Self Improvement’s Guise

If you’ve been reading this blog, chances are that you know I’m all about self improvement. I’d like to take a moment to make what I think is an important distinction, which I don’t think is always clear.

By being an advocate of self-improvement, I’m not saying that the Celes of yesterday was so flawed that a new me is needed. There seems to be the theme among people who are into self improvement that you need to hate yourself to want to be better. I don’t think improvement works well this way, nor do I think that improvement is about being better each day, every day.

I try to improve myself and my life, but I do so with knowing I will never reach level 1000. Life if not like some games where you’re gaining all these experience points and leveling up and leveling up until you’re at level 1000+ by the time I’m seventy-eight years old. As much as I wish it were, life just isn’t like that, my friends. Everyone whose self improvement is a linear picture of reaching perfection will be sadly disappointed in the end.

We as people, and life itself, go in cycles. You can’t always be happy or healthy. The best you can do is try to extend the times you are and minimize the times you aren’t. If anything, learning to deal with the times when things are bad in the best way possible is self improvement. To try to reach a state where you never trip, never falter, and never stray from the best of the best is not only an impossible goal, it’s a step backwards. To improve you first have to realize that you’re not horrible the way you are now, you’re never going to suddenly morph into that butterfly or swan or whatever, and you’re going to make terrible mistakes and have horrible things happen to you on your journey.

You are you, with your own faults and particular qualities. To pledge to make slight changes is one thing, but to act like some day a Honda Civic is going to become a Hummer is delusional and sad (about as sad as that metaphor).

Today is as important as tomorrow, and as much as you should be working towards something, you need to realize, accept, and live in the moment of who you are today as well. Do it because there may not be tomorrow. Do it because to really improve you have to love and accept who you are now. Do it because tomorrow, whether or not you like it, you will still be you no matter what you tell yourself. Do it because even if right now sucks, it is part of you and your story, and only you can do something with it that makes it worth having happened.

I know some things about myself, others I’m sure I’m still learning. By knowing I am a certain way, I can embrace and express that in ways that I am increasingly more comfortable with. Faults are not always faults, and finer qualities not always so fine. To focus on ‘changing the bad things about yourself’ is to place a black and white value on a part of who you are and either try to cut it out or replace it like some kind of Frankenstein graft. To see both sides to a coin is to admit the world is flat on only has two sides. Consider the many sides to the tetrahedron, or other polyhedrons that are the building blocks of life, and try to find how each piece can fit together.

I try to be realistic. Combine slight tweaks with strategies and meet yourself somewhere in the middle before you fall off the edge. If you hate who you are now and set an impossible goal for tomorrow, you will fail in the worst way. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re not who you were, because you will always be some version of yourself. Accept it as everything you were has made you today, and will make you every day after until the end of this life. All things shape us, the best we can do is try to take some control over how they do and accept the things we cannot so we can move past them.

Acceptance is the biggest piece to the puzzle I think most people miss. You have to accept yourself, your life, and the general way of life, that it is not a perfect pearl or even an oyster, before you can move on.

And move on to what? What do you really want? Figuring is as much part of the journey and figuring out how to get it.

I want to be better than yesterday may seem like a the daily goal to strive for, but in the long term it makes little sense as it is a generalization, a judgment on the unquantifiable, and an impossibility.

More than self improvement, I think of this as learning to live by living. This involves thinking and introspection as much as it involves getting out there, taking chances, and doing.

Best and Worst of Atari 2600

Before I even start, I’ll say it’s okay if you don’t agree with this post- that’s what the comments section is for. If people have enough opinions, I might even look into the titles for a follow up post. The following are my opinions on the best, worst, and other awards I deemed appropriate for this 2008 Atari 2600 retrospective!! *cheers, applause* I could spend much more time coming up with other categories and remembering other titles, but here is a start on some of the good, the bad, and the obnoxious. If there are some obvious omissions, like Adventure, it doesn’t mean they weren’t considered. It means I’m leaving fodder for future posts -and- Adventure was already given air time last post.

 

Best in Ground Based Cannon

Winner: Space Cavern

Space Cavern

I know what you’re thinking. How do I dare pick something other than Space Invaders? Well, I dare because the first doesn’t always mean the best. Space Cavern sports both baddies from the sky who shoot at you and dudes from the side who try to flank you as your attention is turned to the sky. You also have nothing to hide under. I remember this being my dad’s favorite game growing up, and last time he saw my Atari 2600 out, sure enough he asked if I still had it.

Best in Horror

Winner: Haunted House

Haunted House

I’m not going to say that Haunted House is scary, but I will say that it has helped pave the way in psychological thriller/horror games that came after. Like in classics such as Clocktower for the SNES, you are a normal (though pixelated) person just trying to escape the extraordinary with your life in tact. This is also, like Clocktower, a game that changes the placement of things every time you play! You move through dark rooms with only a limited glow about your person to avoid all sorts of creepy baddies. Hopefully you can find the key to open all the locked doors. While the graphics may make you laugh, the soundtrack has some creepy sound effects.

Best in Racing

Winner: Enduro

Enduro

I know many of you might think Pole Position was as good as it got, but Enduro was the top of the line. The controls are tight and the graphics believable. The thing that really puts this game above the others is the day, night, and weather changes that made Enduro exciting, and dare I say, a bit realistic even. At night you can only see headlights clearly and in the snow the handling of your car changes. The sound helps with the excitement and nothing feels better than passing the other cars. As a matter of fact, that is the goal- not to beat the timer, but to pass a certain number of cars each ‘day’.

Best in Multiplayer

Winner: Warlords

Warlords

If you were to come over my house right now with a friend or two and say you wanted to play a video game, I just might plop this on. Yes, it is THAT good. You use paddles and play with up to four people (you can have others be controlled by the A1 which is surprisingly good). The object is to simply smack each other’s ‘base’ with a ‘ball’. You can intercept the ‘ball’ with your paddle controlled ‘person’ and either catch and throw it or smack it away. You must first chip away at the ‘shield’ around the base to get the chance at winning. The fun of this game reminds me of Bomber Man a bit in it’s style and combination between luck ans strategy.

Best in Simple Fun

Winner: KABOOM!

Kaboom!

If you know me in real life, you might know that I have occasion to sport a KABOOM! t-shirt. And why not? This game is just as much fun you’re going to find on an Atari 2600. The premise is uber simple: a robber is dropping bombs and you have to catch them as the fall to the bottom of the screen in- you guessed it- tubs of water. It’s sort of the opposite of your ground based cannon- a ground based catcher. There is plenty of animation and pretty colors. Unlike most Atari 2600 games, the graphics are even surprisingly easy to comprehend and appropriate. The game starts off easy, but soon your rocking your spinny paddle.

Best Ported from the Arcade

Winner: Dig Dug

How many Atari 2600 games were simply arcade games reprogrammed for the home? As PacMan shows us, this didn’t always lead to good things as often they became shoddy shadows of their former selves. Though the graphics took a hit when coming over, Dig Dug remains the same addictive game you remember spending your quarters on. The controls and gameplay remain intact as you tunnel your way through dirt and pump your enemies full of air (“blow them away!” Har!). The only thing you might notice is some lag time when too many enemies are on the screen. Other than that, this game remains intact and very enjoyable.

Most Mindless Fun

Winner: Barnstorming

Sure, there’s a point to this game, but who cares! You get to fly an indestructible plane around to your heart’s content crashing into barns and poor hapless ducks(?) that emit a funny noise and shoot forward when hit. You can even pile up a bunch of ducks in front of you for maximum hitting and squaking! Fan-tastic!

Best Innovation & Atmosphere

Winner: Mountain King

Mountain King

This was the one Atari 2600 game that actually successfully drew me in. The setting a creepy mountain landscape where you begin by collecting piles of dots (coins?) that make a noise when you pick them up. You are armed with a flashlight and ability to jump and climb ladders. The jumping is challenging, but unique as you point diagonally up, and then down when you want to angle back downward. Once you collect enough piles, they stop making noises and you hear a creepy tune. The tune actually gets louder as you get closer, and quieter as you get further away, to the bouncing, invisible, flicker-dot. You navigate up, down, and side to side (which loops) to try to get close enough to see the flicker out of the corner of your eye. The music gets loud ominous and you approach closer and flash your flashlight on it as it bounces side to side to get away. You pick it up. Now you must go to the throne which is near the bottom middle and get the crown. The skull will let you past now that you have the flicker-dot. Once the crown is on your head, the tune Mountain King begins and the bats start a-coming. You are on a time limit to get to the top of the mountain and those bats can take your crown away. There are also other things you can find with your flashlight and if you find yourself at the bottom of the screen, a different type of enemy may mow you down. I don’t think any other Atari 2600 game ever got my blood going like this one, or was as fun to watch. There is a lot of atmosphere and urgency that will bring you back again and again.

Most Obnoxious Sounds

Winner: Yar’s Revenge

Yar's Revenge

This is the only game I remember jumping up to turn down the volume on before one of my parents got pissed. That’s how bad that alarm-like noises are. Overall, I know a lot of people love this game, but I never cared for it anyways, and the noises further prevented my attempts at trying to like and bond with this game.

Worst Gameplay

Winner: Raiders of the Lost Ark

I know there might be a few people out there who enjoyed this atrocity. To do so, one must have turned down the music, liked the inability to move randomly, had a second set of hands to control their inventory on the second controller, and been able to decipher the more horrible than normal graphics and figure out what the heck to do! Or… they just called a 900 number or peeked at the back of the manual. If you need to cheat just to figure out what is going on, I don’t think it’s a worthwhile play. While there might be some other more forgettable games out there with worse gameplay, this one was very widespread and disappointed a lot of people.

Biggest Bomb

Winner: ET

ET

It seems like no one can talk about Atari 2600 without mentioning the landfill full of ET cartridges. It’s still the easiest game to find and purchase in its original form. Why? Just play for a few minutes and you’ll see. Unless you read the manual, nothing makes sense, and even if you do, the game is hard for the wrong reasons and has not much to do with ET. If you like falling down a pit a lot and having a hard time getting out, you might like this game. I have to point out the irony of all the ET games that ended up in a cemented landfill and the fact that ET falls down a pit so often in this game.

 

So I hope you enjoyed my memories of Atari 2600 in it’s glory. I did. I have a sudden urge to organize a Warlords game. Why not, I’ve done it for Gauntlet II and Dr. Mario after all. Feel free to post your own feelings on your favorites and least favorites. With the technology of emulation, you can try these titles, but I’m afraid the lack of paddle & joystick can be sad.