“Stop BOY”…….

Ok so everyone who knows me as a gamer knows that my games of choice when it comes to First Person Shooters are Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, or Painkiller. But, those who know that also know that I am always open to a good game of Quake.

Standing outside Game stop, Quake IV Preorder box with receipt in hand, adorning my Quake 4 preorder Quakecon T, I impatiently waited for that guy on the inside to unlock the door.

Once upon a time past in a house not so far away, a young man by the name of Brian (in what I imagine was an attempt to keep me occupied, as my sister and cousin, both females, played Barbie House with one another) was introduced by his uncle, a computer game. OOOOO but this was no ordinary computer game. No longer was I confined to a lone 4bit neon green tank with an arsenal of nuclear weapons in a two dimensional world, this game was much more, this game, was Wolfenstein 3d. Three dimensional worlds, big monsters to shoot with equally big weapons, any five year old boy’s ultimate dream. And so it came to be, that on a Gateway 2000, 386 computer, in the kitchen of an Appletown WI house, on Don’t me Daddy, under the direction of his uncle……. a gamer was born.

Utterly infatuated with the game I began to play. Hours and hours Level after level, Nazi after Nazi, searching for the illusive silver and gold keys, and the elevator to bring me to some new never before seen world with bigger and bader zombies… Each trip to my aunt and uncles house brought me one step closer the final level…...I don’t know how many trips to my aunt and uncles house (about 45 mins away) it took, or how many hours I played, but one day it happened.


With my chaingun at the ready, the think metal green door of the elevater door opened. An empty room,… well empty, all except enough ammo weapons and medical packs, and one door. Stocking up on everything I could I timidly pressed the spacebar to open the door. The BOSS of the game!!!…My chain gun spun, hundred of bullets hurtled toward the giant blue monster…………My little hart pounding I watched my army guy jump into the air and scream yeayyayahhhhaah, as the credits and the Id logo began to run. Little did I know that thirteen years later I would still be playing Id’s games.

After a while my parents purchased a computer (Packard Bell 486) and with it came more Games, Quake, Doom, even Steler 7 and Indiana Jones, but the games I always loved the most were Id’s.

I remember vividly my aunt and mother asking if I was going to go blow stuff up on the computer while the girls played, turning up the sound on the new speaker my uncle had attached to make the game sound better, and that little 4 bit man running at the screen. The strange thing is today I am not all the different, I still turn up the sound to hear the game better, preferring to blow the heck out of some IMP rather then go and hang out, and I still love watching cut scenes.


With my special Edition Quake 4 in hand I anxiously walked out of the store……….After a thirty minute drive back, and what seemed to be an endless Military Weapons class, I was free,……. As I moved with the speed of haste back to the room I knew only one thing the Strogg had no chance, Game ON.

So Carl if you’re reading this, thanks for letting a five year old kid play a Mature rated game.