Indoor Life

Evening, gang.


The year is coming to an end, faster than I'd care to admit. It's been a huge year for me - getting married, a crazy honeymoon, starting this site, new job, new home. I've done more in one year than I feel I have in the last five. It's been damn good to me. I won't bother you with the typical year-end, best-of lists that are so pervasive this season, though. For me, it's been a time full of office deadlines that demand I keep my head down and just push through, processing invoice after invoice. Super fun stuff, let me tell you. So how do I get through this? By devotedly listening to one of my favorite podcasts - The Indoor Kids, courtesy of Nerdist Industries.

I had long been a listener of 1Up's Retronauts, viewing it in my own mind as a be-all, end-all for gaming. I had a big gap in my video game lexicon, ending in the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era. I didn't go modern until last summer, and that was only because a friend gave me an incredible deal on a 360. That's the thing about getting older - money is no longer the scarcity; time is the valuable commodity now. Getting married and starting a new job consumed most of my free time. When I could steal a free hour, here or there, I would have to make the most of it. Bit by bit, I caught up on what I had missed out on - Biohazard, Arkham Asylum, Alan Wake. Lots of genre specific, niche-heavy titles. I slowly went modern. When my favorite podcast announced a satellite series, hosted by Kumail Nanjiani, I was wary but excited.


Turns out, my curiosity was rewarded.


I had been a fan of Kumail since I had seen his stand up on Comedy Central. He's hysterical and sweet, the kind of comic who can make you howl at jokes about the depths of the ocean ("It's when God says "...and here's all these mistakes I've made!""). His obsessive, devoted appreciation for the world of gaming is so pure and sincere that hours of fantastic content spring forth from his discussions he hosts, both with friend Ali Baker and wife Emily V Gordon. In particular, hearing the married couple's take on gaming is both endearing and fascinating - you get a glimpse not only at how their relationship as writers and comics work, but how gaming is a force in the course of their lives. 

On top of the great hosts, some of the themes and guests they've had for episodes have been unparalleled. There have been down-the-rabbit-hole discussions on Gears of War with voice actor Carlos Ferro, entire episodes dedicated to the discussion of music in gaming, and the overwrought notion of girl gamers. Tom Lennon lead an eye-opening episode on addiction and the time sink that is gaming. I was agog at how Paul Scheer consistently (and without fail) backed the wrong technological horse. Dan Harmon extolled the virtues of evolution and story telling around the merits of Skyrim as it consumed everyone's lives.

I love this podcast and look forward to it every week. Kumail and Emily are top notch and open minded in a field that too often yields nit picking and negativity. If you have any interest at all in the idea of games as a commodity or cultural phenomenon, or just the guests themselves, listen to an episode. I guarantee you'll learn something.

Console Nation

Kids, it's time we say goodbye to Video Game Week.


This most likely comes with a rounding cheer from a heart segment of my audience, while coming from a heavy heart. I really do love to apply analysis and critical thought to my gaming. Whether its the simplest indulgence, like button mashing and rhythm games, or the headiest, most convention defying experience to date, I love examining the phenomenon that occurs when we play games. I really appreciate the fact that anyone here would read my thoughts on a field that has no shortage of self-righteous essays and pretentious diatribes, not just from me but from much more talented, witty writers. 

I could honestly fill pages upon pages with content devoted to my love of gaming but in the interest of not shedding any more readers, I'll just round up the few posts on the subject that I have done and get back to what I do best - heartfelt examinations of the music that makes people tick. While there may be the occasional post on games in the future, they will much more sporadic, that's for sure. For example, I hardly mentioned the unsung hero of games - soundtracks. Someday, kids. Some day. 


Here's anything and everything I've written about button mashing:


Zombies Ate My Neighbors - an old post about a sublime SNES game, which is a love letter to B-Movies.
Silent Hill 2 - the scariest and most captivating experience I've ever had with a game, bar none.
Gamespite - a look at the most funny and intelligent gaming community I've seen, headed by Jeremy Parish.
S.T.U.N. Runner - a whimsical tale about lost memories from my childhood. And Chuck E. Cheese!
Scribblenauts - I wrote about this smart little game after a pre-flight happy-hour and some in-flight DS time.
Grabbed By The Ghoulies - Rare's black sheep that's really not too bad, worth the few dollars it goes for these days.
Maniac Mansion - a groundbreaking classic, as fun then as it is now. Another of many loving homages to Horror.
ToeJam & Earl - Co-op ahead of its time, a stealth masterpiece of the Sega Genesis.
Link's Awakening - The secret-best Zelda game which goes undeservedly neglected these days.
Dragon Warrior 4 - In which I wax nostalgic about exploring and having a curious mind as a child.
Virtual Bart - The hidden redemptive qualities of minigames and the mindless pleasures they afford.

That wraps up Video Game Week for me, kids. Starting tomorrow I get back on my grind with the more traditional music-based posts and articles. Down the line we'll have more themed weeks, like Book Worm Week and a special Halloween themed series. Until then, I'll see you guys on the flip side. Thanks for reading.

Arcade Fiend

All right, readers.

Another day, another tale of lost and found, memories just barely flashing on the edge of my subconcious.

As a kid in the Midwest, I spent my share of time in arcades and Circus Pizzas. Lots of great times to be had, playing games with friends and eating the horribly greasy and bland pizza that, for reasons unbekownst to me, was always cut into squares. To this day I hold a deep love and appreciation for the game, the glory, that is Skeeball. There is no activity like it, whatsoever. There's something unique yet elusive about it, something in the tactile sensation of rolling the wooden balls up the ramp. The unmatchable satisfaction for getting the bulls eye in the center. When I happen on a game as a grown man I can't resist the compulsion to indulge, no matter the amount of sore knees and shoulders afterword. No one said getting older is easy, after all. Cocktails are the difference, I find. What was whimsy as a kid is replaced by light inebriation and arrested development as someone in their late twenties. Alas, my love for Skeeball is not why I write this. 

No, my friends.

Today's post is of another mystery solved! Like my post on Depresso, it's a tale of the internet leading me to what I had lost and forgotten. 


Read on!

For years I had hazy memories of a game that I was enthralled with, yet whose name escaped me. My friend Scott and I would plunk down our quarters, sit in a cockpit, and steer a hover-craft type vehicle through tunnels and futuristic city-scapes, blasting aliens and hurtling forward with unstoppable momentum. It was a blast! The graphics I could recall were, at the time, mind blowing. Sure, there were plenty of other great games - Street Fighter II, the excellent Simpsons arcade game, the bizarre Play Choice 10 cabinets and even the legendary 6-player X-Men cabinets. Of course, my beloved Skeeball. None of these, however, held the same feel, the same je ne sais quois, that this strange, frenetic After Burner clone held. Looking back now, I realize it was de riguer for the time - mode 7 scaling, sleek Blade Runner-style cityscapes. The music was interesting too, as I recall.

Time passed, attention wandered. I discovered girls. I started playing music. Basically my life moved on from the arcades right before the arcades started to die out, anyway, so the timing was congruent with my forgetting the game. Years later, though, it came back to me. I don't even know why. It may have been a trip to Gameworks in Minneapolis. It may have been something I saw while surfing the web instead of writing a paper in college. Whatever it was, the memories started to come back, if only slightly. I had just the vaguest memories of playing the game, whatever it was. Gripping the joystick, feeling like I was holding on for dear life as I dodged attacks and steered through canals and tunnels. Laden with nostalgia, I wanted to play it again, maybe just to see if it held up, or maybe just to relive my childhood in the smallest, silliest way. But there was a problem.

I couldn't for the life of me remember the title. 


All I knew were some of the vaguest details - the type of game, what it looked and felt like. I couldn't even nail down the year. How old was I? Was it 1991? 92? 94? No idea. So, completely blind on the web, I started to look, casually at first. It was one of those things I would pick up sporadically - twenty minutes here or there on Google or a vintage gaming site. I was hindered by my lack of specifics. At one point I stumbled onto the sprawling Arcade Game Museum and their wonderfully refinable search engine. Still, nothing came up that was right. Things were close, but nothing hit it on the head.

Toward the end of a work day I mentioned it to a coworker. It was slowly growing an bothering me. The more I searched the more I grew frustrated. I just wanted to know what it was at this point. I knew it existed, it had to have a title. He mused along with me, saying "So it was like some tunnel-racing thing?" It dawned on me to just try putting some descriptors like that into the search bar. What came up was closer than ever - a similar if less refined game called S.T.U.N. Runner. Indeed it was a tunnel racer, as the genre was known. So, I had a genre to work with. I kept poking away, bit by bit, patience increasing with every refinement of the terms.

Then I saw it. 

A screenshot from the game. It was a eureka moment in the nerdiest way. Eagerly, I clicked on the link and lo and behold - the game. Released by Taito of Japan, it was called Night Striker. No wonder I couldn't recall it - the title was so generic it might as well have not had one. But there it was! In a rush it all came back - hunching over in the cabinet, yelling at the screen and elbowing my friend Scott as he grabbed the controls for his turn. The sounds of the arcade, the noise of other games in the background, feeling like you're the baddest kid in the world when you're nine years old. Nostalgia is a strange thing.

I may or may not have found a legal way to experience playing the game again, but suffice it to say I was able to satisfy the beast of childhood memories with a computer program and some ridiculous YouTube videos. It's pretty cheesy and dated, but take a look - seeing this awesomely old school game in action just makes me feel like a kid in the best way. To me it was like finding your old action figures and remembering the good times you had as a kid. It's another mystery I've been able to solve in my adult life, thanks once again to the depths of the web. Hell or high water, it's out there for finding, provided you know where to look. Happy hunting, kids.