What's With Guys & Games?

As of now, almost 2 and a half hours, D the overgrown kid is still at it. Total attention on all the right buttons, all eyes on the beautiful images and sometimes grunting away to achieve his goals... Sigh, and all that energy and focus aren't on me. I am facing and listening to yet another stage of Halo 2, which D has just borrowed from his good friend, who incidentally has just included a PSP to his "buddies", the Xbox and PS2.

Besides me (his "playmate"), D has his PC games, Xbox games and PS2 games. I reckon if Sony improves on its PSP games collection, D will be tempted to get that too.

It's tough to pit myself against these games, afterall, I don't wield weapons as well as the characters in Splinter Cell or Mercenaries ; I don't have nice curves in the right places like Lara Croft or those in Grand Theft Auto; I don't have special powers or fly incredible machines...

It's tough being the wife in this technology-driven age, with all these multimedia and split second effects. I can't quite stop this overgrown kid from playing, at least he is playing with his joystick and game pads beside me, instead of entertaining himself in some pub or nightclub. Well, maybe this isn't the best comparison, but I suppose if I can't stop him, maybe I should join him. I did try, at least for games like Fifa Soccer or Gran Turismo, which I usually lose and only win if the overgrown kid is merciful and generous that day.

Well, I suppose I can't play the games he play, especially since I feel like throwing up each time I play these 1st-person-shooter games... motion sickness or just a lack of eye-brain coordination, which then messes up my balance and stomach.

I remembered playing Doom years back, and being the easy target, I became the main contributor to my guy friends' frag counts. After each game, I had to take some time to recover from all that motion sickness. Whatever happened to simple games like Pac Man and Lode Runner, which are easy on the mind and less stressful to my physical being. So Half Life and Counterstrike were out for me.

Later, I played Age Of Empire which I enjoyed very much, but I needed all those Cheat Codes to ensure that my empire remained throughout the ages. Sims came to my attention a few years later, which was such a refreshing game... totally different from all that fighting, shooting and killings. It didn't give me a headache or cause me to throw up, instead Sims engaged me so much that I created D as a Sim, created opportunities for him to know my Sim before we got married and had kids. Most importantly, Sims allowed me to build my own house and shop with neverending cash... yeah, cheat codes again.

D bought me Sims 2 and CSI when these games came out last year, to keep me occupied when he was away in HK while I was in S'pore. These 2 games are great fun, definitely engages the mind and allow me to get those brain juices moving through my system. And that's about all the games I actually play, unlike D the overgrown kid, who is still at it even now. Three hours liao, should I pull the plug?

Sigh, I will just go to bed without him...