Okay, Listen Here

Okay, Listen Here

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Angry Birds


I have an I-Pad. Purchased for what I thought would surely be work-related endeavors. I have downloaded books which I intended to read. I have used it to find out the weather in locations where I am headed. I have used it to search the Internet for useless information. I have used it for navigation and maps. But I have never used it for work, yet. My latest “use” of the I-Pad came home with my husband. All the doctors at work have been sitting around, waiting to perform miracles, while playing “Angry Birds.” He downloaded the game and made the horrific mistake of showing it to me.

I grew up in the age of board games and charades, nothing electronic. When I was younger, anything electronic would have taken an entire building to house a computer with the memory of the I-Pad. My first introduction to video games was the Atari while I was in law school. I played Asteroids until my eyes fell out of my head. Then came Link (is that spelled correctly? I can’t remember) and I lost interest in video games. Those endless searching and role-playing games bored me. Give me something to explode and I was happy but don’t ask me to solve a puzzle and find the treasure. My son came along and he had to have all the video games. I lost count of the names and types of games he played. Too many. Nothing interested me about them. All I knew about them at that time was I had to fight him to make him leave that dang controller and eat dinner. Video games became a bane to my existence.

But, once again, I find myself in heaven, blowing things up and trying to take out those dastardly pigs. Angry Birds is a game invented by Rovio Mobile and it is very, very addictive. When my husband showed it to me I had to play it so he would shut up about how much fun it was (humor him so I could continue with the book I was reading). Okay, I sat down at the table and gave it a whirl. Four hours later, my son was walking into the kitchen trying to find out what was for dinner. Dinner? How about roasted pig? The game involves shooting birds out of a slingshot at various structures housing evil pigs. Sound interesting? Not really until you play it. It is like a puzzle – where do you shoot the birds (no pun intended) to bring down the pigs’ barricades and destroy them? Angles, trajectories, explosions – Angry Birds trying to win. So many levels, so little time…



At my age, I should really be sitting sedately, crocheting or knitting. Instead, I am hopelessly hooked on a game which involves violence (those pigs can get black eyes from flying debris) and mayhem (the pigs explode – no guts or blood – please, I do have some inhibitions). So, until I reach the next level there will be no dinner. And there is no controller to take from my hands…

Have any of you tried this game out on your I-Touch or I-Pad? Are there games out there you have become addicted to? My son and husband don’t want me to know if there are – they’ve missed a few meals over the Holiday Season.

8 comments:

  1. Apparently I don't have the eye-hand coordination to do the fast games. I never advanced very far at these. But I do remember playing Asteroids when it first came out, and my daughter has recently re-discovered Pac Man. I love the hunt for treasure games like King's Quest, or the one that saw me sitting at the computer until the wee hours- Roller coaster Tycoon. Even now I get the urge for just one more game...

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  2. Hey Cathy! I liked Pac Man. I am not good at the fast games either and my attention span is just not made for the long games. My motto is blow them up and move on - can't waste time thinking! LOL As for the urge to play, I have had to get my hubby to hide the I-Pad to keep me from playing one more level...

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  3. I used to love MINESWEEPER and POGO. I also had a serious addiction to computer spider solitaire. I gave them up. But it wasn't easy. The game sounds and looks like fun!

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  4. My sympathies, Cheryl. LOL! I'm not into video games or laptop games of any kind. And I certainly don't want to start.

    The kids have always played games, starting with Pac Man. There were Game Boys, Nintendo, Nintendo 64, 360, and so forth. But I do have to admit to #3's latest game feast, Nintendo Kinect. Youza! You use your own body to manipulate the games. What FUN! What exhaustion! Embarrassingly, I told the hubby we needed one. Apparently, you can dance to the dance game, mimicking moves on the screen, ergo... losing weight playing a game that you are actually manipulating with your body.

    Is Nintendo Kinect the game for me? We'll see.

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  5. I played Pac-man a little as a kid and was a BIG fan of the tennis game where you just moved a bar to hit the ball but for the most part I just can't sit still long enough to play a game.

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  6. I love minesweeper Christine. I have never played POGO. My favorite card game is Rummy but the computer cheats (at least I think it does...)

    Kathy, my son did DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) which is similar. That's how he got started losing his weight about six years ago. It looks exhausting!

    Stephanie, I loved Pong. It was simple and I could actually win. Today I was messing with my Blackberry and started back playing Word Mole - a kind of word finding game against the clock. It's hard but makes you think.

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  7. Games? You are talking to me...with a house FULL of KIDS. Yes, I'm talking about the big ones as well. We love games. We have even pulled out the board games. LOVE IT!

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