game grrl.

I guess it’s pretty obvious that I wouldn’t have a day job if I didn’t need one. I don’t really like the daily 8-6 grind.

What helps, though, is sometimes I find myself at this new job thinking, “Well, if I had to have a day job, I’m sure glad it’s this one.”

Case in point: I just walked into the break room for a bottle of water when I found Mortal Kombat 4. You can play Mortal Kombat 4 for free. It’s next to the Centipede machine. You know the old machines where the two of you sat down and played head to head? Yeah, that kind of Centipede. The Mortal Kombat machine replaced the old Pac-Man machine we had here. If I get tired of playing video games on my break I can go out into the lobby and play a game of pool.

I can live this rock-n-roll corporate lifestyle.

I used to play video games all the time. I really liked Street Fighter (the first one). Once Mortal Kombat came out it pretty much blew Street Fighter away, though, what with the ability to pull out people’s spines and throw them onto spikes. Tekken was cool because it had that nice 3D effect and you would get kind of nauseous when you were really putting a hurt on someone.

I love Ms. Pac-Man.

Right now the big wait is for Resident Evil 3. The last two had people coming over just to watch us play the game. We stopped playing Silent Hill just because we knew we were going to put in so much time for RE3.

Some video games seem to be a waste of time. Flight simulators and things bore me to tears. Same with the Sim games. I just kept making monsters attack my village. I do enjoy a good sports game, or an adventure game. I don’t know why Eric continues to play games he’s beaten, however. He’s beaten Resident Evil 2 about three times, and Metal Gear Solid twice. Why play it again when you already know everything that’s going to happen? When we got to the end of Silent Hill it turns out we lost. There are five different endings and we got the one where everyone dies. Why not play that game again, right? There’s four other endings. But no, Eric continues to play the same Metal Gear Solid game over and over so that the house is filled with the sounds of “Snake! SNAAAAAKE!”

It’s bad enough that he plays that game over and over, but the worst is that we don’t own the game. He borrows Metal Gear Solid from friends and relatives and then plays it non-stop until he has to return it. So not only is he trying to better his score, he’s on a time limit. I played Parappa the Rapper until I had beaten the game. Same with Bust A Groove. I’ll pull them out every once in a while to show someone the game, but I never want to sit down and see if I can beat it better than I’ve beaten it before.

That’s a part of video games I never got into. I beat Myst and never looked at it again. Same with 11th Hour, 7th Guest, Winnie The Pooh and the Honey Tree…man, that one was so easy.

I remember like six years ago there was this game for the PC called Voyeur and the concept was that you were spying on people in other buildings and you had to videotape people doing crimes and sex scandals and you had to turn in the evidence or something. It was an impossible game to find, and the one time I did find it it was an edited copy. Soon after I never found a copy again. Now, I wonder if it was because it was truly racy, or if it was just a lame-ass game.

Parasite Eve is the worst game I’ve ever played. Ever. How boring is that game, I ask you? When I am playing a fighting game, I want it to look like I’m fighting. I don’t want radar shots popping up with manna and shit. Just give me a gun and a wall to hide behind.

We were walking out of the Blockbuster the other day and Eric said, “Hey, did you hear about that Blair Witch game they got coming out?”

“No,” I said.

“It sounds pretty cool. What you do is you pick if you’re Josh, Mike or Heather and you’re all trapped in the woods and you have to escape the witch, but sometimes your shit gets taken or you can’t see or you get lost and stuff, and you have to try and get to the house without getting killed. It’s got like really scary music and stuff and it’s really dark and you have to make weapons with sticks and things. And you have like this tracking device so that you can find clues and things as to where you should be each day.”

“That sounds awesome. When does it come out?”

“It’s not. I just made it up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But it’d be a great game, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, it would. Did you see that guy standing next to us? I think he just went in the store to reserve a copy.”

“Don’t blab out my idea. This is how we’re going to make our fortune and retire.”

It really is a good idea for a game. If you see it somewhere, make sure you tell me so we can sue. We’re pretty sure the guy at Blockbuster found out it wasn’t a game yet and then went out and sold Eric’s idea.

Resident Evil 3, baby. Real soon. I’m buying that and “Spice.” Choreographing the Spice Girls? I’m there, man.