Simple and no cords attached

Building on the simple blips and dashes of Pong, game systems became mobile with handheld units during the late 70's. The Electronic Quarterback was the bigger brother of an Electronic Football game and showed a simple field, that allowed you to move a small dash across the screen in hopes of scoring a touch down. The game allowed you to run, kick, and pass your way to simple glory, the pass feature was an addition the little brother did not have.

The next game we loved to play was Merlin, with the simple blinking red LED lights, that allowed you to play games like Tic Tac Toe, Music Machine, Echo, Blackjack 13, Magic Square, and Mindbender. It also had a Music Machine game function that turned the handheld game into a musical instrument.

The last of these early handheld games was the Microvision and one of the first to feature removable game cartridges. Still very simple in function and with basic black & white and shades of grey graphics. You still enjoyed playing games like Block Buster, Bowling, Mindbuster, and Star Trek: Phaser Strike to name a few.

We still played a lot of PONG at the TV, but we liked taking these games around with us on trips, passing time in the car, or even out to the school yard during brakes. Little did we know, but the world of color gaming was about to explode on the TV sets and take off running.

Back to the present

I'm reminded of the scene in Back to the Future (1985), with Marty McFly sitting around his Mom-to-Be's dinner table and seeing his Grandfather roll over the families first TV set. Having grown up with TVs... seeing the game system PONG for the first time was along the same feeling most of the characters in that scene experienced.

I have a few instances of first time experiences like my Parents taking us to see Star Wars (1977) in the theaters for example. I had never seen anything like this and had no clue about a Princess flying in space, but for me, it was a free movie and we decided to give it a whirl. I was blown away and that has become my favorite movie of all times.

The white blip, flicks back across the screen, sent back from the paddle along the TV edge... Back to my story and the birth of a gamer (me). Such a simple game unit & form of entertainment, capturing the eyeballs of thousands of people. If they only knew where this was going to lead them. Who would have guessed that this simple Black screen, with a white bouncing box and two longer paddles, moving up and down the sides of the screen, would be the start of something huge.

I've marked the past and where it began around 1975 and I'll set my course for the present and perhaps even the future, as I relive some of those cool games and systems from the past.

Good things come to those that wait

Codename Zephyr is what its called so far and it appears to be closer to fact than fiction. What is expected to come out sometime this year from Microsoft is none other than the Xbox 360 v2. A system that is expected to make use of the new and much cooler 65nm processor, an HDMI port for full 1080p game enjoyment, a new "HANA" scaler, and a larger 120GD drive for more storage space.

See I'm in a research phase at this point and if you've read my earlier stories you would know that I have some expensive WANTS, not NEEDS. The Xbox fever that I have captured from co-workers is more and likely the cause of this. I think exposure is a better word for it and I really became fully infected at a local Best Buy. Something about the Moto GP 06 game called to me and at the moment I held a control in my hand for the first time, I was doomed. Well I welcomed capturing the fever just the same.

Engadget released the first bit of news, along with X-Scene reports, telling me its really good to wait at this time and not buy. Not only did I have concerns about over heating from extended game play; a co-worker had to send his 360 in for repair service. I still wanted to learn more about the unit and what all was possible from the system and games. I had a few questions about which package to purchase and did I really need to get a Hard drive with the system to begin playing games.

Research has told me that not only does it sound like a number of the games have been created with the aspect of No hard drive being available and that games should perform just as well. I also found out about the new units might be coming down the road soon. Which is great news for those of us waiting to buy or just not able to really buy at this time.

Now I have a lot more to look into and who knows perhaps more expensive toys could come from it, like a really nice HD TV for example. Hopefully more information will come soon and in the meantime I plan to keep my eyes and ears open as I form a plan to save money towards my new WANTS. If I could some how just find a way to justify them as a NEED... not a chance.

Too many toys and where to begin

You know your in trouble when the toys on your list all come in around the $100 to $500 dollar price range. It's not so bad when you have only a single item in this price range. But when these start to add up and become two and three items at the same cost, it becomes harder to decide which to pick first in the list of big boy toys.

If I place them in order by Needs I would have the following items... Ok, do I really need any of them to begin with. This will be a hard argument to prove that I really need a new Cell phone, a new Computer, and an Xbox 360 game system with Moto GP 06. Wanting the items is easy to prove or I wouldn't even talk about them to begin with. So the need these is not the best route to take here.

The Treo 700 series cell phone is a really nice Phone/PDA combo and my current phone has seen its better days and served its purpose to a degree. But as I've said earlier, need is not an option. I've stopped dragging the Palm PDA around in hopes that this would cause me to buy a PDA style phone sooner. It's not really working, since I haven't made the $200 to $300 leap for a new phone.

I use to build my own computers from scratch. I'd select all the parts and spend the time hooking it all up and installing all the software. With the sudden drop in prices, its crazy to even think about doing something like that these days. Someday I'll tell my daughter I use to build these things, until the stores started giving them away. Ok, still around $400, its almost a giveaway in my mind.

Xbox 360, is a want for sure. I could make a lame attempt at stating, its relaxing to sit and play a game ever so often and the girls will love it at some point, sure it will take longer for the infant to even master holding a control, but the eldest is getting close to the age to play some of the family style games. Oh no, I will not play any of those shooter style games in front of them, I promise.

Lucky or unlucky for me, I just don't have enough to act on any of these toys at this time. The real hard part is when I get close, making a decision on one over the others.

Kakuro kraze

So it was about a year ago when my mother-in-law introduced the game of Sudoku to the whole family. I had seen the books all over and had no clue what it was all about and in fact she bought a book as a gift for her son. He wanted nothing to do with this game an set the book back down. I picked it up to see just what it was all about and my interest kicked in.

It's really a cool game that can be played everywhere. I started to learn more and after a few games was hooked. I even enjoyed the picture game versions as well. My wife started playing around Halloween time with a picture version from eBay and now she's wanted to play more and more and even moved on to some of the books.

A few books later and even a version that plays on her iPod, she's really enjoying the game. So I looked around during the holidays and thought about getting her a new book. That is when I came across this new game called Kakuro and decided to investigate it some more.

It's known as the bigger/harder brother to Sudoku. It uses a little math and is somewhat like a crossword puzzle. For example the box to the left with a 5 is a the sum for the two boxes across. You can have a 1+4 or a 2+3 combination. The key here is only one combination will work and you can't have multiple numbers in the same runs. That being said the 7 down would make use of the numbers you select.

I decided to mention this game to the family and it seems that most of them are satisfied with Sudoku and will stay away from this game for the time being. Something about it just keeps calling me to check it out and try some of the games. I think I'll keep playing Sudoku, but I have a feeling that Kakuro will get some of my time this year.