Gale Force

This month the Atari 2600 celebrated its 30th birthday. In honor of this momentous occasion, RetroThing has just wrapped up Atari Week reminding so many of us where are love of video gaming originated.

It got me thinking about my video gaming roots so I put together a brief genealogy of video gaming at the Gale house.

1. In the beginning was Atari 2600.
2. And Atari 2600 begat TI-99/4A.
3. And TI-99/4A begat Colecovision.
4. And Colecovision begat Intellivsion.
5. And Intellivsion begat NES and the people did rejoice exceedingly.
6. And NES begat Sega Genesis.
7. And Sega Genesis begat SNES.
8. And SNES begat N64 which begat PlayStation.
9. And PlayStation lived many years and was fruitful in the land.
10. And PlayStation begat Dreamcast.
11. And Dreamcast begat Xbox and Xbox became modded and was highly favored of the people.
12. And Xbox still holds a special place amongst the noble and great ones.
13. And Xbox begat Wii.
14. And Wii begat Xbox 360 and thus ended the reign of video games.

Our family was pretty cutting-edge when it came to console gaming. We were usually the first one on the block with the “new” system (due in part to my mother being employed at ToyWorld [later Kay-Bee Toys] for the better part of my childhood) and a large part of our discretionary income was spent on expanding our games library. With the exception of the PS2 and the Sega Saturn I think I pretty much covered all the important console bases growing up. The neighborhood kids flocked to our basement and many a Friday night was spent trying to beat a standing Hi Score (to this day I think my MouseTrap, Asteroids, Tetris and Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins records still stand). Ahh the good old days.

Here’s the funny thing about video games…with very few exceptions (Guitar Hero, Wii Sports and a few driving games) the old classics are far more entertaining and enjoyable to me than any of the games available today. I still have my old Xbox running emulators of all the great systems including Coleco, Atari 2600 and the original NES. Invariably I’ll catch myself playing Excitebike, Tetris or Super Mario Bros. far more often than Halo, Madden or Ghost Recon.

I guess it’s true what they say…you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe we just don’t want to learn.

Happy birthday Atari VCS.

Nerf warlocks! Buff retribution! Prot warriors are worthless in PvP! Karazhan destroys guilds! Daily quests are full of loss! Oh wait…I don’t care anymore!

That’s right folks…after 3 years and more /played time then I’m willing to admit, I have broken up with Blizzard. I was paying for two accounts and I just didn’t feel like I was getting $30 worth of entertainment out of it each month. I had no interest in raiding after BC came out, questing and grinding was a bore and level 70 PvP was tedium at best. The only thing that has held my interest over the past several monthas was twinked PvP.

Meet Jerrenn. There’s something very fulfilling about taking a lower level character and gearing him up to the absolute max and then unleashing him on unsuspecting victims in Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch. My good friend got in on the action and created a 49 warrior, Descartes, who completed the “dynamic duo” of 40-49 PvP. DPS Warrior + Holy Paladin = wtfpwn. Oh the battles we fought….matches single-handedly won for the Alliance, faces melted, HKs galore, nodes captures, flags returned. These were good times.

Like every good thing though…it had to come to an end. Descartes went into retirement feeling like WoW had become Unreal Tournament - only not free. I soon followed and the dynamic duo is no more. Maybe we’ll make a WotLK comeback…I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility. But for now, good luck Alliance 40-49 PvP in the Cyclone battle group…you’ll need it.

So, faithful readers, my first and last WoW post you’ll ever read. Hope you enjoyed.

Don’t forget this week is Unplug ‘n’ Play week.  So what are you doing reading this (OK I’m kidding myself that anyone reads my blog)…go outside already!

But just so you know, our family is fully mostly on board with the program.  My wife and I have amended the rules with the “after-hours” clause that will allow us to watch some ST:TNG episodes at night once the kids are in bed.  Other than that, we’re unplugged for the week.  Please allow me to say some parting words:

To my Wii - Sorry buddy…I won’t be seeing you this week.  We’ll have to bowl an extra game come Monday.  I will miss your soothing, pulsating blue light.

To my Xbox - Why haven’t I upgraded you to a 360 yet?  I doubt I’ll miss you much this week…but the kids will.

To WoW - We have such a love/hate relationship…I think the time away will be good for both of us.

To Guitar Hero II - I hate that I can’t beat Misirlou on expert yet.  I won’t miss trying this week.

The Utah Department of Health is sponsoring a week-long event called Unplug ‘n’ Play that encourages children to Unplug from video games, TV, computers and respirators.  OK so they can keep the respirator plugged in…but you get the idea.  The event kicks off tomorrow (April 14) but the official uPnP week is from Apr 23-29.

With a son who loves video games (/sniff I’m so proud of you son) I fully understand the need for them to “unplug” every now and then and, GASP, go outside! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught my son playing air guitar hero lately…I think the unplug even might be good for him.

With that said, I officially give the Utah DoH’s uPnP event my stamp of approval. I’m sure they’ll be happy to learn that they have received this lofty honor.

My buddy and I talked about having a retro-gaming LAN party soon. It got me thinking of all the “good ol’ games” that we used to play. So, in honor of all the wasted hours and empty cans of Mountain Dew, here is installment #1 of “My List of the Best Games EVAR”!

Unreal Tournament

I feel like Scotty from one of the greatest Star Trek TNG episodes of all time — “Relics”

Computer: Please enter program.
Scotty: The android at the bar told me you could show me my ship. Let me see her.
Computer: Insufficient data. Please specify.
Scotty: The Enterprise! Show me the Enterprise you chattering piece of…
Computer: There have been five Federation starships by that name. Please provide registry number.
Scotty: (perturbed) N-C-C-1-7-0-1. No bloody A, B, C, OR D.

Unreal Tournament … no bloody 2003, 2004 (or 2007?) was the best FPS game of all time. My favorite memories of work had nothing to do with the work we did (duh!) … it was all about the after hours UT tournaments! For some reason, no other FPS has quite caught my attention like UT did. It seemed to have the perfect weapon arsenal (minigun anyone?) and that “just right” game play.

Apparently I’m not alone in thinking UT deserves props among the best FPS games of all time. A survey on GameSpot put UT WAY ahead of QIII in FPS popularity and UT has graced many “Best FPS games” lists around the interwebs.

What made UT so great? From GameSpot

As much variety as UT had in its original release, what gave it staying power over the years were the mods and mutators. The mutator format made it easy to package and distribute minor gameplay tweaks, such as instagib game types or low-gravity settings. Since the mutators acted on the game servers, players didn’t have to download anything extra themselves; they just had to join a game with a given mutator enabled. UT’s mod scene also provided a decent selection of free content, such as the popular Tactical Ops mod, which aped the massively popular Counter-Strike but with UT’s much better graphics under the hood. If anyone needs further proof of UT’s greatness, there’s the simple fact that there are still thousands of people playing the core game every day, not just the most popular mods.

Tomorrow Someday….Starcraft