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True Tales of Thanksgiving Gaming

Posted by Bob Mackey

Okay, okay; I know I just wrote a 1500-word feature on this subject, but I wouldn't be an unscrupulous freelance writer if I didn't milk an idea until it was crying, chapped, and swollen.  Please see my 9000 posts about Mother 3 for more on this.

So now that my credibility has safely been disposed of, it's time to move onto more important topics: namely, Thanksgiving. For nearly all of us, this holiday signifies a wanted or unwanted family reunion; and with this gathering comes sitting around for extended periods of time while stuffed full of food. Obviously, this situation is perfect for the playing of video games. We are fortunate that the industry is kind enough to schedule their most important releases of the year around this period of maximum immobility.

Since the purpose of this post is to share our Thanksgiving-related gaming memories (as if you couldn't tell), I'm going to go ahead and start with my own.  Thanksgiving of 2004 marked two memorable events: the recent release of Metal Gear Solid 3, and also one of my brief flirtations with food poisoning--in this case, it was a post-Thanksgiving Taco Bell menu item.  Yes, I was young and stupid.

This is one of the few instances in my life where I could have sworn I almost died--if not from the extreme dehydration, then from my nightmarishly vivid fever dreams.  For about 24 hours, I lapsed between two different realities: my own, and the jungles of Groznyj Grad.  Obviously, the part of my brain the likes video games decided it was time to stage a mutiny, which led to a series of very realistic hallucinations where I was hiding, murdering, and generally being scared shitless.  And even though all of this happened in my mind, I still count this altered state as one of my most memorable gaming experiences.

So can any of you out there top my burrito fueled ride to Hell in the department of Thanksgiving gaming memories? I'm sure someone has an awesome story about grandma blinding the family dog with a flying Wii-mote.

Related Links:

The 61FPS Review: Metal Gear Solid 4 Part 1
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 2
Bringing Sexy Back: Yoji Shinkawa


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Demaar said:

Being an Australian I obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but you know what? Our Christmas celebrations pretty much fall under that description.

Anyways, I don't know what year it was, but for some reason I was a rude ass one Christmas and spent most of the day besides the actual Christmas lunch playing the first Unreal. No, not Unreal Tournament, just Unreal. It was pretty rad. It was a VERY hot summer's day, so I was quite glad to spend most of it in my cool room. I got a few dirty looks when I finally DID come to the table.

Also, Christmas the year before last I managed to get my aunt hooked on Brain Training. She promptly bought herself a DS. I had heard stories like this, but I didn't believe it until I saw it first hand. Nintendo really HAVE made games cross demographical.

November 27, 2008 2:56 AM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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