Video games are a part of modern culture. My eight year old son has a NintendoDS permanently affixed to his hands. He can operate the stylus like a surgeon with a scalpel. He knows every Pokemon by name and type and weaknesses and on and on.
The three year old, Alexander, has a hand-held VSmile video game that he calls his DS. It’s a learning video game deal, the kind that is supposed to teach him his shapes and numbers and such while he’s playing. He isn’t all that keen on it, which is OK with us because a learning video game is still a video game. It seemed that we had escaped from the video game obsession with our second child.
Then I made the mistake of digging out my Sega Genesis from an old box. The finest gaming experience that 1994 had to offer, the old cartridge system is a relic by today’s standards. But Alexander LOVES it. He can’t get enough. Only one game has survived our various moves and yard sales and the ravages of time. But that’s OK with Lex, because X-Men 2: Clone Wars may as well be the only form of entertainment in the universe as far as he’s concerned.
When we’re not playing the game, we’re acting out scenes (I’m usually assigned the role of Wolverine, while young Lex plays the part of Cyclops). We wander the house looking for aliens and robots to destroy with our mutant powers. When I come home from work each evening, he wants to discuss our strategy (“run fast and get the bad guys usually” works) and plan a time that we can play the game that night.
It’s a relatively simple game, and the violence is minimized by the fact that you only fight robots who burst into flame on contact. He’s getting really good at the jumping and climbing. Truth is, the game is kind of fun… for the first ten minutes. Then I start searching for my escape route.