Dance with the one who brought ya

August 29th, 2006 at 12:04am PsychoPez

Session Time: None.

I haven’t picked up the controller at all today. I don’t want to. Yes, yes, I know that’s the whole point of Unbelievers, to force oneself into the bowls of their own digital personal hell and face off against one’s personal gaming demon. But the initial flurry of passion to play; the excitement of something new, from the weekend has faded into a haunting specter of disinterest and loathing just at the sight of the box for my chosen combatant.

Also, I just read a book on how to write really flowery prose; a fancy word primer if you will. That and the extra semicolons I obtained this weekend; punctuation purchased at a mighty fine discount though I don’t know how to use them, my attention turned to writing rather than NFL this fine evening.

I’m not sure I had accurately shown that I hate this game enough to warrant a spot on Unbelievers. Thus is the author’s curse, to always be triple and quadruple guessing one’s work. When I found I lacked the energy to finish my Week 1 game against the Patriots, down 24 - 14 in the third quarter I had saved at the end of Sunday’s game session, I turned my focus to *WHY* I didn’t feel this game deserved any attention.

Here’s the thing. I’m an old school gamer. I played AD&D 2nd Edition, where calculating THAC0 was a rite of passage. I can still fondly remember the excitement of figuring out the maze of Super Mario Brothers 7-4. Up up down down left right left right was a code when I was a kid, and a DDR step file when I’m an adult. Video games have been a part of my identity ever since I first took control of a tank in Combat.

The thing is, like all other fringe markets and fads, my one true love over time became less faithful to the geeks and nerds that took it to the dance, and started mixing it up with all the other kids. She slow danced with the Goth kids to the haunting tunes of Resident Evil, but the Goths were like us nerds, outcasts with different dress codes, so I didn’t mind. My girl, video games, is a nice girl, much better than I deserve, and wants to make all the outcasts feel special. She danced a line dance holding hands with the gearheads when the first Indy 500 simulator was released.

But she had to go and slap me in front of the whole school when she started to bump and grind with my mortal enemy, the jock. The same guy who would beat me up and take my lunch money, the brickhead who made my gym class a living hell, and with Madden, she’s whoring herself with him, and everyone knows it. Sure, after the dance, I take her back home, being the perfect gentleman so her parents won’t be mad at me, but I can still smell the foul stench of my mortal enemy on her like an ethereal Eau du Jock.

Video games were not only my haven, they where part of me. Other people scoffed at them while I gave them the attention they always deserved. Madden, I realized this evening, was video games available to the people who least respected them. The frat boys who I observed in college obsess themselves over this game weren’t video gamers, they were posers on the secret society I had sacrificed years and social skills to gain entry too. I had resolved myself then not to embrace this rogue game into the collection of titles I knew and loved; I would not recognize this abomination against video game nature as it went against my perfectly formed view of not only what a video game should be, but what a video gamer was.

This is a harsh realization to make, to be honest. I didn’t realize how much hatred I had built up for the fans of this series until this evening. After the first emotion of shock at this flash of understanding, the next was shame. My enemies, those same jocks who made my life a living hell, should I not embrace them into the brotherhood of the gamer? Instead of the black sheep, should I not look at Madden as the missing link between homo nerdicus and homo jockidian?

I can’t say I’ve sold myself to the latter. Video games these days are wholly apart from the 8 bit wonders of 1986. It’s no longer the sole haven of the geek; rather all walks of life play a wide variety of games as unique as the populations playing them. My hatred of Madden, and more so of the stereotype of Madden players, is as much at home in the blast processing and Turbo Graphix 16 days as the cherished childhood memories that go along with them.

So maybe as I continue on with Unbelievers and Madden ‘07 I’ll drop this stereotype. Yet, as much as I want to better myself, like letting go of any other stereotype it’s just not as simple as that. I need to walk those miles, or in this case run those 40 yard sprints, in another gamer’s shoe, before I can even approach dropping my deep seeded hatred.

But, every journey needs its first step. Mine is just deciding on to use a 4-3 defense or nickel package on my next play…

(and apologies to the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Gregg Easterbrook for borrowing his phrase for the title)

Entry Filed under: Madden NFL 2007