Preface: After I finished writing this thing, I thought, "Man, this has got to be the longest fic I've ever done... over 6000 words!" Pointless milestone for sure, but whatever. I'm a gamer myself, have been playing it since I was four years old. I can't get enough of it. Originally I planned this story to be about Helga investigating why guys like games so much, but as the story grew bigger, the story sort of changed, and it's more about videogames in general. Then I thought, this is not a The Patakis fanfic, it's a freaking thesis about videogames! It felt like the characters were just added to make it believe to have a sense of story in it. Each of the scenes represents something, like the second scene is about online gaming, third scene about videogames and their effect in society and a female gamer's lament about their role in the industry, scene four about the history of videogames, and scene five about debate between old school, new school and the mainstream. I just want this story to have some substance in it. This is to all of you gamers out there!
Legal junk: I don't own Hey Arnold, but Nickelodeon does and Mr. Craig Bartlett created it. But this fic belongs to me. Clear? Good.
Episode 2: It's Not Just a Game, It's My Life!
I
Hello, individual with an oddly shaped head,
Bob took away my internet privileges for two weeks, but little that he knows that I know where he hides my laptop! Ha! I'm telling ya, parents nowadays are really crappy at hiding stuff. I found the laptop inside his closet, of all places. Can it be any more obvious? My sweet, sweet laptop, how I love thee… Uh, dad is at work now, and I'm speed typing this email as fast as I could before he gets home. Sorry for any spelling errors, if there's any. Speaking of computers, Eugene entered one of those online videogame tournaments last week. I think they call it Kuake Convention or something. Out of curiosity, I went there with Phoebe, just to see what the heck it was all about. From my understanding is that they were engaged in a chaotic death defying combat of doom by clicking buttons and mashing the keyboard. Weird, and you wanna know what's more weird?
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE OPPOSITE GENDER AND THEIR LOVE FOR VIDEOGAMES?
"Helga!" Olga shouted from downstairs, "Daddy's coming back anytime soon! He's going to be mad at you when he finds out you're using the computer!" Helga's computer was a laptop that she received as a gift from Bob. It was a black colored Dull laptop circa late 2000, but was still decent enough to run most application. And due to the wonders of password protection, her desktop wallpaper was adorned with collage of pictures of Arnold that she edited in a photo imaging software. And because of existence of word processing software in her laptop, she wrote most of her poetries in it too and she even published it on the internet on a very popular fan fiction website! (Which cannot be divulged due to copyright reasons)
"So don't let him know I'm using it!" Helga shouted back, "C'mon, don't rat out on me Olga!"
"You know I can't lie to daddy… it doesn't feel right…" Helga heard her voice softly.
"Crimeny, you are such a daddy's girl Olga!" she burst angrily, with her eyes twitching, "Arrgh, all right! I'll put it back just as soon as I'm done!"
I really don't understand the appeal of these things. Why would you want to stare at a screen hours on end searching every nook and cranny for crappy stuff and beat the pulp of an innocent squirrel whenever they are near you? Why do you resort to violence even though it's not necessary? Why do you have to kill everything that moves? Why there are crates and boxes everywhere even in the middle of the nowhere? And why would someone leave them there? All these 'gaming' talk makes me want to tell you a story. Heh, gaming talk. I sound like Eugene now. Let me tell you about someone who had too much time on her hands and wanted to delve into this weird, mysterious world of videogaming. It started out like this:
II
Silence. Complete silence. Dark. Not that dark since the whole room was illuminated by dim lights, the kind of light you saw in the theater before a movie was about to start. The room had about twenty computers in it, and six of them were designated exclusively for gaming. It was in this internet café, where Helga was using one of the non-gaming computers to do her research about some lame school project she was forced to do. She would've used her laptop, but Bob revoked her internet privileges because Helga neglected her studies and barely pass her recent test. Though she thought that she deserved it, but she felt the punishment was too harsh. She also considered of using Phoebe's computer, but she decided it was best not to disturb her best friend right now.
It was a day after Bob made that judgment, and Helga hadn't found where he hid her precioussssssssssssss laptop yet. Perhaps after this research, she would resume finding her laptop. Oh, apparently she had done her research. She picked her things up and went over to the counter and paid up. As she walked towards to the door, she saw Sid, wearing a large headphone, watching attentively on the monitor screen without blinking, playing some sort of a shooting game. The bloodbath. The carnage. The awesomeness. If he had paid attention in class just as much as he was doing right now, he grades would've been equal, or even better than Phoebe's, Helga had thought. A sudden mischievous thought erupted in her mind. She smirked at her own evil plans, and went over to Sid. She stood behind him. Sid was still oblivious to her presence.
"Sid, dood!"
No answer from Sid.
"Your 'little member' lives up to its name." she mocked.
Still no answer from him.
"Your mother was a hamster and your father was smelt of elderberries."
Yet again, no answer.
"Hi Sid! I'm Nadine and I'm naked!" she imitated Nadine's voice.
No answer. Definitive proof that he couldn't hear anything even if a hydrogen bomb exploded next to him and he still would be playing. Carefully, she put her hands on the seat's recliner as she wiggled her fingers. And quickly she pulled the chair away from the computer, startling Sid and made him lost control of his character in the game. His character then was gunned down by some other guy in the game.
"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sid shouted loudly like Obi-Wan did in the Phantom Menace, which was quite annoying and stupid if you stopped to think about it. The shout made everyone in the café turned to them and looked at the noisy jerk that interrupted their afternoon leisure. Everybody glared at them. The manager wasn't pleased with this particular patron.
"One more outburst like that and you're out of here!" he said angrily, pointing at him. "You too, girly."
"What? Moi?" Helga placed a hand over her heart, "I don't even know this guy." She replied nonchalantly, as she pointed to Sid. "Besides, I am leaving."
The manager grumbled, and felt that it'd be futile if he continued to get angry at those people, since they were teenagers after all. He shook his head and brushed his anger off, and went back into his office. Helga just shrugged it off and looked back at Sid, bawling over his character's death.
"Oh… no… oh, say it ain't so… my 30 second killing spree record… shattered…" he said to himself in disbelief. "All because of you!" he pointed accusingly at Helga.
"So what? You're going to kill me now?" she replied back in defiance as she looked back at Sid with half of her eyebrows lowered.
"Ah, nah. Forget about it." he replied back. "I was just exaggerating, that's all." He then got back into the game, but not wearing the headphones back. He had hanged them on his neck.
"You sure made a lot of commotion just because of a silly little game." Helga replied back as she looked at the monitor. A 'You Acquired a BFG100K' message flashed in the middle of the screen. Sid then proceeded to kill everyone in his sight with his newly acquired weapon.
"Silly?" Sid said back, scoffing, "That's sacrilege, Helga. This is not a silly game. I'd die defending my honor playing this game."
"From the looks of it you sure have died a lot."
"Yeah, thanks to you! Arrgh, to the left!" he said softly, and he was gunned down by a rocket launcher. His character's remains were splattered into hundreds of pixelated chunks. "Look, Helga. I'm in a middle of something here. So why don't you go home and play with your dolls or something?"
"Wow Sid. Retorting back by using a tired stereotype? I'm impressed."
"I thought you girls like playing with your dollies." He replied back, smiling. "Off you go now."
"Bye-bye Siddie." Helga said in a sweet sarcastic tone, waving her fingers. "I wish you die a lot in that game." She then walked off to exit the establishment that smelled sort of funny to her, leaving Sid to his leisure of killing polygonal people inside the game. Sid rolled his eyes, scoffed a bit and wore the headphones back again. Suddenly, a message that read 'You got capped in the head by Eujynx' flashed in the middle of the screen. Sid got killed again, brutally with a sniper rifle by that person.
"Curse you, Helga…"
III
"Single player game!"
"So you met Sid at the café, Helga? What on earth was he doing there?"
"Playing videogames for sure, Pheebs. I never really understand what the appeal of those things."
"Oni Mode!"
"Why don't you give it a chance? You won't like it if you won't play it."
"Select song!"
"Nah… I don't know Pheebs." Helga replied unsurely, "It looks like a big time waster if you'd ask me."
"Ready… GO!"
After the commotion at the internet café, Helga decided that she should go to Phoebe's house to unwind herself, and having a social visit, talking stuffs with her best friend and whatnot. They were both in Phoebe's room right now, with Helga lying on Phoebe's futon bed reading some women magazine, which she thought that Phoebe might borrowed it from her mother. Phoebe meanwhile, was on the other side of the room dancing her pants off to the tune of trippy dance music coming from her small television linking to a videogame console. She was on a rectangular plastic pad of some sort doing all sorts of crazy dance moves that mesmerized Helga when she looked at her. She also felt Phoebe looked sort of silly when she was dancing like that.
"Helga, videogame is a hobby." Phoebe said as she danced, "And like any other hobbies, videogames are what we do to spend our leisure time constructively."
"No Pheebs, I disagree." Helga objected, "Writing is constructive. Sports are constructive. Videogames are not. You don't gain anything from it. You only waste your time finding your way through a puzzle or searching for some insignificant thing in order to pass a level. And by doing that it'll take forever for you to stop playing."
"If you manage your time well, you will know when to stop."
"Yeah right." Helga scoffed, "I read in the papers that these things can really be addictive."
"That's why we have a thing that we call self-control, Helga." Phoebe replied as she did a handstand.
"They can people turn violent too."
"Goodness, Helga. You sound just like the mainstream media, blaming aimlessly without providing any credible evidences. That allegation of yours is completely parallel to that of the negligent parents who couldn't raise their children right and start to point their fingers to lay the blame on someone else. They thought that if videogames were violent, so automatically they assumed they were the ones who were responsible for making their children violent. Well, I for one, completely disagree with that statement. Let's take an example, shall we? Say, one of our peers, Gerald. Even though he played Mortal Wombat since he was nine—"
"Mortal Wombat? Isn't that the overly violent and bloody videogame about anthropomorphic wombats beating each other senselessly?"
"Ah, you have heard of it," she said back as she jumped, "but you never see him go on a random fit of anger or violence. In fact, he's a complete opposite of the manners that Mortal Wombat portrays." She elaborated, "He's a gentle, kind and a very compassionate individual that I have the pleasure to be friends with."
"Why must you always pick him as your example, Pheebs…" she rolled her eyes, "Okay. That may be true, but what about the fact that they make you fat and unhealthy?"
"Well, what about this game I'm playing right now?" she counter replied as she did another handstand, "Studies show that playing Prance Prance Evolution over a certain period of time is equivalent to that of jogging or exercising on the Stairmaster. And videogames in general improves your hand eye coordination and encourages you to think logically."
"Is that the only game you're playing?"
"It most certainly not!" she exclaimed as she jumped up and twisted her legs to perform a move, "I played lots of games, most notably Role-Playing, which also is my favorite game genre as of presently."
"Role-Playing? Mazes and Monsters? Spell: The Congregation? That stupid The King Rules game that Gerald used to play?" Helga named some role-playing games she knew from the top of her head.
"Oh please, I'm more into Japanese RPG such as Star Sea, Fantasy Star and Last Phantasy than those overly complicated American RPGs. And those last two you mentioned were card games. Someone may disagree with me saying that American RPG have more depth and substance in it, while it may be true, but it all boils down to one's taste. I prefer Japanese RPG since the storyline in general is more engaging and excellent, and the gameplay factor is more varied and diverse."
"You lost me at RPG. What the heck is that?"
"It's an abbreviation of the word Role-playing Game."
"Oh."
"Ninety-four percent!"
And Phoebe stopped dancing, as she looked at the television screen with a satisfied smile on her face. She was satisfied with her scores, the highest for today. She then stepped out from the dance pad and went over to her desk to quench her thirst, since she put a bottle of drinking water there. She then went over to Helga and sat on the floor in front of her. She was tired, since she played that game before Helga had came over to her place.
"How come you're the only girl I know who plays videogames, Phoebe?" Helga asked her as she twirled her index finger to ask Phoebe to turn around.
Feeling relaxed as Helga massaged her shoulders to fix her strained muscles after playing that game. Phoebe then replied to Helga's question, "What about your sister?"
"Nah, she only plays that one game called The Seems or something. That doesn't count."
"Why not?" Phoebe asked back.
"That's the only game that she plays, except for solitaire. Besides, that game was a big phenomenon back then, next only to those weird Poke-em Monsters game. Everybody was playing it. Well, with the exception of me of course."
"I noticed."
"You know, when she first got that game, she played it for twelve hours non-stop. She even pulled an all nighter!" Helga chuckled. "Then on the next day, she looked like a zombie when she finally came out from her room. Eyes were all bloodshot, she looked very pale, and really, really weak. Scary stuff."
"Wow. I never knew your sister would be that immersed into that game."
"Like I said, games can be addictive." Helga said back.
"And like I said earlier before, it is all about self-control." Phoebe replied back, smiling. Helga stopped massaging her, and Phoebe turned around.
"Heh. You haven't answered my question, Phoebe. Why do you geeks play videogames? What makes them so attractive?"
"Let me give you an informal yet simple answer Helga. It's obligatory for us geeks, if you're so inclined to label us that way, to play them. It somehow was hardwired into our genes."
"Even girl geeks too? So what're you saying that videogames are genderless then?" Helga asked back.
"Oh Helga. Enough with the stereotypes already. Men and women are equally presented in videogames."
"Uh, huh." Helga replied doubtingly.
"Okay, okay. Maybe on specific areas, women have yet to make strides on this particular male dominated field. There aren't any female specific games in the market, and if there is one, it's really obscure and underrated. We unfortunately are objectified in games. It disgusts me just the thought of it."
"Preach on, sister."
"Most games are targeted to the male demographic, so that's why you see most of the female characters wear really revealing clothes in order to satisfy the urges of the mostly male specific audience. And you know the opposite gender really loves it."
"Kinda like Sid, isn't it?"
"Correct." Phoebe replied. "If only there were more female game developers out there, hopefully they would balance things out and make change for the better. I'm sorry to say that the industry lacks a female perspective. All of us really hate the way how they portray women usually as shallow, whiny, oblivious and often, an 'attention grabber', if you get my euphemism correctly. There is a need to have more strong female characters in videogames. Someone that we can relate to, attached to and identify with."
"Yes. And with more female game developers around, we would see more male characters in revealing outfits in the future." Helga said back jokingly.
"That'd be the day." And they both laughed and giggled. "But seriously though, I don't want to see us to go down to their level." Phoebe then continued, "Say Helga, they're organizing a gaming tournament this Saturday at the Convention Centre. Would you like to come along and join the frenzy?"
"They? Who's 'they'?"
"A game company called eed Software is organizing it. Surely you have heard of it."
Helga fell silent, looking at her quizzically.
"The creators of Doomed, Kuake and Wolfstein 3D?" Phoebe tried again. And again, only silence from Helga greeted her.
"Egad, then you really need to come with us this coming Saturday, Helga!" she exclaimed, "Hopefully it will ease you into the exciting realm of videogames. And then you would see why we like it so much."
"Well, I suppose… considering that I have nothing to do this weekends. Yeah, what the heck, I'll come with you just to see what the fuss is all about."
"That's my girl." Phoebe beamed at her.
"Don't say that."
"Not saying." She chimed back.
"Wait a minute… did you just said 'us'?"
"Huh, when? Please refresh my memory, Helga."
"After you said 'egad'. When you invited me."
"Oh… that. Well, Eugene took part in that competition…"
"Eugene?" Helga said incredulously.
"Yeah, he had invited me and some of our male acquaintance to go there to show him our support."
"Oh…"
"So you're still going? Or you need more time to contemplate on this?"
"Nah, no need for that." Helga replied, "I'll go. Man, they're going to be surprised when they see me there."
IV
After a very lengthy dialogue centric scene, the story then changed its setting to a car driving down a highway, where inside of the said car sat a very familiar looking redheaded teenage boy next to his father, who was driving an average, everyday looking family sedan car imported from South Korea. At the back on the passenger's seat, there was some really cool looking computer desktop case that looked like it was custom made. It was colored in black that just screamed cool when you looked at it, made entirely out of Plexiglas, and both of its side was invisible so people could see how dedicated this person was maintaining his computer to become such way. Either that or he was just plain nuts. The teenage boy was sort of nervous, as he stared down to his feet sweating even though the air conditioner was at full blast. His father sensed something was wrong with his son, and perhaps with some fatherly talk, it would cool him down a bit.
"You must be very excited, Eugene." His father said. "I'm sure your three whole month's worth of practice will pay off eventually."
"I hope so." He replied back uncertainly. "I'm not sure dad, surely there are lots of people there who are better than me. I don't think that I'm—"
"Whatever you do Eugene, you do your best." His dad gave a clichéd, yet good fatherly advise, "But… then again, could you at least win something so you can prove to your mother that entering this competition is actually worthwhile?" and they both laughed softly.
"I'll try dad. And thanks for supporting me."
"My pleasure, son," Eugene's dad said back, "You know, I used to love videogames too. But back then, it wasn't as complicated as today's."
"Yeah, I know." Eugene chuckled, "You were there during the Pong mania, dad. You belong to the generation of pioneers. It was the period when videogames just started."
"I loved videogames so much, that one day, with some help from my friends we programmed a game written entirely in BASIC."
"Whoa, really? Awesome, that is so old school! You never told me that before."
"Yeah, we were just a bunch of poor college kids back then, so we sent our game to Pineapple in hoping that they'll give us a job there. But unfortunately they rejected it flat since games weren't their concern during that time."
"Man dad… that's terrible."
"Ah, don't be. I got my dream job as a software engineer at NURV because of them. And I met your mother at that place too."
Eugene just chuckled at his father's very warm and lovable story.
"Who knows, you might meet your dream girl at that Convention today."
"I highly doubt it dad. I highly doubt it." He replied back, smiling. In his mind, there was only one girl for her, and that girl was Sheena. It seemed that the fatherly conversation with his son worked. Eugene's father just smiled to know that his son was significantly calmer than he was before.
V
"You know nothing about videogames." Gerald said to Robert, "If it weren't for Sonick, Celda, Fabio and Negaman the videogame industry wouldn't be as huge as it is today. Don't you remember the time where Mintendo and Zega tried to outdo each other, creating creative, fun and memorable games that even now people are still playing with it? Modern games don't hold a candle against the classics, man. Sure they're flashy and all but they don't offer the same replay value or fun as much as the classics. I mean, hey, I beat Steel Cog Solid three times and I had enough of it, but I've been playing Sonick and Nuckles hundred of times now and I still can't get enough of it."
"That's your nostalgia talk, Gerald." Robert retorted back, "Modern games can be as equally fun as the classics. Let's take from your example, Steel Cog Solid. The game to me is extremely engaging and has loads of fun. While I do admit the longlivity is questionable, but with the exciting plot, memorable voice acting and dialogue plus with the awesome gameplay makes it worthwhile. And don't get me started on games like Seanmue and Calamari Damasee too."
"With the exception of Steel Cog Solid, you guys are playing really stupid games." Sid interjected, "Who the heck play those games anyway?" The comment irked Gerald and Robert a lot.
"You are the representation of everything that is wrong with gaming these days." Robert said accusingly.
"Mainstream gamers…" Gerald scoffed, "It's because of you guys evil companies like Electronical Arts managed to survive and able to churn out some stupid sports game every year without any innovations at all and producing really stupid games like Urge for Speed because the mainstream crowd likes it while the real innovative companies got chewed by them, and turn their lovable franchises like Control and Triumph into crap."
"You're probably one of those people who think that Tony Hawke is the epitome of gaming, Haylo is the best console game ever since sliced bread and Brutal Car Hijacker is the coolest thing ever." Robert added.
"Ah, you guys are such elitist!" Sid scoffed back, "If it wasn't for us 'mainstream' gamers, the industry would've been dead by now. The game industry wouldn't able to survive or became a multi-billion business if it wasn't for us!"
The three guys were at the main lobby of the convention center, waiting for Eugene to arrive. The lobby itself was full of activities, as people came in and out into the building, queuing up to register their name and their computer at some counters not far from the guys, saw people, who like them, was waiting for someone, or just loitering in the lobby hall. Bored of watching the crowd inside the lobby and being shunned by his elitist peers, Sid then turned his head to gaze at the view outside the convention center. It was dull, to put it mildly. There were rows of car parks outside, almost nearly full. Sid could see people in their cars, people who just got out from their cars, people who were walking to the convention center, people who were walking from the convention center and people who looked just like his friends Phoebe and Helga. He suddenly snapped out from his boredom. Using the back of his right hand, he smacked Robert on some random part of his body to alert him the presence of the girls. Little that he knew, it accidentally hit Robert's little buddy. While the blow wasn't that hard, it certainly hurt him.
"Could you at least please have some courtesy to pick some other place on my body to smack me?" he replied angrily.
"Sorry, man." Sid replied nonchalantly. "Look who's here." He pointed to outside.
Gerald took a look, squinting his eyes, "Yeah, so? Eugene did invite Phoebe to… holy crap, what is she doing here?"
"Helga?" Robert said incredulously. "Well, this is new." He chuckled.
"You think Pheebs asked her to come along?" Sid asked.
"Maybe. What else she'd be doing here?" Gerald replied back, shrugging. A few moments later, the girls finally walked into the convention center and went over to them after noticing them at the entrance. They raised their hands to greet and began a conversation with the guys.
"Why? Are you boys startled, shocked, in incredulous disbelief of seeing me on this particular day and on this particular place?" Helga asked them snidely, crossing her arms together.
"To be honest with you, yeah," Robert replied. "I don't think you're the kind of person that would be interested in this kind of things."
"And you are correct sir. I am not interested. Phoebe dragged me along." She pointed to her.
"Actually, her presence here is just to observe the appeal of videogames and the obsession that surrounds it. And I must state that I did not drag her along, she wanted to come here on her own will." Phoebe elaborated.
"What she said." Helga replied.
"Okay, suit yourself." Gerald shrugged.
"So where's the Über dork himself?" Helga asked, "Isn't he supposed to be here by now?"
"He's not here yet." Sid replied. "He probably got caught in a traffic jam or something."
"No I'm not." Somebody said behind them, and quickly everybody turned around, "Dad and I couldn't find a parking space."
"Hey, you're here." Gerald exclaimed. "Good to see you, man. I thought you chickened out or something."
"Have you registered your name yet, Eugene?" Phoebe asked.
"Yes I have, Phoebe. Check out this cool tag that they gave to me." He then took the white colored tag out from his pocket and gave it to Robert as the gang came closer to him to observe it. The tag had Eugene's face on the center, sort of dorky if you gazed at his face long enough, his participant's ID number and the word 'CONTESTANT' written in caps and in bolded words. His full name and his internet handle – Eujynx, was written on top of the driver's license sized picture. Robert then gave it back to Eugene and asked:
"You're ready for this?"
"Yeah," he replied optimistically. "Besides, I'm wearing my lucky shirt right now, there's no way I'm ever going to jinx this thing up!" his shirt would be considered awesome by geeks and nerds, but stupid and idiotic by others. His shirt was a white colored shirt with a large skull wearing glasses in front of the shirt with the word 'NERDCORE' written below the skull. At the back of the shirt, was a mantra for any experienced or veteran gamers, which was Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
"Don't say anything… don't say anything…" Helga repeated those words again and again in her mind so she wouldn't spew torrents of insults and mocks at him, even though she really, really, really wanted to. The other guys just blinked at the shirt but Phoebe seemed to be awed by it.
"Yeah…" Robert responded slowly. "Anyway, good luck with the competition man. We'll be rooting for you."
"Same here," Gerald said.
"Me too," Sid said.
"I wish a resounding victory for you, Eugene." Phoebe said.
"Godspeed, you creepy little geek," Helga teased, but in an encouragement tone nonetheless.
"Thanks guys. Well, I'm off to the competition arena now. I'm on Server Seven, Deathmatch game. My handle is Eujynx." And he departed. After a couple of steps, he accidentally tripped on himself and fell to the floor. He got up, brushed his shirt off, turned around to them and said, "I'm okay…" as he give them a thumbs up with an embarrassed grin. He then resumed his journey.
"Ten bucks say he's going to screw up." Sid said to his friends.
"You're on." Everybody said in chorus.
As he walked through the crowd to the main competition arena, he hummed a song that still held dearly in his heart, 'Keep Your Sunny Side up' which was a song from his grade school play years ago. He always hummed, or sang that song whenever he was nervous, or afraid to keep himself calm. The arena was a hall with personal computers filling the place, almost nearly full. Most of the people inside were contestants, making last minute check ups on their computer. Eugene went to his designated place, but to his surprise, his old friend from PS, 118, Lorenzo was assigned a seat next to him.
"Lorenzo?" he said. Lorenzo got up from the floor and looked at him. After analyzing the face who called his name, he finally recognized him, "Eugene? Eugene Horowitz from PS 118?" he said with a soft smile, in disbelief.
"Oh my goodness, it is you!" Eugene exclaimed happily and both of them shook their hands together.
"So you're a contestant, huh? Imagine that. Haven't seen you in a while. How are you doing?"
"Being a geek, as usual." He replied nonchalantly. "Man, and I thought guys from private schools would never enter this kind of competition."
"Hey, don't generalize us man. We sometimes do have to answer our geek tendencies as well. Hey, can we talk later after the competition? I really need to make some checks on my rig."
"Yeah, sure. May the best man win."
"Yeah. May the best man win." Lorenzo replied back, shaking his hand once again. What an incredible display of sportsmanship, they both thought.
VI
"Wow… this is boring." Helga said as she and the gang watched a large screen showing the current Deathmatch game in Server Six. The screen will change servers, all nine of them, every five minutes. On the screen, various information were shown, such as who was the person with the highest kill, or frag, as they would call it here, how many deaths, what kind of weapons they were using right now, and the rate of bandwidth, which was unnecessary since they were playing on a Local Area Network. The screen then changed to Server Seven, and to the gang's delight, Eugene had the highest frag score in the server. Thanks to all the training he had with Sid and his gaming friends.
The gang was sitting in the middle of a large hall, where it was the only place where spectators went to see their friends, spouses or siblings playing the game. There were no chairs on that hall, so the spectators had to either sat on the floor, or stood watching the large screen in front of them. Most of the spectators preferred to seat, but there were some who stood watching while leaning against the wall.
In awe with Eugene's score, Sid said, "Man, Eugene sure is kicking—"
"Hey kids." Some old person greeted them.
"Oh, hi Mr. Horowitz," Gerald greeted Eugene's dad. "How are you?"
"Fine, I'm just fine. So… how's Eugene doing?"
"He's doing quite marvelously sir, if I may so myself." Phoebe replied. "See it for yourself. His name is Eujynx." She pointed to the large screen. A proud smile was seen developed on his face. "That's my boy." He said proudly. "How many minutes are there left in the competition?"
"There are four rounds players have to go through before the finals. Bottom five is eliminated on every round." Robert explained to him, "Each round is given twenty minutes time and there's a ten minute intermission every time when a round ends. Right now Eugene is on the second round, and he's still going strong."
"You mean there's more than an hour left before the competition ends?" Helga exploded in anger, "That's it, I'm going to the concession stand to buy me a lunch. Anyone of you wanna come with me?"
None of the guys answered, except for Phoebe. "I'll go with you." She said.
"C'mon Pheebs, let's leave these boys and their videogames." She then trudged to the stand, while Phoebe and guys looked at her in disbelief.
"Since I'm coming along with her to the stand, would you gentlemen—"
"Phoebe, come on!"
"Coming!" she chimed back, and ran over to her.
"You know, that girl really have some issues to talk about…" Eugene's dad said to them.
"Nah, Mr.H. She's always like that." Sid said, and Gerald and Robert nodded in agreement.
VII
Eugene won third place in that competition. Seriously, and Lorenzo ended up in seventh. Eugene won 7500 bucks in cash, a new laptop, and he got a part-time job as a game tester at that company who sponsored that event. Man, I officially hate him now, especially when I learned that he won that new laptop. I really need a new one to replace this beat up crap I'm using. We thought since he's a jinx and all, the highest he'd go was on the second round. Well, he maybe a jinx in a real world, but not on a virtual world. In that world, he kicks butt. Some people have all the luck. Or skills, whatever. Man, the chicks are going to swarm him after this. Ha, I crack myself up.
But after that event, it seems that I'm beginning to like videogames. If you'd just ignore the bad rep that it's getting from the media, it can be a great hobby and an awesome time killer. Not to mention it develops good sportsmanship and might someday eventually will unite all mankind to the point where all of them share the same common interest and goals. What kind of substances am I on anyway? Hey, you play videogames, you should know about these things. I think I'm going to the local Electronics Shop tomorrow and buy whatever games that's hot on the market. I'd better get going Arnold. Bob's going to kill me if he knew that I'm using this. So go off and play your Counter-Struck or Soreal Tournament or whatever. Ta-ta.
I think I'm going to put an extra 'L' in my name as my game handle,
Helga.
Helga then reread the letter. "Meh." She highlighted all the words that she wrote, copied it, closed the web browser down, opened a word processor application, and pasted her letter on it. She then saved it by writing the today's date as the filename and saved it in a folder named 'Letters to Arnold'. Quickly she disconnected the internet line and switched the laptop off. With the laptop in her hands, she went into her parents room and over to the closet to put the laptop back under the pile of clothes. After putting everything back in order, she went over to the living room and saw Olga, watching television. She took a seat next to her and sat with her arms crossed and her legs on the coffee table.
"What are we watching?" Helga asked.
"A rerun of yesterday's 'The East Wing'." She replied back.
And there was silence as she and Olga watched the show quietly. Some ten minutes later, they could hear a car driving into the garage, and the engine stopped. That must be Bob, back from a 'hard' days work. As he went pass the living room, he saw Helga on the couch. He had a distrusted look on his face.
"You didn't use your computer or anything today, did you Helga?" he accused.
"No, Bob." She lied, and she sounded very convincing too, "I did not use the computer today." She replied as she watched the TV.
Bob scoffed back but didn't say anything. Still unconvinced, he went to his room and checked the laptop. "The thing's still warm…"
"HELGA!" he bellowed out loud, which translated as annoying as it could get to her ears. She then hung her head with her face resting over her open palms, sighing heavily. "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap…"
"I told you, you should've put that thing back earlier…"
"Olga. Just shut it." Helga replied while her face was still in her hands.
Games satirized in this story: Quake III, Dance Dance Revolution, Mortal Kombat, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Star Ocean, Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy, The Sims, Pokemon, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Sonic, Zelda, Mario, Megaman, Metal Gear Solid, Sonic and Knuckles, Shenmue, Katamari Damacy, Need for Speed, Command and Conquer, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Counter-Strike, and Unreal Tournament.
Companies parodied: Dell, id Software, Apple, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, EA.
As for me, I'm more of a PC gamer, and I think Half-Life the best game ever made. And there you have it, so many game references that it'd make any geek happy. Thanks for reading and please leave a review. And check my profile and suggest me to write which The Patakis fic that are available on it.