This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Grandma is not "Street"
She just likes to swear. Yes, it may be due to to our non-existence at local churches, her blue-collar upbringing, her particular fondness of spicy food, but who really cares why she is the way she is. It may have been an overstatement to say she is a kindly old lady "off the court" and that her personality somehow changes when she's gaming; an overstatement only because she is somewhat a pariah with the local neighborhood kids.
This requires further background. In our house at the moment before next semester there is Grandma, 69; Mom, 43; Me, 22; Kenny, 14; and the twins, Barbie (named after Grandma) and Bobby, both 12. This means that my younger siblings friends are of that annoying stage of their life where every stick they pick up is a phallus and every hole they find is a sphincter; producing an age of crazed MTV / Nick Jr. hybrids who listen to decent music yet still scream "PENIS!!" when riding by a tree on their bike.
This, understandably, is pretty goddamn irritating. Grandma, however, is not one to just let the penis-bikers roll by, thinking "Christ, they're going to look back on themselves and cry" like the rest of us; no. She will proceed to terrify the living shit out of these kids. She has screamed out the window for complete stranger's children to "Get the FUCK out of our LAWN your making our FUCKING dogs FUCKING BARK!!!" Now normally, I would quietly laugh to myself thinking they get what they deserve, I mean- it's their fault we have to go 25 m.p.h. in this godforsaken neighborhood; but it's not always the punks that get yelled at. Sometimes it's some innocent little boy, playfully chasing a seseme street ball into the yard just a bit, right before going back to his Daddy and trying to enjoy a happy fun game outside. Grandma doesn't always wear her glasses, she only knows that the Sith cater to no one when you turn off the auto-pause function in Knights of the Old Republic, and that the dogs won't shut up- ruining some good dialogue between Carth and Bastilla on the nature of the Dark Side; so out the window goes her head, stretching so far outside the skin on her neck portrudes veins not meant to be seen, like some comic book character emoting in sheer extremeness: "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE YARD, ASSHOLE!!!!!!"
I feel bad for the kid, and for the kid's father who now has to explain to his sobbing boy why the mean lady across the street hates him so much, but she's Grandma, so whatchagonnadoo?
When it comes to Outlaw Golf 2, Grandma's game is not at it's peak. There are a ton of characters, The Range, which is essentially a bunch of mini games, and a long tour, so to get 100% in this game is pretty daunting. She turned off the commentary and voices and she's plowing away at this game, trying her damndest to reach the point of "why bother." She doesn't understand the dynamics of the controls as well as the PGA series Golf Games, or even Hot Shots 1 & 2, so I usually beat her pretty bad when we go head to head. The thing is- is when she's putting, she turns on the grid and very carefully counts up and down the number of cells she needs to adjust, and she messes it up. If by chance, she does make the projected path go into the hole, she will mess up at the power meter and swear profusely.
So here is some sample dialogue of Grandma and I as she plays tour mode of Outlaw Golf 2:
"G- [While choosing the costume for her player] Jesus Christ! Look what she's wearing! Her ass is hanging out!"
"G- Fuck! You hit the ball 10 feet and the asshole rolls 26 feet! You see that shit?" "M- Yeah, it was... close."
"G- Shit, you see what I mean about that wind? You could be out in fuckin Timbuktoo you hit it anywhere near the pin."
"G- No, no no no no, too far dummy. Yeah, I knew you were going to roll way off."
"G- How the fuck do you get it to drop by the pin and stay there?" "M- You hit the bottom of the ball" "G- The bottom? How do I do that?" "M- [showing her which thumbstick to use] Here, like-" "G- No! If you show me you'll just take credit when I win."
"M- Well, you came close to getting an ace..." "G- I'm not playing fucking horseshoes, Tim."
"G- That's a bunch of shit. [watching ghostball projection] How the hell did I end up way over there?"
"G- [on listening to the soundtrack] Did he say 'ghetto youth?' I don't understand rap most of the time. I don't know what the hell they're saying!"
Grandma Destroyed Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal
It's about time, too. The voice acting in this particular game is cute and all, but dude: when the player is a 70 year old woman who turns it up because she hates answering the phone with her hearing aid (feedback's a bitch), the little quips and humorous cut-scenes get pretty old. She really liked this game, though; better than the first one she says. The potty-mouth was abound at times, however, when she would have to jump from tall, far away platform to some other tall, far away platform, the most used word was "shit." It was just like the good old days of Crash Bandicoot. Read the rest of this post...
Well, Grandma just got back from her doctor's appointment. It turns out that all the specialists and MD's and nurses and therapists weren't really sure how to communicate to each other. She had a blood clot after her knee replacement a couple months ago, but they didn't mention that until page three of their report to her MD, so the blood thinners they prescribed were a mystery to several doctors who thought they would only read the first page of said report. Needless to say, Grandma was pissed. In her words: "Someone fucked up, and now I'm hurting for it." Read the rest of this post...
Grandma became audibly angered at this GameCube gem enough to curse the Nintendo name forever. It wasn't because she didn't like it- she did; but the sound of a chainsaw wielding madman screaming some unpleasantness in Spanish is quickly followed in our house by the cries of Grandma bellowing back an equally powerful rebel yell as though the two screams would somehow negate one another, thus saving Leon enough time to dodge the attack- but alas- decapitation came frequently. The problem with RE4, at least for us, is there is this stupid chick who you have to 'protect' from the zombie like 'European Religo-Fundies' (as she likes to call them) who keeps finding herself being schleped off to the nearest viable exit by a bad guy. Now this isn't nearly as hard as, say- protecting the princess in Ico, but like Ico- the game has a new quality that brings a unique sort of screaming in the house. The following are actual quotes my Grandma used while playing Resident Evil 4: "NO! Stupid Bitch!" "Fucking Bitch, get out of the way when I'm shooting!" "Fuck! FUCK!!!! Why can't I just give her the fucking ...TMP so we can get by these assholes while she just stands there!" "[mimicking the cries of Ashley in a high pitched crazy-voice] LEEOON! HEELLP! I'M A STUPID BITCH AND GOT CAUGHT AGAIN!!!" "Motherfuckingwhore won't duck when I shoot!" Now Grandma doesn't have Tourett's Syndrome anymore than she thinks Ashley is actually a whore, but she was entitled to the aggression seeing as she's put so many hours into the game to get the Chicago Typewriter, a machine gun with infinite ammo. In order to get the weapon, you first have to get through a mini-game, Assignment Ada after the first completion of the game in normal mode. It took Grandma three days to get through the mini-game because of "pain-killers." (She's recovering from a knee replacement) I told her she was just losing her style. Other parts of the game where geriatric vulgarity was rampant included any time you had to press a combination of buttons simultaneously to dodge an attack. According to Grandma, the character "Krauser" was a "fucker," and the giant like creatures were "cocksuckers." To her credit, she did end up getting the Chicago Typewriter, The Handcannon, and the Infinite Launcher, all the while swearing that the authors of the strategy guide purchased at Circuit City were "liars" and "had probably played the Japanese version." The only thing I bested Grandma in RE4 were the "Target Practice" galleries, in which, she said- "I can't do shit."
My friends encouraged me to start this blog to share my grandma with the world. Anyone who lives near us hearing her scream "Fucking Cocksucker Won't FUCKING DIE!!" at the television at very late hours knows she's something special. I'm her 22 year old grandson and I wouldn't trade her for the world- for many reasons; but one stands out. My Grandma plays video games. Wait- no, that doesn't do it justice: Grandma is fucking hardcore. She has a decent size TV in her room with surround sound, Digital Cable (through she never watches), GameCube, XBox, Playstation 2, SNES, and Genesis (with the 32X if you can believe that). It's not just that she plays, anyone can go through the motions of a walkthrough of a console game if they plug at it enough, she's good. She plays anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day for RPG (Final Fantasy Series, Xenosaga, Zelda Series, Ico, etc.,.); 10 to 12 hours if she's on a sports fix (Outlaw Golf is particularly a favorite at the moment); and she gets kicks from destroying guests at the Multiplayer of your choice while serving them the indignity of simultaneously providing delicious cookies. She's had two knee replacements and countless surgeries. If you were to see her in a grocery store you would see a old, Midwestern diabetic with thick glasses held up by a crutch or a shopping cart stumbling along smiling at everybody. She's polite, a safe driver, mother of five and grandmother of twelve. She's great. But if you get her in front of a game she likes, she becomes a monster; a demon who craves the blood, nay- the life-force of her enemies manifested as a swear happy old lady in a comfy chair. She has destroyed many controllers in frustration, already wore out two PS2's, and will gladly walk into a Gamestop or EB Games with the swagger of one with more knowledge about games and gaming than the teenager behind the counter can ever hope to amass. This blog will be a chronicle to my experiences with this fascinating woman. I will update will new stories as well as memories of past campaigns. Welcome to OGHC. Read the rest of this post...
