PKT25: Video Games
Since I talked about my idyllic summer relaxing and playing video games, this seems like an apt time to highlight some of the many, many, many video games that were popular at the fraternity in my time there.
We were all hooked up to the incredibly fast CWRUNet and had our own computers, which meant that we all had access to endless file shares with pirated games available for downloading. Beyond that, we also had plenty of consoles floating around the house. In the years in question, these were typically the PlayStation, PS2, the Nintendo 64 and a few older consoles like the Super Nintendo. With one exception, I don't recall anyone at the house having any of the Sega consoles of the era, and this was all before the Xbox came out.
I'm not going to attempt to list all the many, many video games I wasted my time with in college, but here are a few of the highlights:
- On my computer I mostly played solo games, although there was plenty of multiplayer possibilities with Diablo, Warcraft 2 and a host of first person shooters like Doom II and its relatives.
- I also spent a lot of time playing old Nintendo and arcade games on emulators. Notably, I played a lot of Mr. Do! on Mike's copy of MAME while he watched television. I also beat some old NES games I'd never gotten to play as a kid.
- I hung out with Neal in his apartment over the garage a lot. We took turns playing Super Castlevania IV. He also had an old Sega Genesis and we played Golden Axe on that.
- After Alpha Centauri came out I spent an entire spring break doing nothing but eating, sleeping and playing Alpha Centauri. I somehow managed to delete the game after that week and never played it again, which may be the most impressive act of will I've ever achieved.
This was a all a good time, but the real fun at the fraternity house was packing 3 or 4 people in a room to play head to head on some console game. The two most popular of these games by far were Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye. Both featured the ability to let four people play each other at the same time around the same console, which for the day and age was somewhat of a novelty. We played an awful lot of both games over the years. Later in college Counter-Strike became hugely popular, and we played a lot of that against each other. We'd team up against other people and such. I was never particularly good at Counter-Strike or GoldenEye, but I got to be pretty good at Mario Kart 64.
Also surprisingly popular was watching other people play video games. I distinctly remember something like 12 people hanging out in the East Ring common room watching Frank beat Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid. Other times we'd just watch someone play a game in single player mode - I played a lot of Star Fox 64. Suffice it to say that when eSports became a thing, I wasn't super surprised.
I really enjoyed video games back then, but to the extent that I have any regrets about college, it's about all the time I wasted playing them, or at least that I played solo. It's one thing to hang out with friends and play (whether in co-op play or talking while one person plays), but I really wish that instead of playing games by myself I had been reading, or working out, or programming, or even studying. Or maybe even trying to talk to girls. I haven't played solo computer games much since I bought my house, and the last time I really spent any significant time playing them I felt kind of gross afterwards. Like so many things, video games really are better when played with other people.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999, Summer 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding, Video Games
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings
We were all hooked up to the incredibly fast CWRUNet and had our own computers, which meant that we all had access to endless file shares with pirated games available for downloading. Beyond that, we also had plenty of consoles floating around the house. In the years in question, these were typically the PlayStation, PS2, the Nintendo 64 and a few older consoles like the Super Nintendo. With one exception, I don't recall anyone at the house having any of the Sega consoles of the era, and this was all before the Xbox came out.
I'm not going to attempt to list all the many, many video games I wasted my time with in college, but here are a few of the highlights:
- On my computer I mostly played solo games, although there was plenty of multiplayer possibilities with Diablo, Warcraft 2 and a host of first person shooters like Doom II and its relatives.
- I also spent a lot of time playing old Nintendo and arcade games on emulators. Notably, I played a lot of Mr. Do! on Mike's copy of MAME while he watched television. I also beat some old NES games I'd never gotten to play as a kid.
- I hung out with Neal in his apartment over the garage a lot. We took turns playing Super Castlevania IV. He also had an old Sega Genesis and we played Golden Axe on that.
- After Alpha Centauri came out I spent an entire spring break doing nothing but eating, sleeping and playing Alpha Centauri. I somehow managed to delete the game after that week and never played it again, which may be the most impressive act of will I've ever achieved.
This was a all a good time, but the real fun at the fraternity house was packing 3 or 4 people in a room to play head to head on some console game. The two most popular of these games by far were Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye. Both featured the ability to let four people play each other at the same time around the same console, which for the day and age was somewhat of a novelty. We played an awful lot of both games over the years. Later in college Counter-Strike became hugely popular, and we played a lot of that against each other. We'd team up against other people and such. I was never particularly good at Counter-Strike or GoldenEye, but I got to be pretty good at Mario Kart 64.
Also surprisingly popular was watching other people play video games. I distinctly remember something like 12 people hanging out in the East Ring common room watching Frank beat Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid. Other times we'd just watch someone play a game in single player mode - I played a lot of Star Fox 64. Suffice it to say that when eSports became a thing, I wasn't super surprised.
I really enjoyed video games back then, but to the extent that I have any regrets about college, it's about all the time I wasted playing them, or at least that I played solo. It's one thing to hang out with friends and play (whether in co-op play or talking while one person plays), but I really wish that instead of playing games by myself I had been reading, or working out, or programming, or even studying. Or maybe even trying to talk to girls. I haven't played solo computer games much since I bought my house, and the last time I really spent any significant time playing them I felt kind of gross afterwards. Like so many things, video games really are better when played with other people.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999, Summer 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding, Video Games
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings