Tag Archives: video games

Why I Have To Play Video Games

From BIUL #1.

From BIUL #1.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All

Artifacts of Early Gaming

Earlier today, I suffered a terrible tumble from my high horse. During yet another lament about the endless saturation of smartphones, my rose-colored recollection of my own childhood was shattered when I realized that in grade school 35 years ago, my generation was gazing at little electronic rectangles too.

game1

They weren’t easy to get, either; I only ever saw them in the windows of weird electronics stores in NYC, the kind of places you’d expect to have a mogwai for sale. Most of the games didn’t take regular batteries, but instead used the teeny watch kind that you had to ask your grandma for (grandmas always had them). Typically, the sound consisted of high-pitched beeps, and could not be turned off, so play was often halted by grown-ups with more hearing than patience.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions

Starcade

Originally published on Mike The Pod in July of 2003. G4 was launched in April of 2002, and broadcast until the end of 2014.

Starcade

For some reason there’s this channel we get called G4. It’s about video games. So far everything I’ve seen on it has ranged from abysmal to truly soul-crushing. The people behind it must realize that folks tend to play video games on their TVs, so there’s really no call for a channel about them. There was some show on yesterday called “Portal”. I think it’s what they’re using to interrogate captured Al-Qaeda, because after about forty-two seconds of it, I was confessing to all sorts of stuff. It’s kind of like those god-awful sitcoms on public TV that are designed to teach foreigners English, but without all the wit, verve, and rich character development. Like a 7th-grade drama club amok in a television studio. (Kids Incorporated, anyone?)

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions