Old Tron

Christmas 2010

Marc Alley

Old Tron

I watched Tron the other day on Netflix. No, not the super sharp all-digital version popping out in 3D all across the country on Disney’s platinum dime. It was the original one, comparatively grainy and two dimensional, with young Jeff Bridge’s grinning face peering out from his monochromatic helmet and stretch suit. Although. . . it sure looked sharp to me when I was 12. Boy, do I feel old. The distance between me and these tweeting teens is palpable. Yet they seem even more wired into the “grid” then the laser bike-wielding drones in the original film. See what I did there?

We all watched Tron: Kate, Cindy, Gabe and I. Cindy and Kate thought it was just plain stupid. They just didn’t get it. You can imagine how Gabe felt about it, he had the opposite reaction. I still like it too. Though it doesn’t look as cool as the new one, it represents an attempt at putting some of the first CGI in a Hollywood film, and one of the first, if not THE first movie to create a computer-simulated world in which a human could be lost in, a world that could be navigated and mastered. But it was a grey and neon world, with crisp edges, deep chasms and darkness. It represented what was coming, the dark, sharp and unyielding grids of the World Wide Web. Hello Japanese people, the Web isn’t just on your cell phone, you know!

I digress. I don’t think people now realize how exciting the late seventies and early eighties were. Microcomputers were emerging for the first time and so were games. Drives were being produced that didn’t sound like a jet powering up. Pong was the first game out, but before my time. Dad’s first gaming experience was just a text-based game, such as Adventure, which could be mapped out on a grid. That simple game kept him and Lynn up nights for hours, trying to defeat it. Maybe Dad actually did something other than listen to the birds slide off the roof of his office or program “12 hours a day” at Datawest.

Most of the kids in our east-side neighborhood had the cartridge-based Atari systems, but not our house. After all, that was just for gaming. Our first computer was an Atari 1200XL with the optional “type-quality” printer. I’m sure that Mom and Dad were sold by the fact that it was capable of some mind-numbing word processing as long as you could follow the characters for your only sentence onto the next blue screen. I don’t think the printer was ever even used. Later on we would be one of the first kids on the block to experience the otherworldly and groundbreaking Apple Macintosh. Suck on this mouse, you WordPerfect PC users! Word processing anyone?

I digress again. We used our 1200XL pretty much exclusively for gaming. And what a great little gaming computer it was. The plain old Atari console could do little more than represent simple block characters, while making up for what it lacked graphically by clever movement and riveting joystick play. The Magnavox Odyssey was a bit more creative, with faster reaction times and creative game design like fantasy games where you could cast spells or become a warrior and work as a team. Yet both systems relied upon the clunky 7-pixel characters that were the industry standby.

The Atari 800 and its 1000 series predecessor kicked it up a notch with much faster processors, and more memory capable of rendering more detail in full color. Even better, you could just copy a friend’s game diskette. Ah, the days before software piracy and algorithm encryption. One of the best games for our 1200 XL had simple graphic design, but wicked and strategic 2-player battle game play. The game started out as a chessboard, with a dark and light side, each with different characters that could challenge each other. Then the characters would crawl off the chessboard, and do battle upon a rock and tree-strewn simple battlefield. The Giant could throw a huge boulder but lumbered along slowly with a thumping sound, while the Unicorn and Basilisk could move at unnerving speed and spew their lightning missiles. The game proved that you didn’t need great graphics to have great game play. The secret of its fun was playing someone else, like a brother or friend. It’s no wonder Archon was such a successful game . . . there were about 10 versions of it available on several systems.

The all time system favorite, though, had to be Bruce Lee, a 1-player 2D scrolling action fighting game that was just a thing of beauty. On a recent online blog I was happily surprised to see Bruce Lee as one of the most revered and highly-rated game of its time. The Atari 1200XL was so fun to play Bruce Lee with Ben and Brandon because we would take turns and watch each other play. It was almost as enjoyable to watch as it was to play. The graphic colors were rendered beautifully for its time and almost looked 3 dimensional. There were other Asian warriors to battle, including a fierce, fire-breathing little savage. But the real challenge was the unending levels of flooring that contained bundles of electricity that would pulse in various waves and patterns. Touch a verboten object and you were dead. I remember Ben and Brandon holding their breaths as I bounded over those difficult boards over and over. Actually, the most challenging and absolutely brutal aspect of this period of games was the fact that once your 3 lives were over that was it. There was no do over, no continue. The hours of struggle just didn’t matter and you were left staring helplessly, limply, in absolute horror at the subjugation and endured inhumanity. GAME OVER.

I laugh at the preening weenies that call themselves gamers nowadays. The sycophants chattering dully into their broadband headsets as they virtually stroll through Liberty City punching innocent immigrant bystanders while all of their progress is saved three ways to Sunday. You guys don’t even know what the phrase means! It used to really mean something!

Do you remember in the movie Aliens what Hudson says when they get their butts handed to them by the acid-pumping skeletal aliens? That's it man, game over man, game over! What the * are we gonna do now? He said that because it was truly the end and he knew what it really meant. We all did.

Losing to Donkey Kong at the local Emigration Market was even more complete and final. Game Over only meant one thing to me. Do you have another quarter, punk? If I didn’t, it meant back to the grindstone, and underneath that great and heavy stone was an unending pile of nice, healthy whole wheat which was being ground for my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Gone would be the land of nacho cheese Doritos, Coca Cola and extra gumballs. Violins needed to be tuned and sawed, little sisters needed babysitting, and diaper pails required emptying. Maybe that’s why Ben stockpiled this stuff and sold it to us on Fast Sunday. He was selling us the essence of Emigration market and those long summer nights when we had nothing else better to do but bike around the neighborhood and catch a game of Qbert, Defender or Centipede. Like impotent inmates handing out their last pack of cigarettes for some meaningless favor, we’d shell out for it in the end.

One day, a few years later, I was strolling through the basement of Crossroads Mall and I wandered by a game that blew my mind. It was a game that had four joysticks, two for each player and no buttons. No jump or fire button? Weird. It was really unnerving. It was called Karate Champ. The concept was way ahead of its time. You basically had to memorize the combination of each joystick combo to make the character move forward to your opponent, attack him, block, etc. The distance between each player also had to be carefully gauged when you attacked or you’d miss your opponent completely and set yourself up to be killed. I noticed these details and seemed to be able to master the game quite quickly. It must have been my earlier Jedi/Archon training with my brothers.

What was really funny is when inexperienced players would move forward to an opponent and they would jump over you. The newbie player wouldn’t even know how to turn around. The experienced player would just casually walk over to the newbie, helplessly kicking and jabbing the air, and deliver a ruthless strike to his lower back.

This game was really a different concept in that you could battle a complete stranger in an arcade as long you had that quarter. When you were playing others and beating them you could play forever while the losing chumps would just keep depositing their hard-earned cash. One time, I played opponents for almost an hour with as a queue of those soon-to-be beaten were waiting and other outside observers would even gather around to watch to see if I would be defeated. They’d eventually lose, and I’d end taking on the CPU who would usually vanquish me in the final scene. When it was all over, it was kind of surreal as I didn’t know anyone there and they didn’t know me. I’m sure that parents strolling by thought I was a wastrel youth, blowing my mowing money on a stupid game. To me, though, it was totally worth a buck or two to have a fun 100 minutes. I could earn this in 10 minutes mowing somebody’s lawn or re-inking a printer ribbon.

Nobody in the arcade cared what you were wearing, if your hair looked right or if you had a bad zit day. It was very egalitarian. If you wanted to play a game someone was playing, you’d just lean a corner against the screen and as soon as the engaged player died, you’d have control. I never once had a problem with anyone in any store or arcade and they seemed to follow a good code of conduct, especially around younger children. Often you’d see dads with their younger children who would drag them in for a first time. The atmosphere in the food court or on the street in front of Crossroads was never as friendly or courteous. They were the dread-locked and woven pullovered loiterers and ne’er-do-wells.

I never could understand that. I always had some place to go, some deadline to meet, whether it was for a parent or friend. There were days that I pretended that I didn’t, those days before cell phones, but I still had obligations and people expecting me to be someplace. Maybe it was because those kids parents didn’t care if they came or not, and didn’t care when they did. Now that I think back, I think that made me feel more secure, more sure of myself. Sure, I was a pretty insecure teen with a lot to prove, and not exactly sure who I was. I tried on a lot of hats, a lot of identities. Many around me did the same. But I think that I did it with the comfort and knowledge of knowing that when I did that I wasn’t risking everything, I wasn’t painting myself into a corner. Maybe those kids didn’t even have the fifty cents to walk in to the arcade, and a lifetime of hacky-sack only cost the same.

Eventually, programmers and I think mostly the corporations that paid them figured out that if you could CONTINUE a game in progress that it was a lot more profitable, and frustrated players wouldn’t just walk away, they would put in more money. I was always careful about what games I’d continue and I wouldn’t play them if they were quarter suckers. Games had permanently changed in nature after this feature, and drove the console and arcade market to some pretty weird consequences.

A lot of people are pretty snobby about video games and think that they are a complete waste of time. Yet those same people are perfectly fine spending hours playing Solitaire at work, or mindlessly chatting on the phone for hours or texting or tweeting everyone but the Pope. There are some pretty objectionable and realistic games out nowadays and it’s not the best hobby for people that have the social skills of a gnat and no friends. If you’re spending your nights stalking young girls as a vampire you might want to rethink your life. Oh wait a minute, isn’t that the theme of the latest new book craze?

Let’s not forget that not everyone can be the star of the college football team, save the U.S. from terrorist threats, play with the Beatles or climb/heli ski Mount Everest. But in video games, you can. Some of the best times I’ve had with my friends and family have been playing video games, or even board games. Card games are pretty fun, too. OK, this is not really making my point too well. Am I still getting that Xbox 360 for Christmas? Hello?

Getting back to Tron, I think we’re all a bit more wired in then we care to admit. I've got to say that the future as we’re now living it is much more boring than the eighties films portrayed it. Where’s my hover board, self-fitting Nikes and air car? My jeans don’t have glowing lines to protect me from traffic or tell me when they should be washed. A cool cell phone just doesn’t cut the mustard. I want a future where we have all of the cool stuff but less of the danger. I’m just hoping that in the future that we won’t be chased by hovering, legged Ms in our lightcycles and that we won’t have CPUs implanted in our skulls. Does anyone want to go with me to see the new Tron film? I’ll buy the popcorn.