as I like to play, read, see, hear, just do about anything that is related to video games. I'm not an insider, a journalist, or a programmer, but just your average video game consumer. The main purpose of this blog is to write out a list of video game experiences and feelings from the past to the present, but not only from my point of view, but also from the view of my son.

In a father and son relationship, there's always that hope and dream that as a Dad, you hope that your offspring will follow in your footsteps or becomes very interested in what you do, be it whether it's related to sports, work, or hobbies. So you can imagine my surprise when my boy, at the ripe age of 3, starting taking an interest to whatever I fired up on the TV and started to play.

Then what makes this situation unique from other relationships and from those kids who are also interested in video games? Again, nothing really, as we're just your average father and son who both love video games and I'm using this as a listing of making simple observations that I hope are entertaining and enjoyed by those who read them.