Friday, June 03, 2005

High Score

When I was kid, my friends and I would spend countless hours talking about video games -- discussing our favorites, sharing secret tricks, and comparing high scores. I can distinctly remember listening to Robert Mamos tell us how to beat Track and Field, by holding a pen between one's fingers to more quickly hit the two buttons over and over again, getting up enough speed to set the long jump record.

Of course, we were kids then -- sixth grade, junior high school, and maybe even into high school. It's one thing to be deeply enmeshed in video games at a young age... it's another thing to be playing them when older (and there's nothing wrong with that)... and then there's my anonymous friend, who pulled me aside this past weekend to show me something on his PDA:



Yes, he'd been playng a video game and took a snapshot of his high score so that he could show it to friends.

4 comments:

B2 said...

Addendum: the makers of Track and Field eventually caught on to this popular trick, and added little barriers around the buttons to prevent such chicanery.

Chandira said...

I never was any good at that stuff.. Slow reflexes.. I used to get eaten by Pac Man all the time.. Never played since then, though I am a Spider Solitaire addict.

Anonymous said...

As the 'anonymous' uber-geek mentioned, I should point out that this wasn't ANY video game, but the 'astro blaster' ride at Disneyland. So in other words, i pay $600 a year for my family to have a chance to 'play this game' whenever we want.

And anway, I was riding with my daughter in the car and she wanted me to play against her. So what was I supposed to do, let my 6 year old win? oh, wait. Don't answer that..

Anonymous said...

Omitted - I forgot to point out that for $600 a year, there's some cognitive dissonance involved, so I have to convince myself that playing the game and getting a high score is all worth it :)