The game system of my youth

I remember when my parents bought me Intellivision. Atari was the most popular game system then, but Mattel game out with their own video game console system to rival the theirs. Intellivision boasted better graphics, claiming it was "the closest to the real thing." The system was unique, opting against the standard joystick as the playing mechanism. Instead, Intellivision had a controller that had a circular disk and a keybad with numbers on its rectangular device. The system was way ahead of its time.

My parents were the type of people who liked to have the newest things first. We had a projection TV, a pool table, a dance floor, and a bar in our finished basement. We had a conversion van, and a personal computer, long before either one was popular (was the conversion van ever popular?)

I wanted the Atari system. My friends had Atari, their friends had Atari, everyone had Atari. Except us.

We were pretty spoiled. We never really wanted for anything. When I started weightlifting, eating six huge meals a day that required $300+ weekly grocery bills, my parents never complained. When summer was over and we needed new clothes for school, my mom took us to Woodfield Mall to get them, without a sour word. We went to England, twice, when I was a teenager. The only complaint uttered out of anyone was to ridicule my dad for the horrible perm he paid someone to give him.

I still feel bad about getting the Intellivision system. Bad because I complained a couple of weeks after we got it. We had just finished dinner and I was laying on our booth in the kitchen (that's right, we had a real restaurant style booth in our kitchen). The thought occurred to me that maybe if I said something to my parents about my dissatisfaction with not having the Atari system, they would have sympathy for me and exchange what they had gotten me.

I remember my father, visibly angry or upset with my admission, looking at me and calling me a spoiled brat. I had no idea how easy I had it.


Atari and Intellivision were yesterday's X-Box, Game Cube, and Wii. Last year, Frederic wanted a Wii. Cyndi and I were against having a system in our house because we know they are often time wasters. There is no educational value in the system. I know I spent way too much time--even after I got over the fact that I had the inferior system--playing video games as a child. I'm not warped because of it, but I am also no better.

We caved into the pressure or the hype about how "interactive" the Wii is. You actually get up off the couch and have to move around we were told repeatedly.

We got it, and enjoyed it for a while. Until the movement became no more than the moving of thumbs and fingers. Bowling, baseball, and tennis (the games the system comes with and the most interactive we have) are the games least played these days.

The Wii often became a source of punishment in the house. Do this or we'll take away the Wii. You just did what? No Wii for a month. It's tiring how a game system can get so much attention.

Today was the final straw for us. It will be a thing of the past. One more time came and went. And maybe it's my fault. I still harbor the guilt and possible resentment over the game system of my youth.