Classic video games an easy cell
By Walt McGraw
CNN Headline News
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Sprint's VGA 1000 phone by Samsung with the PCS Game Pad.
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(CNN) -- Without a doubt, the funniest article I've ever read about video games comes from the twisted mind of Dan "Shoe" Hsu, editor in chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly and frequent contributor to CNN Headline News' "Big Video Game Hunting."
He and his staff recently took it upon themselves to torture a few kids with the games my generation grew up on. I'll paraphrase the article here, but do yourself a favor and track down a copy.
Basically, the kids all felt that every early game, from "Pong" to "Donkey Kong," is "yucky." Only they used a word that rhymes with that.
It was the reaction that I thought I might have when "Mobile Armageddon" hit. What? You've forgotten "Mobile Armageddon" already? It was November 24, and all things cellular were supposed to go up in flames as millions of customers decided to port their numbers to new carriers.
I was looking forward to it for two reasons. No. 1: I could dump the cell phone company I'd had for almost a decade (most of that time spent looking for a signal in Manhattan) but keep my sacred phone number. And No. 2: I could finally get a modern cell phone, with games.
I was just worried they might rhyme with "yucky."
Compounding my fear was the bashing cell phone games have been taking because of Nokia's ill-fated NGage.
Downloading the games on my new Sprint phone was easy enough. The phone even shipped with a few. For the price of a big bag of potato chips, you get a game that is about as sophisticated -- graphically speaking at least -- as the games Shoe's testers tore to shreds. And like them, I've been spoiled.
That's not to say there aren't some gems out there. There are plenty of titles to choose from. I found that "old school" games like "Ms. PacMan" and "Tetris" translated best for me. And I'm looking forward to trying them out with the Sprint GamePad that will turn my phone into a GameBoy of sorts.
In the meantime, I'm back to "Knights of the Old Republic" on my trusty desktop.
