Why games are important. Part 1.
By Archay and the Rodentia

Bear with us on this one, but Rodent isn’t a videogames magazine.

What we care about here is life. A life informed by videogames f’sure, but life still. Birth, death, love, longing and loss, a life defined by the events that pass from one moment to the next, each one creating a little bit of our personal history as it skips brightly past heading for memory. Videogames are just one of the measures by which we pace out our lives - music, film, television and hell, even cheap alcohol compete for the privilege.

This could be a perfect moment.

The question could be: What song was playing when you first held your son in your arms?

Sometimes the song itself can create that moment; sometimes the moment defines the meaning of the poem. But it’s that moment that’s important, not the chord change. Star Wars, for instance, isn’t a particularly great film but for those of us of a certain age in 1977, it has become convenient mental shorthand to remind us of what it felt like to be eight years old and full of wonder.

The Question could be: What film were you queuing for when your heart was first broken?

But yeah, at Rodent we have chosen videogames as out life click-track and so we wondered what game were our readers playing when their life was turned upside down this year? What will be their enduring memory of 2005 - what moment will they look back on and remember in their dotage? Will it be trying to surreptitiously watch porn on a shiny new PSP in Wagamama’s? Will it be the panic induced by running out of ammo in Resi 4? Maybe it will be watching your first-born ace Bubble Bobble in MAME? Or perhaps the sheer lunacy of trying to play Wario Ware Twisted on the tube will win out?

We would genuinely like to hear your answer to that. Click on the 'comments' link at the foot of the article and share. For now, here's what a selection of Rodents have given as their answers:

Maibok kicks us off with a distant memory that serves so well to give us all a glimse forward to what this year's memories might well become:

"Defender at my local Wawa (convenience store).

The first time I saw it, was after a baseball game at the age of 15. I was in full uniform (including spikes) when my parents stopped off at Wawa to get something. I ran in as well, to get a coke flavored slurpee and there it was, sitting alone in a corner blinking at me, Defender! I gave up on the slurpee and popped a quarter in the machine - all the buttons! the colors, the sounds - yeah I was hooked.

There be games inside.

It was around 1981 and the video game industry was booming. Pretty much every store in town had at least one cabinet. Grocery stores, hardware stores and of course pizza shops were hotbeds for arcade gaming. Sure the local mall had just opened up a huge arcade but that was miles away.

Until I went off to college in the fall of '84 that machine was always there for me. It was a comfort for girlfriend break-ups, a buddy to hang out with until my real buddies were done with work and we'd go out. It was there during rough times and good times. Whenever I needed a pick me up, that damn Defender machine was always there for me.

One day home from college, I noticed it was gone.

Wonder where it is now?"

Enduring memory of 2005?

"Lots of Resident Evil. Just big time grin gaming. The sort of thing that makes you laugh out loud because it's so much fun. It's the game that picks you up, pats you on the head and says 'this is what it's all about son'.

And then a silly night playing Brian Lara reminding us what a great leveller games are. Who cares if you know nothing about cricket? If you can understand lobbing a ball at someone's head after they've smacked you for four then you can understand Brian Lara. And then if you can be terribly offensive at the same time and pull off an unlikely victory you can understand gaming. It brings people together.

Like Pro Evo. Swith suggesting he'd never really played it much and then launching a 25 yd screamer into the back of the net. High fives. Passion. Frustration. Me and Rich not passing to each other. Rich making me cry.

Sexy Pachino. 3am. Blokes taking it in turns launching ball bearings into a MAME cab. She got her tits out. Cheers all round.

Sit back and relax with some Nintendo DS chill out.

And then the Nintendo DS. An autumn day. Scones and cup of tea and my new DS. Back to grinning again. Back to having a quick go when you've got the chance. Back to the beginning."
Russ

"2005 should really have all been about the DS for me, but the moment that will stick in my mind forever was playing Brian Lara’s Cricket with Russ & Rich a few weekends ago. Myself and Rich were chasing a Russ’s total of 54 in ten overs and were stuck on 48 with one ball to play – a seemingly impossible 7 runs behind. All Russ had to do was to play it safe to secure the match, but the nerves must have got to him as he bowled a no ball for one bonus point. The look on Russ’s face as I twanged the next ball away for a mighty six is permanently etched on my mind.

Did that sound like I knew what I was talking about?"
Ahchay

Ah, that’s more like it…

"I got dragged to a party for DVD industry mag Timecode.

Thing is, it was at Namco Station, so there was more gaming than schmoozing.

There was a truly fantastic moment where some arseholed bunch of ad-sales fuckwits challenged a group of editorial people to a videogame competition. One of them actually said, "C'mon, lads. We pay your wages. No excuses!"

One of 'em clearly fancied himself at Virtua Tennis, so he suggested Winner Stays On.

Haha.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

It was quite something to behold their flushed, cocky faces being recast with looks of horror and humiliation as I gave each and every one of 'em a complete cuffing. No joke - not a single one of 'em (about seven) took a point off me. They were progressively shoving each other aside, going, "Give it here. I'll fucking show him..."

There was a brilliant moment in the final game, where one of 'em managed to work himself up into enough of a rage to keep a rally going. I came to the net to try and make him do a lob and put him out of his misery. He lobbed. I had it covered. Smashed it to win the match.

I looked over and his little face! He was saturated with drunken sweat. Bless."
Sickboy

"I have spent much of this year off sick with severe stress. In many ways, it has been a completely shit year and I occasionally dwell on some of it.

As well as being sick, my mum fell and broke her wrist (71 years old) and needed months of constant care. My girlfriend needed an emergency hysterectomy eight weeks ago, and I have been through that with her, sharing emotions that neither of us thought were possible.

Three weeks after she came out of hospital, I had to finally say goodbye to my wonderful and extremely beloved West Highland White Terrier Kelly. She was 15 years and 5 months old, and the battle had become too much for her.

Sometimes I think - "Fuck, this has been an annus horriblis". Most times, however, I think that after many, many years of being single, I met a wonderful woman, and subsequently a burden long anticipated (Kelly passing) was much easier to deal with when it arrived.

What has this to do with games? Well, Teresa knows nothing about computers, and is a classic case of a techno-phobe. I wanted something to help her recovery, however, and through a strange quirk of fate I came across ScummVM just at the right time. I gave her an iPAQ, installed ScummVM and "The Secret of Monkey Island", and watched with absolute joy as my techno-phobic and recovering fiancee began to play and become immersed in a 15-year old title in just the same way that I had many years ago.

Old games may be old but the comedy is still funny.

Her appetite for the quirky puzzles has been astonishing, and has been a major contributory factor to her recovery. She has progressed through Monkey Island 1, Monkey Island 2, and is now playing " Monkey Island 3 - Le Chuck's Revenge"

My perfect moment? Finding that a fifteen year old game can still bring joy on blisteringly modern tech, and the realisation that it really is the game that counts. Oh, and the bit when she accepted my proposal 200ft above the River Tyne in Newcastle on the Millennium Wheel was pretty good, too."
Zoot

"I'd love to be able to say my gaming moment of 2005 was sitting there with a huge grin on my face playing Psychonauts, thanking the god of games that genuinely fresh and original idea's still have an outlet, I'd love to be able to say it was the good wife finally breaking out of her Solitaire addiction and entering the world of games - starting with an ever so slight Popcap addiction and over the past 24 hours finding it difficult to stop swapping production tips on The Movies to see who can build the better studio first, but whilst they've been absolutely fantastically ace moments - they're not my defining gaming moments of 2005.

Earlier in the year, I lost one of my best mates. And it seems odd calling him that, because I never actually met Tokes in person. When I crash landed into the remakes scene, Tokes (Steve) was the first person in IRC to sit and chat with me, first person to turn round and say "you can do it" aside from the wife when I had my head filled with bonkers idea's of games to remake with very little experience at the time.

I've got terrible insomnia, always struggled to sleep at normal hours and Tokes worked nights, so it'd be the pair of us - up chatting till 6 o clock in the morning, playing Counter Strike at insane hours and generally bitching about the world as was our want. Last year, our late night CS sessions would get frequently interrupted by my son, Michael, waking up at the oddest hours. This earnt him the nickname C4 from Tokes "because you never knew when he was going to go off". He still gets called that now.

Whenever I got behind on bills or whatever and knew I was going to disappear off the net for a few days till payday, this soft git who I'd never met in person would offer to help out to tide me over. I never took him up on the offer (a few days off the net does you good occasionally) but jeebus, for a guy I'd never met in person to offer that, crazy.

Anyway, shit happens and things got fucked up somewhere down the line. Tokes got severe Cellulitis, and for a few weeks in IRC complained about them chafing. It didn't get any better, and a few weeks later - after Tokes had gone to bed - IRC (which was hosted on his box) went down. At 3am I got a PM from another mate forwarding a message from Tokes brother saying Steve had passed away.

Stunned. Absolutely stunned. There was no way I was going to get any sleep, didn't want to wake the missus as I'd probably wake the baby at the same time, no-one else would be up for hours to tell. I needed something to switch the brain off.

Crack open a vintage and let life pass you by.

So I loaded up the N64 emulator and one of the few games I had lying around on my hard drive, Robotron 64, and began playing. Everything blurred as I concentrated on that little man trying to save the last human family. Wave after wave flicked by, time slipped away as I slid into the zone - away from all the shit for a few hours knowing there was jack squat I could do or say to anyone till the morning. 10 waves, 20 waves, 50 waves and on... I don't think I'd ever bothered playing it beyond level 3 before then, but here I was whipping my way through over 100 levels until 9 o clock when the world started to surface.

It could have been (and was) a very very rough night, but I'm eternally thankful that I had a game to drift into and zone to while away the hours. That took a shitload of the awkward thoughts away and made me feel something remotely like normal for the duration.

Later on, we all played CS:S for one last time in the big mans memory.

So I'd have to vote for Robotron 64 and CS:S as my most memorable game moments of the year. I just wish they'd both been under happier circumstances.

Its a pretty miserable story, hope its not too heavy. I never sat down to write half of that, bit of a splurge sorry."
Oddbob0

"We'd been in Canada for about a month. I'd seen my 30th birthday come and go with absolutely no desire to celebrate it. I was missing my family a great deal with not spending any quality time with them, before flying out here. Snake was more or less in crunch time from us landing. Christmas was pretty bad too. We were still waiting for all our stuff that had been shipped from the UK.

So one night in Walmart (after going out for a friend’s birthday and wishing I hadn't) he decided to buy a GC, RE4 (for himself) and Donkey Konga and a set of bongos for me. I couldn't wait to get back home and get the shiny new GC set up, so I could play on it.

Giggling like a schoolgirl as I tapped the bongos to the beats. Sticking my tongue out in concentration (yes I'm one of those people ) as I upped the difficulty for a laugh.

Games ARE fun.

With all the stuff we've gone through in the past two years. I don't regret our move to Canada one little bit. Even though it's been some of the worst times in my life and I've cried enough tears to fill a small lake, I'm still glad we are here."
Em

Videogames as the great healer? Maybe there’s something in that after all…

"The best thought of 2005 for me? Sitting down, doodling about with "We Love Katamari" and enjoying it. And then randomly thinking that I was actually thinking that it should be "We Love Kitty" instead. And then realising that someone I think I'm in love with is currently 4000 miles away from me.

Maybe it’s just as well she doesn't read this site now.

Still, I might just get to correct that part next week when I go over to visit her... it's strange... being this way. But she is someone I have a lot in common with now."
Mayhem

"Mine about getting 1600 in Galaxian in Mame seems pretty tepid now. "
Mamemeister

Not at all Alan, although I think you’ve got some catching up to do...

"At CGEUK this year, I scored the second highest recorded score ever on Missile Command (Tournament Settings). This was the culmination of 12 months practice at home, and beat my personal best by 200,000 points. Playing in front of a large crowd was something quite different for me - it was an insane amount of pressure, with the guys from Twin Galaxies there, some guy filming with a camera in my face for most of the game, and seeing the reflection of a myriad of people standing behind me watching.

The actual score itself was one thing, and obviously I was well pleased with it, but the defining moment of 2005 for me, was Walter Day (Chief Referee of TG) coming up to me afterwards, pulling me to one side and quietly saying "Tony, that was probably the most impressive gaming performance I've witnessed in the last decade".

An endorsement from this guy is bound to make you happy.

To have Walter Day himself give me that endorsement personally without creating a big scene or anything was just magnificent. It was a 5 second moment in a long weekend, and it will stay with me for a long time.

Quite simply, he understood.

I haven't actually shared that with anyone before..."
TT

And, before we get all dewy-eyed with nostalgia, what about the future?

"My gaming moment of this year (so far) is me sitting down getting some quality time with Flat-Out.

My little boy (22 months old) walks in the room, looks at me, looks at the telly, casually walks over to the XBOX, picks up the spare pad, spends a few minutes trying to unravel the cord before walking over to the sofa, pulling himself up onto the furniture with his pad (taking more minutes), spends some seconds getting comfortable next to his old man, before holding the pad upside down, pointing at the telly and says, "Daddy. Games".

I'd stopped playing ages ago but it brought a tear to my eye.

... His giggles as I drove the car around the track were very distracting though."
Bluefunk

Which only leaves us with this, to my mind, life-affirming tale to finish…

"Way back in September 2002 a game for the Nintendo Gamecube came out in the US called Animal Crossing.

I bought it on import and started playing it.

On December 7th there was the second Retrovision event at 'Pub Oxford' in Oxford.

As Animal Crossing really needed to be played at least once a day, I guided my mum through the basics of what was needed; opening the mail, digging up fossils, pulling up weeds, etc.

Mum hadn't played many games in all the years we'd had consoles of one sort or another, just Ladybug on the Coleco, Bust-A-Move on the PSone and a few others, so I said to her "Don't worry if you get stuck, I'll just carry on with the game when I get back."

When I got back after the weekend away I found my mum completely addicted to Animal Crossing!

So much so, that she asked me to get her a memory card, so she could have her own village.

Truly a game for all ages.

She told me months later that she liked it because it gave her a community to talk to and interact with, which was much better than just sitting in the house alone with no contact with anyone. She'd got over treatment for lung cancer, so her mobility wasn't good, meaning simply going into town was an effort.

So every day I would come home from work to be told by mum about the happenings in the villages; what she'd found, who she'd upset, etc.

I'd then 'finish off' my village's bits, with mum reporting anything I missed as my character walked around.

Last year mum asked for another memory card, as she wanted to start another village, to collect all the items in the game that she'd missed with her first village. So she then had two villages to play with each day, as well as doing a bit of mine.

On Saturday 20th August this year my mum died of a heart attack, brought on by a return of the cancer.

On the Sunday I loaded up Animal Crossing, to do the villages, but just couldn't bring myself to play them. It was her game in the end, not mine and I haven't touched it since.

I'd like to thank the programmers of that game for making my mum's last few years a bit better."
PVB

December 2005

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