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This was all night long last night, and still going on as I type...teenagers gaming...I know some adults do it, but all night long into the morning??<br>It doesn't even look that fun<br><br><span><span id="temp-1"><span><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ad0cRUM0AtU?f=videos&app=youtube_gdata" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowscriptaccess="never" width="425" height="355"></embed></span></span> <span id="temp-1"></span></span>
My son and his buddies could easily be in that video. I don't understand it myself. If it was once in a great while, maybe I could understand it, butit's so regular.
Oh I can BIGTIME understand it.<br><br>I've always loved video games, and truly never outgrew them.<br>When "Halo: Combat Evolved" came out in 2000, I was already 31 years old,<br>but I (like so many other ... seasoned .... gamers) fell in love with the game,<br>as did of course the very young crowd.<br><br>The original Halo game was not playable on Xbox Live; to play against or with<br>other people, you had to be in the same room as shown above, but only the<br>people in that room (or house) whose Xbox's were physically connected could play with<br>eachother's characters in the same game. They were called "LAN Parties". (Local Area Network)<br>I used to pick up any color TV I saw in the trash to see if I could get it fired up,<br>and use it as a monitor for my LAN Parties. At one time I had Xbox's and TV's all over my garage,<br>and a buddy had the same setup.<br><br>When Halo-2 came out, it was playable worldwide on the Xbox Live network.<br>I got the game at a midnight opening / premiere party, and <em><strong>played it until 10 AM STRAIGHT.<br></strong></em>It's a whole other virtual world you can immerse yourself in, it's like watching a Football or Baseball game,<br>getting mad at the umpires or players and screaming at your TV, but in THIS case you can actually go over to<br>the character representing the person you're PO'd at and kill his ass, then teabag his corpse for good measure.<br>Of course while talking smack the whole time.<br><br>The Halo2 online experience revived the part of my brain I thought was long outgrown since high school,<br>for better or for worse. LOL As an adult, in the real world I know where the boundaries are,<br>but on Xbox Live, the combative nature of the games and the immaturity level of<br>the younger population playing them makes you do and say things on their level.<br>At first I was ashamed of it, now I finish most smack talking sessions by dispatching the player doing it<br>and announcing they just got their ass handed to them by a 40 year old.<br>You know, asking them if their mom is hot or something like that. LOL<br>I know, I know .. but I share all this here with you because we're a bunch of (alleged) adults who play with toy cars.<br>We pay hundreds of dollars for 3 inch long toy cars and display them like fine china.<br>So "embracing the child within" is a dynamic that should be familliar to the members of this board.<br><img src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif"><br><br>By the way, I've discovered a considerable population of gamers online who are of similar age.<br>There's no shortage of people over 21, people over 30 are a minority to be sure but one of the oldest people<br>on my friends list goes by GDAD. <img src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif"> He's over 50.<br><br>As long as you are young at heart and your hands aren't crippled with arthritis... GAME ON!<br><br><br>Greg
Greg, what's the learning curve for many of these games? Having cut my teeth on the old Atari with a joystick and button to shoot with, I just haven'thad the patience with my son's games to get to the point where I'm proficient enough to really enjoy them. He handed me a controller with twojoysticks, an A and B button, trigger, a few other buttons, blah blah blah, and started going through all the elaborate button/joystick combinations to makethe game work. Wow. And then that was just for the one character he wanted me to play. I tried mastering it over many games, but man, I sure missed the oldjoystick and single button days...
I can't relate specifically to the video gaming thing (I fully concur with ndakotan on that point - too much like 'work' to figger the thingsout...) but I can certainly remember all-night monopoly games, or sitting at a poker table until the sun came up....
I have to admit, my biggest problem is going from one game to another one that has<br>even the slightest difference in button configuration.<br>(Where in Halo2 the "X" button did one thing, but in Halo3 it's the right bumper button)<br>I HATE that. It takes me forever to get my muscle memory to be automatic,<br>and then having to switch back and forth in one day, even on two different games I know and play well,<br>I still find myself pressing the wrong button for awhile.<br><br>That said, it's worth it.<br>The level of control you have over your character and the virtual world you're playing in is amazing.<br>You could never do it with a joystick and 2 buttons. It truly takes all those buttons and 2 sticks and so on,<br>all working in concert to move and shoot / interact with everything just right.<br>It DOES become second nature if you do it long enough.<br><br>Remember playing the ATARI-2600, and learing the "feel" of each game?<br>Remember having to switch up between the regular joystick and the paddle controllers?<br>Remember getting that sixth sense of when to fire your blocky tank in "COMBAT",<br>so your shot would <em><strong>just barely</strong></em> be in range and hit the enemy tank before he could do the same?<br>Well, it's all those same skills, all those same adaptations...just taken to the Nth degree.<br>You can do it - old dogs CAN learn new tricks!<br><br>Greg
Too much effort, just some rum, porn and a free hand will keep me going for a while!!! It's all in the pacing...........
Having been a bit of a war game "junkie", I'm going to tell on myself a bit. Years ago, I started playing Pong when it first came out and soonafter started with the first person shooters (one that comes to mind is Doom). Every morning I play for at least 10-15 minutes just to get my brain kickstarted. Currently I'm working on "Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2. Nothing like blowing away a few Ruskies to get your blood swirling......Works farbetter than coffee.
I knew Greg Octane would chime in. I too know many adults who play. Some are close to my age and have my son on their "list". It's funny whenyou see these guys early in the morning, and they comment on how they saw my son playing last night(what they really mean is early this morning). I had a guytell me that he was playing with my kid at 2 AM...he told me this at 8 AM. He starts work at 7AM, so this guy might have gotten 4 hours sleep...mighthave...then I see him drinking those horrid Rock Star energy drinks. I only see this guy once a week, but wonder if he does this every night. He's got awife and kids, so I'm guessing he plays after they go to bed. I'm wondering what his sleep schedule is doing to his body, along with surviving onthose energy drinks during the day...icky...<br>I've tried to play the Xbox, playstations and fail miserably. I cannot work so many buttons and joysticks at one time, it just doesn't compute at all. I even tried playing Guitar Hero and sucked at that too.<br>I used to be really good at Pong, and almost mastered Super Pong<img src="http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/laugh.gif" alt="image"><br><br>Actually, the one game that I can easily get addicted to is Pinball. Left flipper, right flipper...sometimes upper flippers. No 10 buttons, triggers, andjoysticks to hinder the mind!!!!<br>I could spend hours playing pinball...hours...just like the gamers in the video...<br>They are still playing as I type...almost 15 hours straight...<br><br><a title="another short video" target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9wj6sGayTY">another short video</a><br><br>
three words, world of warcraft.<br><br>I used to play it 18 hours a day and slept the other 6. did that for 9 months before I deleted my account in it and got a life....collecting redlines