It’s like an itch that keeps coming back

For a while there, I thought I may not be a gamer any more. Not only does baby Samantha demand a lot more of the time that used to be used for gaming, I just didn’t feel the urge to play like I used to. It did use to feel urgent –something I needed like sleep or nicotine. But for the last few weeks I had been more interested in other things during my down time. Mostly reading and tinkering with this website.

I kept going through the motions and keeping up pretenses, popping my head into Electronics Boutique whenever I was at the mall and reading up on all the latest gaming news. But it felt like I was just stringing gaming along like a old girlfriend that had grown apart from me, both of us unable to find a good enough excuse to admit it was over.

This is a pikmin



Earlier this week, though, I was home sick for the day and found a bit of spare time on my hands. I had slept for over 10 hours, Samantha was napping, and Geralyn was busy elsewhere. I started shuffling through my backlog of games and came across Pikmin for the Nintendo GameCube. This was a launch title for Nintendo’s little purple purse and I had heard good things about it, but for some reason I had never popped it in to give it a try.

What fun! Anyone who complains about gaming being stuck in a rut dug by the same old genres and cliches should give Pikmin a try. It’s chock full of ineffable Japanese weirdness, the kind that makes it both fun and charming. You play a tiny spaceman who has crash-landed on a planet populated by pikin. These titular creatures are little plant-like drones that obey your commands and interact with the world around you. You grow and harvest pikmin to solve various environmental challenges, making it partly a puzzle game and partly a real-time strategy game. But it really transcends the trappings of those mortal genres. It’s unique and wonderfully presented.

I’m so hooked on the game that Ger found me last night standing in front of the television, wireless Nintendo controller in hand and a snoozing baby strapped to my chest via the Snugli. I plan on trying to finish it this weekend.

Welcome back, gaming. Things probably won’t stay as hot and heavy for as long as they used to, but we can still have the occasional fling.

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One thought on “It’s like an itch that keeps coming back

  1. Just finished the game this Sunday morning. I collected all 30 parts in 24 days. Quite a fun game, though it was pretty short.

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