Editorial

How Metroid II Got Me In Trouble as a Kid...

How Metroid II Got Me In Trouble as a Kid...

Amazingly we will be seeing a new Metroid game for the first time in years coming out in just a few short days on September 15th, 2017 and even more surprising is that we didn't even know it existed before E3.

This new game, titled "Metroid: Samus Returns" is a remake/re-imagining of the 1991 Gameboy classic "Metroid: Return of Samus".  Many changes have been made to this game to bring it up to date on the Nintendo 3DS that make it far different from its progenitor. These changes I will try and talk about in a later article but for now I want to talk about what happened back in 7th grade. 

The GamePad Helped My Daughter Play Her First Game (and She's Almost Blind)

Well, it has finally happened.  My daughter has been BEGGING me to let her play videogames for quite awhile now, but even I couldn't figure out a way for her to really enjoy the games because of a few "issues".  You see, my daughter is pretty close to blind and can only focus within a few inches of her face, even with very thick glasses, and has an anoxic brain injury from birth.  Jennifer kept yelling "I'm Doing It!" (she's on the right)Since her birth we have always been told many things she can't do.  The list is almost a cliche now, but still worth noting in my opinion.  She was 13.6 oz at birth (for reference, a single pound is only 16oz itself) and we were told she would not live, she would not walk, run, talk, learn, read, etc...and she has done every one.  She has her challenges for sure, but she is the happiest kid I have ever seen and more of a morning person than I think is legally allowed.  

But with gaming I originally thought she just had no interest in it but that changed as she would want to hang out with us playing more and more until she finally started directly asking "Daddy...I want to play a game too!".  I had played with some ideas while reading about games like "Real Sound: Regrets in the Wind" from WARP in Japan on the Dreamcast back when she was younger and was thankful there were ideas being used to allow for games without the visuals which would at least let her experience gaming in a way, but I was still frustrated on what to do about "normal" gaming that she watched me and the family do on the big living room TV.