Cerise Magazine

“What are y’all doing over there every day - bumping clits?”

My twelve year old eyes widened in shock. Spending extended time after school with another female friend qualified me as a lesbian? Did the male friend addressing me somehow miss our excited strategy meetings on the school bus, or our dedicated, study of a well-worn, almost bible-like strategy guide? Lesbianism was not what we were interested in exploring - we were too busy cracking codes, counting grids, and raiding tombs.

Level One

My history with gaming started early. In 1989, my parents brought home two major additions to the household. The first, my younger sister, Shanice, came swaddled in baby blankets and smelled of baby powder and milk. The second package was almost as important. Encased in Styrofoam and cardboard, the NES - Nintendo Entertainment System - entered the household, and entered my parent’s bedroom, placed on top of the television, directly across from my baby sister’s crib.

At 6 years old, I spent all my time scheming to spend as much time in my parent’s room as possible. There was a baby, a curious small thing that wrinkled her face up and punched little fists in the air before taking huge gasps of air of fuel her screaming. There was also the forbidden toy - the NES. The light gun accessory from Duck Hunt was massive in my small hands and I liked holding it, even though I was given strict instructions from my father not to touch anything. I tried to stay away, but the golden Zelda cartridge beckoned like the ruby winking at poor little Abu in the Cave of Wonders.

Resistance was futile. I took to sneaking into the room after school and playing all three games, but spending the most time with Super Mario Bros. My younger sister would often take up her warning cry from her crib if she caught me sneaking toward the NES, but would be pacified by the site of the 8-bit Mario jumping and shuffling his way through sewers. At six months old, her eyes were wide, drinking in every move on the screen. She was so captivated by the on-screen action, she forgot to cry - bringing me both gaming satisfaction and blissful silence.

Level 2

A few years passed, and I beat Super Mario Bros, most of Zelda, and Super Mario 2 and 3. My parents divorced, and my father moved to DC. Weekend parenting is a difficult thing to do, but was made easier by the addition of a Sega Genesis. When that died, my cousins and I took to fighting over the Playstation. My older cousin Ricardo was fond of playing Doom with the lights off, inducing terror in our younger cousins and giving them nightmares. I spent my weekends flying through Crash Bandicoot, playing through Tekken and Tekken 2, staring at the basement walls and resenting my younger cousins for wanting to wrap their grubby, inept little paws around an unguarded controller.

It was over those weekends that I learned to fight for the right to game. My cousins were selfish, never wanting to relinquish the controller. In order to get respect, I had to play to win and learn to trash talk with the best. Kicking older-cousin ass in Tekken 2 was satisfying: Wiping the floor with someone, getting two perfect defeats in a row and using a girl character (props to Michelle!) was damn near nirvana.

Level 3

At twelve years old, I began playing Tomb Raider with my friend Keysia. Being accused of lesbianism did not deter us from gaming – it only strengthened our resolve. With strategy guide in hand, we played through Tomb Raider 2. Playing two hours a day for the next two months, two gaming rookies finally managed to beat the final level. A wave of satisfaction rolled over me. I had played through the whole game. And beat it - without the smug intervention of an older cousin snatching the controller and effortlessly blowing through a boss, ruining the gameplay.

We conquered. We did it.

Continue? Y/N

However, Keysia moved away soon after Tomb Raider was completed – we would never game together again. At 13 years old, I entered into a long phase of rebellion – I traded everything out of my life for its opposite. Hip-Hop was abandoned in favor of alternative rock, my urban wardrobe gave way to baby tees and wide legs, and weekends spent gaming were now spent in the pursuit of cute clothes, boys, and handbags.

The SNES at my mother’s house gathered dust. I rarely darkened my father’s doorstep, actively eschewing boring weekends in the basement for other activities.

My time with gaming looked like it was over.

Load Existing Game?

In the summer of my sixteenth year, I met the-guy-who-is-now-my-ex. Older than me by three years, he oozed worldly, college sophistication. (Later, I found out his sophistication was a result of my youthful naïveté, but whatever…)

We entered into a relationship, and I discovered love for the first time. I also discovered hard core gaming. Ex was serious about his systems, maintaining both a GameCube and PS2 and buying an average of 5 games a month. He rented first-person shooters from Blockbuster, as he would beat them within a week. He played everything from Splinter Cell to Super Smash Bros, and when he wasn’t logging hours in his RPGs or PC gaming through Half-Life, he was stalking one of the three remaining arcades in our area, spending entire afternoons banking quarters in impromptu Marvel vs. Capcom and Streetfighter tournaments.

Level 4

With his encouragement, I fell into gaming again. Fall is the only word that can be used because, just like falling in love, I hit gaming hard. We even developed the strange sort of harmony that only two gamers dating can share – synchronizing release schedules and game play hours, we were both able to play as much as we wanted. While one person monopolized a console, the other would be on the PC. We both went at it in arcades. And I spent hours and hours in the basements of friends, getting my ass handed to me in Soul Blade, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Halo. Despite my being completely uncoordinated (read: spaz-tastic) at first-person shooters and non-linear fighting games, his small clan of male gamers always made me feel welcome in their grimy basements.

His friends were interesting, as they had never been around a girl that was game-tolerant, much less a game enthusiast. (However, I cannot say I was surprised to see a lack of feminine company – Spartan surroundings, unwashed sheets, and piles of porn and takeout boxes create an appealing environment for germs. Girls? Not so much.)

Unable to fathom the idea that a girl could be into games, they were initially awkward around me. They tried to hide their console dependency. They finally let their guard down one weekend, as Ex grandly announced, “Toya is a gamer. She played Final Fantasy X for 11 hours straight on Saturday.” They were stunned, and after that, I was just one of the guys. Little did they know that the consecutive-hours-of-gameplay skill was carefully honed in childhood – my cousin Ricardo once played Sonic the Hedgehog for 26 hours straight. When my father discovered him in front of the machine, he pulled him off and shut the Genesis off.

The Sega never worked again.

Unfortunately, burning out game systems was a family tradition. Much to my boyfriend’s chagrin, my next gaming bender brought an untimely end to his first generation PS2, prompting him to shell out for the new slim version in order to complete Final Fantasy X.

Boss Battle

After a few years of gaming together, issues began to pop up in the relationship. I was unhappy, and didn’t know how to get out. After a few years of dating, we had transitioned into cohabitation. Our lives were intertwined – how do you extricate yourself from that? As our relationship grew sour, the only way we could relate to each other was through gaming. Our sexual relationship functionally ended, fights grew more rancorous, and I moved out and got my own place – and yet, evening after evening, we would find ourselves sitting in front of the TV. He watched me play through Shadow Hearts: Covenant and Kingdom Hearts; I watched him play through Dragon Quest VIII. Post-Dragon Quest, we finally split up for good.

With both of us aggrieved on multiple levels, the break up was quick, dirty and ugly. I threw him out of my apartment, and demanded possession of the PS2 console – he had purchased all the systems, and I was about to lose my main source of entertainment. He agreed to my relationship reparations, with one condition: like any true gamer, he wanted to make sure he could copy over his save data from all the memory cards. Saved data retrieved, I escorted him out the door, and locked it behind him.

Level 5

Post-breakup, I found myself alone for the first time in five years. I spent long nights battling insomnia, as I had not slept alone in over two years. When I wasn’t staring at the ceiling, I was gaming.

Eventually, I came out of post-break up stupor. I cancelled the joint Gamefly account and opened a new one for myself, starting going out again, and gradually restricted my gameplay to the weekend hours. I eventually recovered, began dating, and fell in love yet again.

My new love suits me perfectly, in everyway except one.

He is not a gamer.

Not even a little.

Not at all.

So while we can wax philosophic about everything from R&B artists rock influences and the true intentions of Karl Rove, when our conversation turns toward gaming, his eyes tend to glaze over. He doesn’t understand my zeal for gaming facts, my loyalty to Nintendo and Playstation, and my low-level hatred toward Microsoft for entering the gaming industry and skewing the focus. It’s all over his head.

“You’re a gamer? No…gamers are geeky!”

Little did he know…

Game Over?

So has the sun set on my gaming lifetime? At 23 years old, I do not have the time to devote to the craft that I used to. Kingdom Hearts 2 remains unfinished. My latest Gamefly rental has collected five months worth of dust. Is it worth it to continue?

Umm…obviously. Gaming is wired into my life. From family bonding to dating, gaming has been a central theme throughout all the craziness in my lifetime. My boyfriend may sigh and shake his head when he sees that I spent five hours in the same spot, playing through a level. I wonder how to explain to him the history.

How could I explain that my baby sister is now 18 and heading off to college to study computer design and graphics? While she was never a gamer, she was game-receptive, often picking up my paused games and playing around in the worlds. Once, I caught her up at midnight, fishing in the town river in Animal Crossing. Gaming, like shopping and watching teen dramas, is how we bond.

Or how could I explain my brother? Technically a half-brother (born from my father’s second marriage), at two he began aggressively toddling toward the Playstation. At three, he proved himself to be a menace by inserting game discs in the Playstation and then slamming down the cover. He wanted to start up the game, so he mimicked our movements – but unfortunately, he ended up creating chips in most of my father’s collection.

Or should I explain my father, who is in his mid-forties and still doing victory dances after he defeats someone in Madden?

Maybe some things just aren’t explainable. Gaming, to me, just is. It is a part of life. It isn’t quite a necessity, but more of a necessary luxury. I suppose I could survive without gaming the same way I could survive without hot water – it is possible, but who would want to?

In the end, gaming is woven into the way I experience life.

Now, if I could just find a cheat code…