Hello everyone at Gaming Respawn. Welcome to Down in the Bunker: Issue#4
Growing up as a kid gamer, we use to get up to a lot of mischief to play the games we loved. So I’m going to run back in time and list a few of the things I use to do as a kid gamer, there are many things we use to get up to but it would be too many to name, hopefully some of these you can relate too.
1. Road Rage
I hate driving games and driving in real life, this comes down to me being a very bad driver. This all started as a kid when playing racing games, against the super hard CPUs I stood no chance. Over time I grew frustrated with finishing last and being over lapping all the time. But I would have the last laugh, as it was me that had a trick under my car steering wheel. Once the going got tough and it started to look liked I’m lose, I would activate rage mode, turn my car around facing the wrong way and drive into all the racers, block the route and do anything to sabotage their chances for first place!
2. The 2nd Controller Trick
There are a few different forms of the 2nd controller trick, and this form of the trick is especially effective when you’re the older sibling and you’re trying to get your game on, but your younger brother or sister that’s not very aware of gaming or just bad want’s to cramp your style and play with you. They ask you to play the first time but you say “no go away” only for them to come back within 30 minutes. For you to tell them ” dude I’m playing!, you can play with me later”. and when they leave the room say “NOT” under your breath. Now this is where the 2nd controller trick begins, you already know from experience that next time your sibling comes back they are coming back guns blazing with one of the parents with them to demand to play. Fortunately there’s no need to panic, we just had to plug the 2nd controller into the console controller slot but make sure it wasn’t plugged in properly. This way the 2nd player wouldn’t register as the controller isn’t in correctly, and you could make up any lies to trick your younger bro or sis into thinking there playing. Such as my favourite ” we are the same character we just both control him at the same time” whilst cheering them on making them feel like they are doing something when in fact they are a victim of the 2nd controller trick. Kids of today don’t need to worry about schemes like this nowadays, as they all have iPads, controllers are wireless and there’s barely any local co-op games.
3. Operation Codename: Internet Dial Up Distraction
Having a younger brother or sister that’s a few years younger is great, but it can be a gift and a curse when it comes to video games, but most importantly having a younger sibling is prefect when attempting and pulling off Operation Codename: Internet Dial Up Distraction. Now the youth of today won’t have any idea what I’m talking about right now. So just listen to the YouTube video down below or HERE. Now imagine that strange loud weird alien noise in the middle of the night when your parents are sleeping and you want to sneak online, or when your grounded, bored with nothing to do and your parents are in the house. That’s how Operation: Internet Dial Up Distraction was invented, the mission was simple get connected to the internet my any means necessary without your parents finding out, I would usually send my younger brother as the decoy to distract our parents, while I got to work on getting us connected to the Internet pretending I was some computer hacker and trying to muffle out any sound by closing doors or banging loud. That part of the mission was fairly easy in the day time but at night you can’t muffle out the sound so you had to hope for the best. It was a risky mission pulling off successful, because of one big inconvenience you couldn’t use the internet and house phone at the same time, If your parents picked up the house phone to make a call they would be able to hear a noise which meant the internet was in use, or if someone rang the house they wouldn’t be able to get though as the internet was connected, that person would have to ring back later or the next day complaining that they tried to ring earlier but the internet was on all night. We got busted many times, but I would usually sell my brother out and lie telling my parents I sent him downstairs to ask for their permission. Sometimes you just had to do what you had to do!
4. Night Time Vision
When the lights go out and its time for bed, I use to be very thankful of my Game Boy Advance, it was the prefect way to spend my nights when I should have been sleeping. The only problem being you couldn’t see anything on the screen!. The Game Boy Advance and other variations that came before never had a backlit light screen, there was no button or slider to turn up the brightness. if the sun was out or the light off in a room it was sometimes near impossible to play the thing. It was just like how the 3D is bad on the 3DS. We had to strain our eyes in the pitch black just to play the thing.
5. Is It Time To Change The Clocks Back An 1 Hour Again?
Being a kid gamer is tough during the school week, I had to get in do my homework, eat and then play games for a few hours before a super early bed time. Those few hours flew by so quick because i was having fun. I was always willing to take a risk and get into trouble and grounded for a week just to continue playing for a little bit longer. I use to change the time the house clocks in all the rooms back by about 15 mins so I could play an extra bit longer before it was the time deadline to shut the console off. After getting away with that for a while, I got over confident and changed the clock back by a whole hour. Lets just say that didn’t go down very well when my parents were late for work the next morning.