The Arrival of a Gamer

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It is with great pride that I announce my son has officially become a gamer, less than a week after his 4th birthday. I fully believe you cannot become a gamer until a game pisses you off to the point that you curse and scream.

Jack's most recent obsession is the game Madagascar for the Wii. It plays exactly like MarioKart, except that instead of having Nintedo-themed characters, all the race participants or characters from the movie Madagascar. Jack likes to play as Marty (that's the zebra), while I prefer the Penguins (who race as a team) because they yell "Fire in the hole!" when then toss mangos at other racers.

Anyway, like most games of this type, to unlock new cars, characters, and races, you have to win races with the base characters and cars on the starting three race tracks. Sometimes we play together, but you can only unlock the new characters and cars in single player mode, so a lot of times Jack just goes solo.

He doesn't like to lose... I mean, he really doesn't like to lose. My wife was out of the house on Saturday, and so that afternoon turned inevitably into a Madagascar marathon gaming session. We were hell-bent on unlocking new characters. There's this one track Jack struggles with. After three unsuccessful attempts, I really thought on the 4th try he was going to win. Leading going around the last turn, and Alex hits the turbo right at the end, and passes him off just as they cross the finish line. Jack, racing as Marty, finishes second, by 0.1 seconds.

I have three words to describe Jack's reaction. PURE. UNADULTERATED. RAGE: Initially, he thought he won. I saw his face, in two seonds, change from happiness, to shock, to disbelief, to rage. DAMN IT!!!!!!! (Wii remote inside stearing wheel gizmo that comes with the game goes flying across the room.) He stands up, shaking with rage, fists clenched at his side, and leaves out this primal roar: "RRRRAARRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" I couldn't help but laugh, but I said to him, "Jack, you're now a gamer."

 

Funny!

 

That's actually quite brilliant

Kev doesn't quite 'get' my Nerdrage when it occurs. I don't mind losing in a game but pure idiocy or design flaws? Fire in the hole Watch out for mangoes.

Been watching videos for Alice: Madness Returns, been good to feel nerdrage at someone else playing like an utter fool

 

I rage at Super Meat Boy. I think that's the point of that particular game, though.

 

Good stuff. My little brother (age 4) is shaping up to be quite a gamer too. He can actually play Mario Kart pretty decently on the DS - wins every time on 50cc. I'm encouraging him to try for 100cc, and he's actually having a pretty decent track record. Only problem is he tends to like playing Peach (since I do)*, and she's tricky since she relies solely on drifting to compensate for her poor speed. He does pretty well with Toad or Luigi though. He gets really upset when he loses - I'm trying to train him to be a more gracious loser, though, sometimes beating the crap out of him just to show him he can't always win.

He also enjoys watching me and my dad play various PS3 games and seems unperturbed by all kinds of violence, ranging from electrocutions in Infamous to bone-crunching in Arkham Asylum to people stabbing in Assassin's Creed II (we actually both prefer climbing churches in this game). On the other hand, cartoony monsters actually scares him, which is interesting.

Gaming is having a fairly positive effect, I think. He likes Little Big Planet, and he's showing more and more creativity in his building and problem-solving skills. Totally unrelated, but gaming is fantastic for revising history and geography - one game playing Venice in Medieval 2: Total War can save you hours of study as you think about who to ally with and which regions are important.

I wonder if it's related that he's been occasionally hitting me lately, claiming I'm a monster, but hell, I went through that phase too. Come to think of it, I still role-play, so I guess I'm still in that phase...

* I'm manly enough to play Peach and destroy you **
** Actually, I prefer playing Daisy, but you know

 

I haven't shown Jack any really violent games yet. The worst he's seen is Diablo II, and frankly that's not that bad. (I mean, yeah, it's killing stuff, but the graphics of 10 years ago don't make it *that* graphic.)

The main issue with Jack is that he lacks the coordination to correctly play the more complex games. He likes Madagascar because you have a steering wheel and two buttons - accelerate and turbo (yes there's a brake as well, but with the 50cc carts, you don't have to brake ever). He has a batman game (not Arkham) for the Wii, but it requires you to execute actions with both the controller and the nunchuck, and that's just too much when you're 4. But he LOVES the Wii Sports and Wii Resort games - again, because the gameplay is much easier.

 

So, a gamer padawan. He has achieved much in little time. And we all know that when the circle comes full, daddy loses.

 

He already owns me in the Wii resort sword fighting game. I can win maybe once in 10 tries.

 

My seven year old son can destroy all comers at Mario Kart.