Sukoshi Natsukashi

I had no idea what to write so I randomly chose a word - yes, out of the 250,000 words I know, I chose one at random - and chose a random number between one and ten. I then typed that word into google and counted that many links down, clicking on my chosen one. The word was Helicopter and this is what the fifth link produced: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/helicopter.shtml

I played it a little bit - of course. I got 950 on about my fifth attempt. Quite a clever little game. Now all they need are weapons and enemies and it'd actually be fun. It reminds me of an old game, Jumpjet, which I suspect was created by an individual and not widely distributed. It was amongst a collection of DOS games on our first family computer: a 386 DX40.

There were two other games that I enjoyed: Nyet (just like Tetris) and Textris, both of which I totally pwned the high scoreboard in. Gaming used to be so simple.

Matt and Lish (my brother-in-law and sister) have all the stuff for their new restaurant already, in storage, whilst they finalise some preceedings. At their house there is an old arcade table with a spaceship shooting game from the 80's, Phoenix - reminiscent of space invaders but slightly more advanced, in that you are actually flying through space with a top-down view (a primitive version of Raptor).

Oldschool gaming is teh best. Such titles as Streets of Rage 2 from the Megadrive, Street Fighter 2 at the arcade and Doom 2 on the pc. I loved the Monkey Island and Space Quest titles, not to mention Quest for Glory (part one formerly known as Hero's Quest), Commander Keen, Warcraft 2, Day of the Tentacle and Descent. Adventure and Platform was where it was at ^L^ And yes, I was always more of a pc gamer than a console gamer.

I'll bet that listing those titles would conjure up some natsukashi* moments for gamers in my generation. To truly appreciate gaming, one had to grow up in the 90's, as last decade saw the birth of 3D gaming, not to mention the release of such great games as Jedi Knight, Half-life, Goldeneye 007 and, of course, Final Fantasy VII.

Once, when I was at Bible College, a friend and I started talking about oldschool gaming. I think the conversation lasted for close to two hours. It was awesome just reminiscing about all of our experiences and what it was like growing up with computers and having access to all of these great titles that were released. Good ol' PKZip, hehe.

One thing we did at Bible College a lot was play cards. I really must play Killer Uno again some time. FBC was a great experience and a real turning point in my life. Since then I really have experienced a lot, changing my vocation from year to year. I look forward to studying later this year. I just have to pray more and decide what it is that I'm actually going to set my heart and mind on.

Ja ne.

-Timotheos

*Natsukashi is Japanese for 'nostalgia'. It seems that the Japanese get very nostalgic about many things and so this word crops up a lot more frequently in animé than it would in any Western cartoon - in any programme, for that matter.