Saturday, March 7, 2009

Uber Nerd post


We're pretty nerdy in this household, in case you haven't garnered that from my postings. For instance, we have a desktop computer with not one, but two monitors (I thought it was excessive at first too, but now I don't know how people do without them). There are also no fewer than three laptops (five, if you count the ones we sometimes bring home from work), one picture of Yoda, an old shell NES, a Family Guy-StarWars wall calendar, and a pink stuffed Domo (don't know what Domo are? Perhaps you might recognize them from this classic viral picture). We like our games. Admittedly, Boyfriend likes games a bit more than I, but I've got my weaknesses.

Case in point: I have been dying--DYING--to play three particular games in the last few weeks. All are totally inaccessible.

  • Kid's Typing: This is a weird one, I know. But it came with our very first computer, a Compaq Presario that ran Windows 95. Sloooooowly. This game was the shit, though. It taught typing with the help of a character called Spooky the Ghost. The game took place in a house that Spooky haunted. You started the game in the attic of the home, learning basics like home keys with Spooky. Then, you would go into the individual rooms to "test" yourself. The cool thing was, your typing was synched with something fun in the room...like in the Baby's room, the toy xylophone would play classical music; the quality of the music would vary with how quickly and accurately you typed. I didn't really learn to type well with this game...what finally taught me how to type well was AIM instant messenger (I'm sure that's the case with a lot of people in my generation). I bet I would KICK ASS at Kid's Typing now, though (63 words per minute with 97% accuracy!)
  • The 11th Hour: My sister bought this game, but I may have played it more than her. I remember that the graphics were like nothing I had ever seen (I wonder what they would look like to me now). I think the game ran off of DOS. It was essentially a mystery game. You were trapped in a haunted mansion, trying to find your missing girlfriend. You had to solve a bunch of logic puzzles, and find your way through oodles of secret passageways. We had one of those cheat books. The puzzles were mostly too hard for me to figure out on my own, so I remember that I used the cheat book all the way until the last puzzle...but the fucking book didn't give an answer to the last puzzle! So I never beat the game. Also, I think there were some steamy video scenes...
  • Sims 3: The third installment of the highly-addictive Sims series was supposed to come out in February. I used a gift card to pre-order it on Amazon...and then the release date got pushed back to June. I really wanted to piss away my winter playing that game. I briefly considered installing Sims 2 on my laptop (it's currently on an old laptop), but I decided it would only heighten my longing for the new version.
The first two games I cannot have without finding and purchasing via Ebay...and I think that's BULLSHIT. There ought to be a statute of limitations on PC game copyrights. If software is nearly 15 years old, I want to be able to play that shit online FOR FREE. It's not like they're selling anymore, anyway. Some seller on Ebay wanted 25 bucks for Kid's Typing! Fuhgeddaboudit.

Anyone else got any warm fuzzy memories of old computer games?

4 comments:

Herding Cats said...

Um....it was allll about Oregon Trail for me.

As far as old school Nintendo was concerned, I loved Mario 3.

BigRed said...

Oh Oregon Trail...you can play the original online at an Apple emulator site. I got Oregon Trail II for Christmas in the fifth grade and I was convinced that it was the most graphically advanced game EVER.

We have Mario 3, and I still can't beat the damn thing. There are very few games that I have ever finished. I get frustrated very easily...

Anonymous said...

Loved Oregon Trail.

But I've still never actually played The Legend of Zelda. We just never got the game nor had a friend that had it. I'd love a second chance.

BigRed said...

@fB: I think I'm the only one who never got into Zelda...I thought it was boring! You should look for it online, I'm positive you can play it somewhere for free.

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