The next level will come for sure
Caught, I admit it: I like to gamble on the computer. Not excessive, but sometimes for half an hour in a virtual parallel world I find unbelievably relaxing. Maybe it has to do with my unrestrained playfulness, that means: I like to play passionately. And that's right. Whether board, card or dice games cared for at the table or billiards and kicker not quite so civilized in the pub. I would never go to a pub where you just sit at the counter and talk. Or drink. By the way, drinking games are one of the few game categories besides role-playing games that I can not win anything from. But back to the topic: computer games.
In 1973, I found a gift the size of a shoebox under the Christmas tree. It did not rattle when shaking and I was disappointed even before unpacking. Obviously, it was not another Lego kit and therefore could not be considered a full gift for me. My disappointment fizzled quickly, however, when under the wrapping paper a brightly colored box came to light. Strange signs were to be seen, mysterious, magical and above all: electric. The whole thing turned out to be one of the first game consoles, so to speak, the great-primal ancestor of Playstation, X-Box and Co. My dad wired the console with our black and white TV and the miracle took its course.
The rudimentary graphics of a rectangular playing field with a center line and two short, vertical lines to the right and left appeared on the screen. These were the two "tennis rackets" that could be moved up and down with a knob. At the start of the game came a? Tennis ball? in the form of a luminous square point in the game, from right to left? Oh, what am I telling anyway? The older ones know it anyway and the younger ones probably do not believe me. In any case, I was fascinated. At least until outside the snow had melted and I could again make our huge garden uncertain.
It should be six years before I had my second defining experience in computer games. In 1979, PCs were still a distant utopia, but in the smoky back room of the only chip shop in the village, the future had already arrived. There, the half-strong village youth gambled on man-high slot machines, the arcade classics like? Donkey Kong? and? asteroids ?. For the highest high score of the month, the owner jumped a whopping 40 marks, so the place was always packed. The winner's premium has nicely regularity Martin K. (you know already informed) bagged. He ALWAYS had money to play with, because he stole his grandma's 5-mark bills, which she hid between the pages of her Bible. But this is another story ? I only know that Martin later served a longer juvenile punishment for car theft. So be it, early practice.
Then followed a long abstinence phase that ended abruptly in 1996 when my roommate bought the brand new Playstation. Suddenly it was all over? Jump and Run? and the Desert Fox? Crash Bandicoot? hopped through our living room. Since then I had the first own PC from the turn of the millennium, I have tested some good and many bad games. I have several grouse on my conscience and also in first-person shooters like? Counter-Strike? At least I have a look. If I play something today, it's usually a decent flight simulator or a car racing game called Asphalt 8 ?. That does not lack a certain irony, since I have neither a flight nor a driver's license. Then stop at the computer, is safer anyway.
Sometimes even the best fiancé of all (who knows who I quote here at least in the approach, please write it in the comments, this gives bonus points in the next level) and I together something on the PC. Sure it's possible. We both like the so-called "hidden object games", where you have to solve many puzzles and search images, or a word-finding game called? Bookworm ?. If you think that's not fun together, try it as a couple.
I came to this topic the other day, when I looked over the shoulder of a ten-year-old boy in the subway. On his smartphone display, a devastating-looking figure with a giant sword ran through an equally devastating-looking ruined city, beheading zombies every second (before the dead even beheaded?). I was surprised that no blood spurted out of the device. I had to think about 1973 and my Christmas miracle in black-and-white 2D graphics and was glad these zombies had passed me and my childhood. And actually I wanted to write something about the dangers of computer games and give tips, and? never mind. I am now making a round in my newly acquired Jaguar. Virtual, of course.
