New Grump

Sabbatical is such a classy word.  We’ve been on sabbatical – we’ve taken a leave of absence.  Which is different from “we’ve Tekken a leave of absence,”  which is the king of iron fist absences.  Really, the Grumps have just been doing other things.  Finding new jobs.  Moving to new states.  Getting engaged.  Having babies.  We’ve also been quietly realizing that this real-life stuff doesn’t feel a bit like video games.  The fact that my son is at Level 0 and earned an ‘achievement’ for eating solid food makes for a clever Facebook update, but raising him doesn’t feel like an RPG, even though I’ve been RPing the shit out of being a dad.

But since this is a gaming website… yes, games. We’ve been gaming – honest!  Let’s talk games.

“Portal 2″ happened back there somewhere - Dan and I even played the co-op.  Craig loved his time with “L.A. Noire,” and loved that it hooked his wife into gaming with him.  I decided to enjoy my back-catalog while redirecting $60 dollar chunks to diapers and take-out food.  It turns out that “Halo Reach” and “Forza 3″ are both evergreen games.

I hereby issue a formal apology to every Halo team who was left with “mannequin cannon fodder” because The Round (a.k.a. my son) needed attention.  I also apologize for my lack of aiming accuracy, as The Round wants nothing more than to have what’s in daddy’s hands, and has no regard for where plasma grenades are supposed to go.   I also apologize for acting like I’m apologizing.  I don’t actually care.  I never care when I leave a Halo team in the lurch – if I did, I might start taking the game seriously, whereas I now have actual serious things to take seriously now.

Does this mean that I’m leaving gaming behind?  I don’t think so.  I’m more connected to it than ever.  Nothing reacquaints you with the playful escape of video games better than a baby.  What moments you get are at such a premium that the game had better be really, really good.  I have no time for grinding.  I am of the opinion that if a game makes you grind, it should be refunding you money, in real time, as you play.

As the matching Minecraft shirts in this photo might suggest, my little boy could very well grow up to be a gamer.  While I do want my son to get skinned knees and piss in the woods and play outfield and hate piano lessons, I would also love for him to be a gamer.  It will be fun to share a passion with my son, but games are also valuable. Understanding the modern world requires gaming skills and perception.

Games are inevitable.  As Doug Zartman said (though he was referring to three-eyed aliens at the time): They’re Everywhere!  Yes, and they will be Super-Everywhere when The Round comes of age.  Super-Everywhere.  That’s the 16-bit Everywhere that comes after the regular Everywhere that we have now.  There’s more colors in Super-Everywhere, and there’s Mode 7.  Our modern computer operating systems are a good example of the embryonic stages of Super-Everywhere.  They’re built of shiny, animated, interactive bits and pieces that were directly influenced by games.  Every corner of an Apple OS is aping the gaming tropes. Things from cars to coffee pots are doing the same.  Hell, the fuel gauge on my 2009 Honda CRV looks like a health bar.  Games are a given.

In the future, when Nolan is older and Facebook is a distant memory, they will be a super-given, in the Super-Everywhere.  People far wiser and more eloquent than me have chattered on about this phenomenon, the “gamification of everything,” as it were. I’ll leave it to them to take the argument further. Just suffice it to say, I would have to work very hard to make Nolan a non-gamer.  So, Nolan will game, and I will game, and Game Grump will go on.  We just might go heavy on the sabbaticals for a while.