My kids are always a little dismayed when I’m good at video games (and a lot distraught when I beat them at video games). Apparently, to them, I’m a crusty old lady who never saw a video game until my kids did me the favor of discovering the world of PlayStation and Nintendo. Little do they know, I grew up playing “Burgertime,” “Tekken,” “Sonic,” “Kingdom Hearts,” and every Mario game I could find.
“Super Mario Bros. 3” remains one of my all-time favorites. I logged hours and hours on our old cabinet TV making cheat sheets for the White Mushroom House puzzles and collecting every Warp Whistle in the game. Now, I spend a lot less time playing video games (though I am pretty good at “Pokemon Go,” “Minecraft,” and “Fortnite” thankyouverymuch), but they haven’t lost their relevance to me or within our culture.
References to video games appear in countless movies and playing them has spawned their own genre of YouTube “walkthrough” videos that kids seem glued to. There are even college scholarships for gamers!
During the most isolating parts of the COVID-19 shutdown, my son’s primary means for communicating with his friends was through “Fortnite.” Playing that game and being connected to his peers became an integral part of how he coped with not being able to see his friends in school every day.
Our friends at FTW here in Pryor understand that video games have become a vital part of our society and have decided to help give our community easier access to them. They donated more than 50 games for PS3, Xbox, and Wii to the library for anyone to check out for 4 weeks. Now, we have games like “Epic Mickey,” “Need For Speed,” and “Fallout” to loan to families in our community for free.
Search “video game” in our catalog to find a list or come check them out near our DVD collection.