Hi everyone. I decided that as part of my 1-year celebration of this blog, I wanted to give you all a glimpse into the origins of my geekhood. Just like morals & values, your geek mannerisms start with family. My first part of this 3-part series will deal with my Father, the technolord of the house.
What can I say about my Father. He's got a wicked temper, yet he can be the gentlest of souls in the right situations. He's strong in mind & body, yet he also is strong in heart. In general, he's a mix of contradictions that somehow works. Me and my Mom rely on him a lot when something technical breaks down in the house. If there's a virus on a computer, he'll clear it out. If a part needs replacing, he replaces it. If the internet is down, he gets it back up. In short, my father is the Techno Whisperer. He can pretty much solve & fix just about anything wrong with computers, and if he can't fix something, he'll admit it, humbly or not.
What really makes my Father so important in my geekhood, is that he introduced me to video games. The very first game I ever played was the original Doom, a move that didn't necessarily sit well with my mom. From Doom, games like Wolfenstein 3d, Duke Nukem 3d, and a host of other games in the early to mid 90s were the beginning rungs on the ladder to geek enlightenment. By the late 90s, my Dad was having me play games (especially FPS games) to improve my hand-eye coordination, and to help me improve my sense of concentration. All of the games he had me play were indeed helpful, but it was one game in particular that really helped me out, and got me to be a bit closer to my dad.
Let's rewind the clock a bit: it's the early 90s. 1993, to be more specific. We're living in a small house in Clinton, New York. At the time, we weren't poor, but we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of full PC games, but we had plenty of demos. One of them was for a fighting game called One Must Fall: 2097, published by Epic Megagames (long before they became the popular Epic Games). OMF: 2097 was a fast paced games where two giant robots went toe-to-toe against each other, with the only goal of tearing each other apart. It was a fun demo, but the only problem was that it was...a demo. There wasn't any multiplayer (against another computer, that is.), there were only 5 out of the 10 pilots available, and there were only 3 of the 10 robots available. Despite that, me and my Father (sometimes my Mother) spent a lot of time playing against each other, and basically having a good time.
Forward to 1994, and we're still living at the same place, or so I believe (It was so long ago, I can't remember well). I believe I came home from school, and after doing my homework, my Father calls me into the computer rooms and asks if I wanted to play a game of OMF with him. Without batting an eyelash, I said "Sure!" I got over to the seat, and my Dad starts up the game. Both the demo and the full game start up the same, so I didn't know what was in store. My Dad selected the two-player option, and the first thing he said was "Well...let's see. I think I'm going to be...Raven." It was then that I knew that something was different, and when he selected a robot that was previously unavailable, I was bouncing off the walls in joyous celebration. I couldn't believe that he did this for me, especially at a time when we had to be careful with our money. Although I was never certain, I could have sworn that my Mom was in on this as well, so props to you Mom if you were.
In conclusion, thank you Dad. Thank you for making video game memories with me, and thank you for setting me on the path to gaming enlightenment. I'll treasure what you've done for me for ages and ages. Thank you.
See you all later this week, when I'll put up my revised review for Duke Nukem Forever. Until then, stay Otaku!
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If you're interesting in learning more about One Must Fall: 2097, then click on the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Must_Fall:_2097
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