Housewife Tales, Part 3: Gaming

Video games are awesome. Heck yes I played Tink! Tonk! Tinka's Mazes on Commodore 64 when I was a toddler. (Sidenote: I cannot believe I remembered the name of the game and totally just downloaded a copy.) And, yes, the best game on Atari was Jungle Hunt. The day my uncle got a Nintendo and I got to go over and play Mario and Duck Hunt was the day he became my favorite uncle (sorry, other uncles, but deal with it).

I admit, a video game doesn't have to be quality to get my hooked (Party Babies is good, shut up), especially when I just need a few moments of mindless clicking before I can re-focus on what I should be doing. My attention span is like that.

So, yeah, I have a farm. Don't get all judgey on me; my farm is awesome. See the hay rainbows? Too cool for you.

It looks like I have a lot of stuff, and I kind of do, but even my grandma is higher level than me. The last two times I planted crops, I let them wilt. And, let me tell you, a field of wilted nacho plants just looks sad.

For those who are out of the loop, this is that FarmVille game everyone's either obsessed with or grumbling about.

The other mindless click-click-click game I play is Restaurant City. It's cute. It's just cute. Look at my freaking restaurant! Cute. The inside is just a cluttered mess of baby animals, mermaid-related decor, and now a bunch of little colorful eggs with faces. And I get to serve my customers sushi, rainbow soup, and bacon orbs. Bacon orbs that float. And have bacon.

And it makes me happy.

I haven't just been playing crappy little Facebook games! I'm in the last dungeon on Final Fantasy XIII. This game is so pretty! People complain that the game is "linear," but I'm totally happy with playing a 60 hour interactive movie.

And a Final Fantasy where the characters are finally interesting? And no random battles? Hooray!

I've also been tossing Arkham Asylum into the 360 from time to time. Not as much as I should, being a Batman lover. It's a very fun game, but it has failed to really keep my attention. A little slow-paced, I would say. The strategic way you have to take down the baddies is very fun, but I've just been struggling with it.

Also, I am totally bitter that you have to have a PlayStation 3 to play as Joker. Joker is my favorite villain of all time. Of all time!

This one's a little embarrassing--I've been playing Ultima Online. That's one of the first MMORPGs (think World of Warcraft) and was released in 1997. I played it then, and I've never liked another MMORPG as much (including World of Warcraft).

I've been playing it with friends who also played it back when it was new and hip (See? I'm not a total loner.) and have been playing it plenty. In fact, I just took that screenshot like five minutes ago. This game has no real levels, you can buy houses, I made my own pink dress, you can kill people more easily (not like this pansy "agreeing to duel" crap); it's much more fun. And I'm playing it for free thanks to UO Second Age.

The last of the video games I've been playing lately is The Biggest Loser for Wii. Poncho picked me up a copy (after I asked, of course) and it's been nice. I haven't played too much of it yet, but my legs already hurt from playing it this morning. It's not as cute as Wii Fit (though Bob is pretty cute) but it's far more intense and has recipes and calorie tracking and stuff.

It will be hard to keep up with, but I think it'll be effective and worth the effort.

Seriously, floating lunges on a Wii balance board are hard.


So, yeah, I can cook, I can clean, I can pay bills... but then I want to play my video games.