I have a completely unnatural love of silly, cartoonish,
pastel colored video games. If they have cute animals and campy music, even
better! Super Mario is my all-time
favorite. It started with my love of the
original and my very first NES and has continued until present day with my New
Super Mario Bros. for Wii. I haven’t
upgraded to the Wii U yet…. But I am sure it’s only a matter of time.
Coolest room EVAR!!
I guess I shouldn’t say that I only love silly, foo-foo
games. My sister and I used to have epic, marathon Mortal Kombat battles. We were pretty good, if I do say so myself. I always wanted to be Reptile, and she was always
the scary long haired lady, whose name now escapes me.
FINISH HIM!!
I have never really been into PC games for the simple fact
that after years and years and years of console games, my fingers do not
cooperate fast enough on a keyboard.
Which makes no sense to me because I type alllll day long. For some reason though, I cannot navigate a
game using the arrow keys and a mouse the same way I do a controller. It’s like trying to write my name with my left
hand. Rhys thinks that PC games are the
way to go, the bees knees….. we have agreed to disagree, haha. But I think secretly he knows that I am right.
Console games are far superior, at least in the cute-cuddly-woodland creature
genre.
How I imagine all PC gamers..... except my boyfriend!
One thing that I have never been into though are games on my
phone. 90% of them seem like a stupid
waste of time, first of all (not at all like my Super Mario!). And secondly, I
don’t want them cluttering up my screen.
I played Words with Friends for about a minute before I got bored with
it. The same thing happened with Hanging with Friends and then Song Pop. I gave them all a fair shot, but ultimately
could not stay interested for any period of time and shortly deleted them from
my phone.
But then Candy Crush happened.
I heard people talking about it and I scoffed. Yes I did. I was thinking to myself “these
people are dumb and easily amused”. And I
felt secretly superior to them in the same way that I did when all my friends
on Facebook were playing Farmville, which I was sure was the most pointless
waste of time EVER. I was spending an obscene amount of time constantly
adjusting my settings so that I didn’t have to see all my friends’ game-related
updates. I am only slightly interested
in what you had for lunch, or did for your anniversary, so I am completely
uninterested in what level you just got to in a game that I think is stupid
anyway. I am like negatively interested to the inth degree, if such a thing
were possible.
One day I was giving a friend of mine a hard time about
playing Candy Crush and he said to me “It’s so addicting, I can’t help it! You can’t see that I am playing it, can you??”
Like he was worried people would know. I
had this brilliant idea of trying the game out and then posting a blog about
how ridiculous it is that people are crazy about it.
And that is when my life changed forever.
I downloaded the game to my phone and tried it out. At first I was pleasantly surprised to find
that it was just as lame as I assumed it would be. “Really, all you have to do it get three
candies in a row? This is offensive to
my intelligence. I am going to go read
the encyclopedia now to make up for this brain drain”.
As I continued to play, for research sake (I swear!), I
found myself more and more sucked in. I was unaware of how much time was
passing. Surely I should have been doing something productive, like laundry, or
walking the dog, or balancing my check book.
Instead, I continued to sit there and play, for hours. I am not proud of
this fact.
At some point Rhys asked me what I was doing and I
shamefully admitted that I was playing Candy Crush. I could see the look of
disdain in his eyes. He was judging me, just as I had judged all the
others. He laughed and made some joke
about me being sucked in like everyone else, and I recognized the tone of condescension
in his voice because I had surely sounded the exact same way when teasing my
friends. As much as I was ashamed, at that moment it was more important that I
create a color bomb and get past level 85!
For the next few days every time Rhys would catch me staring
blankly at my phone he would ask me what I was doing and I would declare that I
was “Crushing all the candies!” On a
few occasions, while lying in bed, he would watch me play and offer helpful
suggestions on the most effective move to use.
The couple that plays phone games in bed together, stays
together!
About a week later I noticed Rhys sitting quietly and staring very intently at his phone. When I asked him what he was up to, he hesitated to answer. It was only
when I walked over to him that I caught him. He was playing Candy Crush!!!
I feel responsible for introducing him to this soul-sapping
time waster!!
Now, we are locked in a Candy Crush battle! Who can get to
the highest level? He says that I have
an unfair advantage because I started playing before he did. It’s a valid
point, but I don’t care because I am winning!
How is it possible that I have become one of them? One of
those silly Facebook game players. It
wouldn’t be so bad except in an effort to not have anyone know that I was so enthralled,
I refused the “ask friends for help” function in the game and instead chose to
pay the fee every time I advanced to the next level. I am spending my hard earned money to advance
in a game that 2 months ago I thought was the dumbest thing ever created!
I may need an intervention. Just sayin. HELP ME!!
