Rebooting my video game daze

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a column about how my wife really appreciates the fact that I’ve never really been a “gamer,” one of those guys who’s obsessed with playing video games. Back then, I claimed that I had “gotten it all out of my system when I was a kid.”

Perhaps I spoke too soon. Recently, while putzing around on my Chromebook at home, I realized just how many free games are available for my little laptop computer. You just need to be willing to spend some time wandering around Chrome’s “Web Store” and taking chances on whatever games look like something worth playing.

This can be a hit-or-miss proposition, since the level of quality is all over the map. You also have to worry about “free” games that are loaded with advertisements, making the playing experience seem like watching TV with 10 minutes of ads for every five minutes of programming.

But, there are plenty of talented game programmers out there, so you have a lot of interactive entertainment to choose from. One of the first I found is called “Cut The Rope,” which is apparently referred to as a “physics-based puzzle” game. The word “physics” makes it sound like you’re going to be doing complicated formulas based on Newtonian mechanics, but really, you just need to figure out how certain objects will fall, bounce, swing and float so can drop a piece of candy into a frog’s mouth.

This was fun for awhile, but it didn’t take long to complete all of the basic levels and get to the point where you need to start watching ads to continue playing. No thank you.

My favorite find has been a game called “Gorescript,” which is marketed as a throwback to the first-person shooter games of the 1990s. In fact, before you enter the first level, the words “Imagine it’s 1994...” appear on the screen. I was 14 that year, and playing video games was something that could fill hours of my time when I wasn’t doing homework.

First-person shooters have always been one of my favorites. You basically inhabit the character’s point of view, collect weapons and try to kill as many monsters and other villains as possible on your way to some meaningless objective. “Wolfenstein,” featuring a POW fighting his way through a Nazi prison camp, was the true original, and after that, it was “Doom,” which was like an interactive sci-fi/horror/adventure movie.

I forgot how fun and strangely relaxing it can be to fire fake weapons with a keyboard while fighting pixelated creatures trying to take away your “life points.” If you want to escape the adult world, with all its real problems and stresses, there’s nothing better than fighting a monster that looks like a meatball with teeth.

OUT FOR A WALK

KEVIN O’BRIEN

EDITOR