Mrs
Ely writes:
Okay! It's
time for a little female intervention here. There's far too much
testosterone flying about the place.
My boyfriend (significant other, life partner,
natch) loves computer games. He has done since I've known him
and long before that, I understand. It doesn't cause problems
within the relationship – quite the opposite, in fact. It
gives me a chance to indulge my love of The Salon and Big Brother
without the interruption of silly things like football and Top
Gear. It's just that I don't understand the fascination, myself.
He's got one of those PlayStation things. He
only bought it because he wanted to play one game (Gran Turismo),
but he doesn't use it any more, so it just sits there, gathering
dust under the TV. The reason for this, I've been told, is that
the game is “too involved”. He'd “Have to sit
and play it for ages to get anywhere” and he “doesn't
have the time”. Too right he doesn't have the time. He's
too busy playing on his Gamecube.
A bit of a burn-out type thing.
So he got the Gamecube because he wanted to
play one game (sound familiar?). The game – Burnout, another
racing game. As far as I can tell, it's just like the last racing
game, but then what would I know? He sits in his little room,
with the cat at his feet, playing it for hours at a time, going
round and round and round ...
In my time, there have been many racing games
that have moved in and out of favour. Each one played to death
and then discarded when a shiny new one came along. Revolt (little
radio-controlled cars that go round and round a circuit), Grand
Prix 3 and 4 (F1 cars that go round and round a circuit) and Grand
Theft Auto (now that was cool - you got to run people down in
that one)…
And then there are the football games. I believe
the current one is called Winning Eleven 6: Final Evolution (okay,
I cheated, I had to ask what it was called). He got it from Japan
– along with a new memory card (because the Japanese game
won't save onto the English card, of course) and a special CD
that he has to run before the game every time he wants to play.
Now, that's dedication for you. But it doesn't end there.
He's a member of a retro football website too
(http://www.ko-gathering.com). They all ‘gather’ together
(do you see what I did there?) and talk about Kick Off 2 on their
forum. They don't just gather on the web, however. They have championships
- real, live ones. They actually meet each other and play knock-out
rounds – in person. He's been to two ‘World Championships’
now. The first was last year in Athens, Greece (he didn't win),
and the second was in Groningen, Holland (he didn't win). He has
an absolutely brilliant time at these. I mean – what bloke
wouldn't? Beer, McDonalds, games and blokey chat. And me? I'm
at home with the cats and The Salon and a glass or two of wine.
A slightly different kind of Revolt.
I wonder what games he'll be playing in the
future. Whether it will still be the same racing and football
games, or whether he'll move up a step... I can definitely see
him, grey and wrinkled, logging onto his favourite retro games
forum and talking about Gran Turismo and Revolt and saying: "They
don't make games like they used to."
jacqui,
December 2003.
---
The ideal Christmas gift
for the driving-game loony (or so it says here on this e-mail
from Ely).
Test your deeply useless knowledge of The Salon
here.
Some surprisingly useful
and non-blokey car FAQs from the Top Gear website.
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