STACK Magazine December Issue 122

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GAMES
DECEMBER 2014 JB Hi-Fi
FEATURE
046
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A prevailing childhood memory of mine involves interminably
long drives through the countryside. Sound pleasant? The
novelty wears off after few hours of listening to people
shout on the radio, as your Dad insists on listening to
monotonous Parliamentary debate. My only remedy one
summer holiday involved a Christmas gift: passing the
time on a Space Invaders Calculator. Sound nifty? Not so
much. Your ‘ship’ is a zero. An actual digit: ‘0’. Other digits
(‘invaders’) move down the tiny console to attack you. How
to zap them? You had to feverishly tap an arrow, to change
your zero digit to match that of the closest threatening ‘invader’. If 7 is attacking you,
change your 0 to a 7, hit the equals sign, and boom! He’s a goner! You could
accrue ten points for smacking down a digit, 100 points for a ‘command ship’
(a very sinister looking asterisk). I spent hours doing this one summer. It
was still better than listening to politicians on the radio.
My Gameboy was the first gaming love of my life. After being denied any kind of
gaming consoles or experiences for years, the entry of the Gameboy into my life was
nothing short of pure wish fulfillment. So when I learned of a product that could bring
my Gameboy experiences to the big screen, I was adamant that I should own that
magical device. Unfortunately, this was the days before the Internet, so when ‘Santa’
brought this divine piece of tech to me, what I ended up with was a system that
simply expanded crappy green/black/white colours and graphics onto a large
screen. It almost ruined my love for the Gameboy, and I’ve nursed a distrust
for Santa and his tricky elves ever since.
When most everything I’ve done for work or leisure revolves around games, friends and family steer clear of
anything remotely gamey come Chrissie pressie time. Well, unless they ask what I’d like. So, to my first – late
to the party – experience with Guitar Hero, in its third iteration. Home from family festivities, it was time to
let my inner axe goddess become an outer one. It was ace fun! I played it till my fingers... well, they didn’t
bleed, but they got kinda numb. Suddenly, while wildly shredding Bloc Party’s ‘Helicopter’, my flat’s door starts
thudding. With the always chic ensemble of nightie with puny plastic guitar strapped on, I opened the door to
a neighbour who, if cartoony, would’ve had steam popping from his ears, demanding I turn it down. Protesting
that it was still early, he pointed out that it was actually 2am. Erm, rock ‘n’ roll!
You know what rules? When your Dad goes on a business trip to Hong Kong and comes back with a Nintendo 64 for
Christmas 1996. The console is but a futile whisper in the beating hearts of your other little Aussie friends, but you’ve got
the machine sitting on the floor of the rumpus room right this second. You’re not allowed to touch it until Dad gets home
from the shops for some reason, so you pore over the booklet of Super Mario 64, pretty much playing the entire game in
your mind and imagining all the gorillions of coins you’re going to collect and secrets you’re going to uncover and bruises
you will inflict on your brother should he refuse to hand over the control. You know what sucks? When your Dad comes
home and breaks the news that he was out trying to find the right converter to get the Chinese console to work with your
Australian television, and he failed. Thanks a lot Dad; you ruined Christmas.
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