Bad Habits - Annihilation - August 31 2005

My family barely escaped Hurricane Katrina. They were on the road out of New Orleans when the storm began to destroy the city. Now they’re scattered across the South in hotels and relatives’ houses. They were lucky survivors. As you might imagine, my mind has been anywhere except video games.

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But I have a column to write. I can’t fathom playing war games or sword adventures. All I can handle are two peaceful and popular hand-held puzzle games, Meteos for Nintendo DS and Lumines for Sony PSP.

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They’re Tetris-like games. My mom loves Tetris. She got her hands on it a few years ago when I flew home for the holidays with a Game Boy in hand. Mom was intrigued. I let her play it and never got it back, which was fine. It made her happy.

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Tetris is probably still in Mom’s house in our city of water, along with my niece Jennifer’s Nintendo GameCube. My sister Teresa took her Nintendo DS with her. My brother, Brad, and his son, Kyle, have an Xbox, probably soaked to the core in their apartment. Kyle and I played the fishy game Finding Nemo together a few seasons ago.

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Obviously, the game stuff is replaceable and unimportant. The last I heard from Brad, he and his family were living in a hotel in mid-Louisiana. Mom and Teresa were in Little Rock, Ark. Jennifer went to St. Petersburg to stay with her dad.

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And here I am in Chicago, playing Lumines and wondering, like a child, if Mom would like it. I think she would. It’s even prettier, and just as addictive, as Tetris. Blocks fall from the sky, I arrange them by hue and shift them next to likewise hues to build an infrastructure, and then it all vanishes. Poof. Everything disappears.

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I don’t think she would enjoy Meteos as much. Instead of rearranging the blocks, I must more swiftly move blocky shapes that have already hit the ground. That would be fine, normally. But there are explosions, and when I lose a round, words pop up on the screen — “Annihilation! You Lose!” — and who needs that reminder?

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These puzzle games may help kids learn shapes, colors, strategy and eye-hand coordination, Mom says. She has a doctorate in early childhood education and teaches gifted elementary kids. School was supposed to start last week. Instead, Mom filed for unemployment and food stamps. She’ll get $258 a week until she can get a job.

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It looks as if none of us will be allowed back into New Orleans for months. I know this is pitiful to say, but I’m not as worried about my family or their homes as I am heartbroken for people who got stuck in our wrecked city and who can’t bury their dead loved ones. I also can’t find information about my good friend there, Dave Faulk.

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I keep thinking about my grandmother, Nana, who helped raise me. The site of her remains is almost certainly flooded. When I was a boy, she’d see me playing Nintendo. She’d shake her head with a smile and say in her farm-raised expression, “Lord have mercy.” Today, she’s all I can hear.

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thegamedork@creativeloafing.com

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Doug Elfman is an award-winning columnist who lives and writes in Chicago.

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New To You — Used Game Of The Week

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If you’re a fan of driving on the left side of the road, the original Getaway cops-and-robbers game is set in London and comes with British slang, cinematic scenes and atmosphere. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s not bad, and the 2-year-old game is selling for as little as $5 in used-game stores.

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On the flip side, don’t accidentally buy the sequel, The Getaway: Black Monday, which is similar but weaker. Both are available for PS2 and are rated M for blood, drug reference, strong language, strong sexual content and violence.