I write this article now in a tiny hotel room in the East Village in New York City, awaiting the morning when I love into my dorm to begin my final school year. So, what I'm saying is, I've been traveling all day and my mind is a little whack-a-ding-hoy, to use the technical terms. But we've been behind and this article needs to go up tomorrow, so I press on! I press on!
This past week I had my aunt, uncle, and seven-year-old cousin Travis come to visit me. The aunt and uncle aren't the important parts in this story; it's the seven-year-old cousin that matters in the world of dorkiness. You see, when I first met Travis but a year ago, he discovered that I was the most important thing a young child can have: The Cool Older Cousin. You know that cousin, the one who's probably more than ten years older than you, full of wisdom and wit, and, best of all, likes video games. Being the Cool Older Cousin means that you become your younger cousin's favorite thing in the world, and all of the other grownups will be happy for your existence, because the kid will only want to hang out with you.
Now, while it is nice to finally be considered cool for being a grownup and still liking video games by someone, there are some downsides to this, other than the aforementioned Always Having To Deal With the Kid problem.
For one, you and the kid are going to play a lot of video games. I know, this doesn't sound bad, but the problem is how the kid wants to play video games. That is to say, the kid wants to play, and the kid, being young and stupid and not entirely well acquainted with how his extremities work, will suck. You will watch your own flesh and blood make boneheaded mistakes in the most simple of games, and you will be seized with thedesire to whack the child on the head and shout, "JUST GIVE ME THE CONTROLLER AND LET ME DO IT." But you won't, because his mom would be mad.
Another problem is that when the child does, indeed, give you the controller, he has a very short attention span. He will be delighted to watch you kick ass at the game that just thwarted him moments ago, but only for about ten minutes. Then he will be bored at seeing your prowess and want to switch to another game that he can suck at. I had to go out and buy my own copy of Dark Cloud, as my cousin would not let my interest in it carry over more than fifteen minutes. AND HE COPIED OVER MY SAVE, THE LITTLE... I'm okay. I'm okay.
Then, there is the problem of the two player game. Dear Travis asked me to select a game for us to play from his collection, and I picked Virtua Fighter 4, because I am always a sucker for hitting things with virtual small Asian girls. Now, sure, the seven year old beat me the first few rounds, but I swear, this was because I'd never played the game before and was learning the control system. No, it was. Shut up. But then when I figured out the moves (variations on forward-forward attack button work in every fighting game ever) and started repeatedly whaling on him (perhaps I shouldn't beat my seven-year-old cousin at games, you say. Perhaps I should let him win. Perhaps you should think of the shame of losing to a seven-year-old.), he got bored and moved on to another game. It was a plane game, where he impressed me by repeatedly crashing the plane directly to the earth.
With the added problems of how my cousin could not read (and you try to find a game that doesn't involve reading in some way) and how he repeatedly insisted that yes, we were going to play the games I said were "grown up games" (Metal Gear Solid and various Silent Hill games) even though they would scar him for life, I quickly grew weary of the role of the Cool Older Cousin. As the visit wore on, I became the Cranky Older Cousin, the one that yells at you and tells you to sit down and be quiet.
Warn your children.
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