The war cry cuts through the silent night, its echoes bouncing around every corner of the quiet house. These eerie sounds are quickly followed by the footsteps of the predator as it moves, room to room, to its target, its feet scratching every surface with a sickening sound, shuffling over carpet and wood, leaving invisible claw marks on everything it touches as it toys with me, not even pretending to turn this into a fair challenge. It doesn't have to, either... it knows it has the upper hand, but no rush. This will all be over the second it blasts through my last line of defense and takes over. We are both dancing to this tune, but only one of us leads... and then, it happens: lighting and thunder draw its outline as the creature approaches, walking purposefully like someone who knows exactly what it wants and how to get it -- and with a simple leap, it lands right beside me, baring its fangs and staring directly into my soul with those impossibly deep eyes. Then, the creature speaks, moving its head around just so I can properly see its mouth movements as the sound rules over Nature herself, turning rain and storm into background noises. It smiles, then just says it naturally, as if this was just another thing on a long list of non-important things in its mind:
"LET'S PLAY!", "LET'S PLAY!".
My little girl plops on the couch next to me and eagerly points at the TV, wordlessly commanding me to put an end to that horrid spectacle of world events and local news, sensing that something of much more importance should be occupying our time instead. I nod and, utterly defeated, reach for the controller just behind the screen. She starts clapping and bouncing in place as I power on my old (but trusty!) PS3 and dazzle her with the little jingle and the purple menu screen as it materializes from the HDMI 2 port. She claps even harder now, marveled by the fact that I kept the color scheme we had chosen together when I was setting the system up after rebooting it a few months back. Her gaze never leaves the screen as I navigate through menus and the icons of the many games already installed in there, teasing her by stopping just long enough for the background image and little sound clips of all those games to start playing on screen, before quickly moving on to another thing. She laughs, but I can tell that she's having none of that. Finally, with marked indifference, I say the magic words and ask her what she wants to play.
I feel a little bad for reducing this one to trolling fodder... It's a genuinely good game! But I'm sure she will appreciate it soon.
This pleases her immensely, and she starts thinking, deep in concentration, as she tries to remember that one game that makes her laugh like no other. Then, she bounces a little more on her seat and shoots the words right out of her mouth: "THE CAR GAME!", "THE CAR GAME!" -- I know exactly which game she means, but I feel like teasing her further for my own amusement, purposefully picking out the wrong one: "Is this the one?" I ask, pointing at GTA: Vice City Stories. She throws her hands up in the air and giggles saying "NOOOO!". This is way too fun, so I torture her some more by going completely off the rails, landing on Snoopy vs The Red Baron. She laughs even harder and shakes her head, frustration boiling just beneath the surface. Finally, having had my fun, I pick the right one: Burnout: Revenge and begin the "interrogation".
I ask her which car she wants, what course would she want to race in (although we only play Sunshine Keys because all the others are too hard for her); then I ask her what color would she like to paint her vehicle and then --only then-- do I hand her the controller (which is way too big for her hand, but she just doesn't mind). I make sure to remind her on how to use the nitro, then we play.
I make sure to move as slowly as possibly as she tries to keep her car on the road, delighting on the fact that she thinks she's being clever by zooming by me as I avoid crashing onto oncoming traffic (therefore neglecting to fill up my "Burnout" meter) while she smashes onto everything, including a couple of buses coming on to the opposite lane. She panics as she thinks that I'm gonna overtake her in an instant and beings to get a little frustrated by accidentally triggering the "aftertouch" effect. I calm her down by purposefully eating the broadside of a dump truck. She giggles and continues on, racing through the course like it's nothing, actually crashing her way through the finish line while I feel like threatening her a little by gaining on her just late enough for it to not matter. She wins the race and smiles her widest smile, then turns down my "angry" demands for a rematch and asks what else we could play together. Such is the price I pay for losing the race: now I get to be her personal game valet, curating and choosing her entertainment until Masha and the Bear (her favorite TV show) comes on. I enjoy doing that immensely because my dad used to do that for me as well, swapping Genesis cartridges in and out of the system as me and my sister couldn't decide what to play. It's a beautiful throwback.
I actually yell "BURNOUT!" whenever I get to activate the nitro boost. She loves it, but I bet she will deny she knows me in just a few years.
I ask her if she would like to play some "old people" games.
She seems to like that idea and looks on in awe as I go down the list on RetroArch, moving the cursor with lightning speed all through the menus, finally stopping at Spider-Man vs The Kingpin, an old childhood favorite.
She doesn't look all that impressed by the game (but then again, neither had I when I first played it as a kid -- it's way too gray!), but has a blasts seeing how my lack of practice causes me to get my arse handed to me long before I get to the first level boss... a goddamn forklift.
Bet you are wondering how I got myself into this one...
I can tell that she's starting to get bored, so I move on to the Super Nintendo side of things and scramble to come up with something fun for her to play. I check the list in reverse, going Z-thru-A, and land on Panic Bomber! She's immediately drawn to the graphics and proceeds to look as I clear the first board, getting that balloon kid angry in a couple of moves. Then, I can just feel her do the thing that brings me the most joy. I give her a sideways glance, watching as she puts a new "belt" and proceeds to reload the "curiosity machine gun", peppering me with questions about the game and its characters as I play on my own. She has a few very intelligent takes about the puzzles (and I'm not at all biased here :P), but turns down my offer to play against me nonetheless. Age has caught up to both of us in different ways: I'm too old to actually marathon games anymore, whilst she's too young to properly get into them without getting sleepy. It's such a wonderful thing.
She soldiers on as the other kids make it to the room, all chatty and smiley after having completed their homework. She jerks her head up at the sight of her siblings and fights off sleep just long enough to remember that her favorite show is about to start, an internal "clock" telling her that with a precision just not seen in nature, the kind of accuracy missiles wish they had. She gets up lazily and lands on the floor, her little legs shifting under her weight as she goes to the living room, not before listening to what they other kids want to play: Pokemon.
About half-an-hour later she rejoin us as we are deep in conversation, debating strategies on how to catch the elusive Lapras on Pokemon: Crystal Clear. My oldest one is hard at work trying to trigger the incredible hard encounter, getting into a million unrelated fights just in hopes of getting lucky just once... I remember when I had that kind of passion and patience, and it fills me with a strange sense of peace that I don't mind one bit. My other kid, meanwhile, is getting ready to sub-in, willing to take his turn in this seemingly endless chase as the other one loses interest. The baby, on the other hand, is in her own little world inside the stroller, kicking the absolute tar out of the air, while giggling... oh, what I wouldn't give to see what she sees as she does that, probably rendering the world in primary colors and basic shapes as her tiny eyes and young mind fill in the blanks with definitions that simply don't exist in the universe of grown-ups. Maybe she thinks she's a pirate or a princess; or perhaps she's an Olympic athlete winning the gold medal. Whatever the case, she's really into it, and I can't help but feeling a little bit envious of her own interpretation of a world that's new to her, getting to enjoy it in its purest form without any other aids aside from what's directly in front of her, while the rest of us have to make our own fun through screens and written words, traveling through other places to find the enjoyment that just seems out of reach on our own. I try to ponder this further when a loud noise brings me back to reality: the other girl has just finished her bottle and seems ready to sleep, so I ask her if she wants to go to bed and, in a move straight from childhood's golden playbook, she shakes her head violently whilst also being unable to keep her eyes open. I lovingly put her besides me on the couch while the others play, covering her with a blanket as her little hair tie comes slightly loose, moving some wild hairs to her face. Meanwhile, the bigger kids had finally found Lapras and are begging me to tell them how to perform a savestate, this chance too precious to waste.
Not a lot to say... I just love Crystal Clear.
I watch them strategize on what to do, wasting a couple of Super Balls on the water-type Pokemon as they attempt to weaken it, their vastly overpowered team being almost sure to one-shot this precious prey... such is the unintended side-effect of playing the entire game throughout the pandemic. They are just too strong to actually battle anything, so they have to come up with alternative ways to get this thing caught.
They finally get their reward after many attempts and reloads by sending out
their prized Gengar and using it to both hypnotize and indirectly weaken the Lapras. It's a slow grind, but they manage... and they are all-too-pleased with themselves. So am I.
I watch them play a little longer, already deciding on which Pokedex entry they want to clear next (Espeon), before I take a sneaking glance at the clock just to the right of the TV and decide that enough is enough for one night. They notice the gesture and proceed to beg me to let them play just a little longer, but I know that trick to heart due to my own experiences as a child... so I reach back and unload all the things my parents used to tell me when all I wanted was to play games until my eyes burned inside their sockets: "the game will still be there tomorrow", "I will let you play as soon as you get home from school". "I promise I won't advance an inch without you two". It takes some convincing, but they finally accept and head to bed, getting ready to face yet another day. A quick look at the little stroller tells me that the baby has just finished her super secret mission and is now enjoying life in the form of an earned sleep. The other one is tossing slightly, but I can tell she's enjoying her little trip through dreamland as well, so I pick her up very carefully and place her on her bed, being very careful not to disturb even a single frame of the mind movie she must be watching, wondering if she can actually feel the movement and whether her mind would try to incorporate it into the illusion like mine did when I was about her age.
With everyone already sleeping, I go back to the TV room and grab the PlayStation controller from the couch, entertaining the idea of playing something myself before quickly closing the RetroArch app and firing up DosBox instead, getting ready to turn yet another blank canvas into a personal piece for you to read, hacking away at my precious wireless keyboard while the memories are still fresh and the giggles and laughs I had surrounded myself with fill me to the brim with a warm feeling that allows me to fend off the (suddenly very cold) outside temperatures.
And while I battle my way through the English language, one thought rules them all: I can't wait to watch them play again.
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