Much of my adult life seems concerned with settling scores from my childhood.
Not that I'm taking revenge on people who've crossed me. It's more abuot childhood games that defeated me.
I refer you to CNPS.
But the other big one is retro video games that I never completed as a child (because I never had enough 10ps, and I'm talking about when some 10ps were 2 shillings and still had the picture of the king on them), but can now have another go at because you can get them on your computer or gameboy.
Scramble was a big one for me. It was quite obscure and never seemed to appear on any retro compilations. But I had loved it as a kid, though never finished it. I always came a cropper in the tunnels (though you should never fly a helicopter in such a confined space). Unlike Phil Fry who could go round about 8 times before he gor bored and deliberately crashed (yeah, but he nearly didn't get into that porn film though... but then did. Oh).
A few months ago Scramble came out on the Gameboy and I was able to have another crack at it and finally triumph over the essentially useless game.
I discovered the trick to getting through the tunnel was to pull left on your joystick. Thanks a lot Phil. You could have told me that.
And I beat Scramble. Another demon slain.
Today I found a gameboy game that included the racing game "Outrun". I used to play this, funnily enough, in the old Fringe club in Edinburgh. It has a seat and everything. It was ace.
But I never got beyond the second check-point.
Now I had the chance to rectify that defeat, and actually in the town that my disastorous performance mainly took place.
I resisted the opportunity to go down to the Fringe Club and sit in the part of the basement that the game had used to be in.
Instead I played it on the toilet in my hotel.
I was going to win and humiliate the Outrun game at the same time.
I thought it would take me ages, but on my very first go I got further than ever before and can see that it will only be a matter of hours before Outrun joins the pile of games that can no longer laud it over me (though to truly conquer it I should go down every one of the possible routes to victory).
What will happen when all the childhood games are completed? How will I fill my adult days?
Perhaps I'll have to grow up.
Phil Fry was good at all video games and consequently he found himself in the adult world of work at 16.
Maybe once Outrun is finished I will have to get a proper job.
Perhaps it was I that had the power all along.
I understand that Pyrrhus was very good at computer games.
