Gamer Family

One of the presents we received at Christmas was a bit of a first for us. Our friends were getting the new Nintendo Wii-U for Christmas and passed on the old original Wii to us as a (rather nice) present. I had to buy a couple of cables for this but it works perfectly. We have avoided having a games console in the house up until now. The children all have hand-held consoles of varying types that they play on long car journeys (which is preferable to the alternative which is strangling each other) but we have resisted a TV based games console in the house as they spend too much time with the handhelds as it is and, more importantly, I’d rather not lose the use of my big telly.

I’ve never quite taken to being a video gamer. I’ve tried out a few things and occasionally found the odd passing amusement but I tend to be so ham-fisted that I rapidly lose interest. I’ve never really been a “gamer boy” which is odd as I was actually quite heavily involved with them in the early days of home computing. When I was first learning to use computers I wrote various games for the Commodore computers – initially the VIC-20 and later the Commodore-64 (with it’s massive 64K memory). I swapped some of these with my friends – typically these were the games everyone did such as the Snake, Breakout and a rudimentary Space Invaders clone. The ones I did in BASIC would be printed out and sent to various home computer magazines to be reproduced so that some poor sap could type them back in. For this a small payment would be received (I think I got as much as £50 from one which seemed like a lot at the time).

I’d be interested to know if any of my old games were still out there although they were so generic for the most part that there were, no doubt, better versions available - and one game called “Seal Clubbing” is probably best forgotten. I suppose over time I moved on to other interests – music probably took over more than anything else. However, I seemed to get more enjoyment from writing games than playing them. I also could see that I had my limitations and I can remember that seeing the game “Elite” for the first time was a revelation – not only in the quantum leap in gaming complexity but also that I couldn’t even see how it was possible to make something that complex on such limited hardware.

I watched Charlie Brooker’s How Videogames Changed The World a few weeks ago which was entertaining viewing but which also highlighted how the Wii really changed the way that videogames are perceived. Gaming, even in multi-user internet variations, is a rather solitary activity whereby the gamer and machine are isolated from the outside world. It’s debatable as to who controls who. The Wii is (or at least can be) different in that the whole family can play together and still interact with each other. It does depend on the game as some require taking turns whereas others allow everyone to play together but the Sports games in particular allow for an interactive social experience far removed from the hyper-concentrated man-machine.

The other thing that the Wii does that other games fail at is to get the children to be active. The tennis and boxing games in particular are actually a pretty good workout. We also have a couple of dancing games which I thought would be a bit naff but actually seem to be popular with the children and can get them out of breath. Some of the other games are more traditional solo efforts which does require waiting for “a shot” at the controller. However, I can see the entertainment value in the Wii. Maybe, I was never destined to be a Gamer Boy but part of a Gamer Family?