Stratego: 1HN Childhood Dream Fulfilled

As my legions of fans know (okay, I DON'T have legions of fans, but that phrase sounds pleasantly grandiose), I was, and still am, an only child. I say this because I grew up with few playmates. Not so surprisingly, this had its advantages: I always knew where my stuff was, I tended to keep all the weapons to my GI Joes and Transformers and not have them lost by a younger sibling, and I only had myself to blame if a game or toy was damaged or wrecked. Sadly, though, being an only child had its downsides, namely the aforementioned lack of playmates or opponent for games. This was especially tragic because I loved, and still love, board games. I used to collect all the classics, like Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Advance to Boardwalk, Doorways to Adventure (a VCR game!), Chess, and Stratego. Now, you might be asking yourself, "What about your mom and dad? Didn't they play board games?" To be fair, I may not have asked them to play, but as I got older they didn't seem to enjoy playing games. Anyway, because I was an only child, I had few opponents except for friends. The other tragic thing about me was that I despised losing, and one has to be accustomed to losing at board games because results often do not favor oneself. That's another story.

One game that I collected that I mentioned earlier is Stratego. It's a game that involves two armies on a map with grid lines. Both players place the soldiers, bombs, and flag of their armies on squares in the back four rows of their sides of the board. Soldiers occupy many ranks from number 9 (which is a Scout) to number 1 (which is the field marshal). Pieces are deployed with their backs facing their opponent, so one never finds out what his opponent's pieces are until one of his pieces engages one of his opponent's pieces. That's how the game works essentially; two pieces engage in combat and the lower-numbered (or higher-ranking) piece wins. The object of the game is simple: capture the opponent's flag whilst avoiding bombs (which can only be defused and removed by the Miner, which is number 8) and higher-ranked pieces. A pleasing twist is the Spy, which cannot eliminate any other piece but the opponent's field marshal; the Spy can play a key end-game role, especially if the opponent favors an attack spearheaded by good ol' Number 1.

The wonderful aspects of Stratego are the placement of one's pieces and the various strategies one can employ to seek the opponent's flag. By this, flag placement is most crucial; does one place the flag in a back corner and surround it with bombs (even though this is directly out of the Stratego 101 textbook), or does one place the flag away from a cluster of bombs to fool the opponent into going for the cluster of bombs (which may also be a basic approach)? Does one lead a wedge attack with the field marshal, or does one use Scouts to feel out the opponent's front line and then send stronger troops in pairs or groups? Does one use the field marshal to defend the flag?

I'm certain there are numerous tactics one can apply and various websites that explain each tactic, but I won't delve into those here because, frankly, I'm not well-versed in all the strategies. Instead, the focus of this article is on the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Now that I am a father with two boys, I not only have the opportunity to watch them play Stratego with the same board and pieces that I collected as a youngster, but I also have opponents against whom I can play; and, I must say that my sons are the best opponents because I like to watch them beat me and I also enjoy winning against them in hard-fought matches. Stratego, along with many of the board games I still own from my childhood days, embodies what it means to live retro: to appreciate the utility and  fun of the old stuff. If you are in your teens or twenties now, save your board games, card games, and video games; though they may not have much collector value, they will have replay value with your descendants. Moreover, if you are in your thirties or older, do not be afraid to dust off the old games for your young ones. For me, dusting off those old games and playing with my sons fulfilled that childhood dream of having ready opponents that I would be as happy to lose against as I would be to win against.

NES Pro Wrestling: 1HN Slam Action

NES Pro Wrestling was one of the first games I remember witnessing being played on the NES during my junior high school days. I recall the day well: I rode my bike to my acquaintance (I'll explain later) Joshua's house. At the time, I looked forward to playing some games with him on his Nintendo Entertainment System because, well, I didn't have one. Anyway, when I arrived, I got to watch him play a game in which wrestlers were slammed, thrown, clotheslined, pile-driven, and back-broken (can I say that?!). I remember being eager to play...

And I waited... For one hour... Two hours...

After over two hours of waiting, I realized dimly that Joshua would never let me play. I'm not sure he was even aware of my presence in his living room while he played. That is not to say that I was angry or even despondent because I enjoyed watching him, but over time I have come to conclude that Joshua was rather selfish and inhospitable (which, in turn, compels me to encourage my boys to share video game time with each other and with friends who visit). Funnily enough, though, those observations were absent in my mind.

Sadly, I ended up getting home late that day and my parents were rightfully upset and worried. In a feeble attempt to perhaps stave off their ire, I had set my wristwatch back one hour; that way, I could offer the excuse that the time on my watch was wrong. Of course, that got them even more upset because I had proven that I wasn't careful enough to keep time accurately on my watch (not to mention, I lied!). Ah, the memories...

NES Pro Wrestling was one of the early Nintendo-brand releases for the NES console. It has the look and feel of the initial NES releases with the black-covered manuals and 8-bit-rendered cartridge labels with the black spines. When I received NES Pro Wrestling for Christmas one year (I forget which one), I recall how oddly pleased I was that the look of the cartridge matched some of my other NES titles, like Baseball and Ice Climber. For some reason, I was really interested in uniformity… Anyway, NES Pro Wrestling features six characters: Fighter Hayabusa, Starman, Kin Korn Karn, Giant Panther, The Amazon, and King Slender. 

Each character can punch, kick, body slam, and throw an opponent against the ropes to either knee him in the face or clothesline him. Yet, what’s really fun is that each character has his own special moves. For example, Giant Panther can either head-butt the opponent or administer the “Iron Claw,” which is when he grabs the face of his opponent with his palm and squeezes. Each time a wrestler performs his special move, his foe collapses into a heap, after which the wrestler can either pin his foe or pull him up… by the hair.

NES Pro Wrestling is still alive and well in my collection and my boys get a kick out of wrestling with each other. For an 8-bit NES game, NES Pro Wrestling does have some depth with all the special moves and strategies one can employ. One of my favorite strategies is to use Starman’s Flying Cross Chop from a standing position. Originally, the move was intended to be performed after an opponent is thrown against the ropes, but I learned that one can fly through the air and chop the opposing wrestler from a standing position WITHOUT throwing him. As one plays, one picks up on these little tactics and misuses of special moves, as well as on the fact that there is a twenty-second limit when a wrestler is outside the ring. I won’t give away the strategy for using that time limit. As an aside, the only stipulation I have made with my boys is that they cannot play with The Amazon because special moves involve either using a dinner fork or his mouth to munch on the opposing player. 

This leads me to a discussion I had started on this blog long ago, when I wrote about violence in video games, initiating a one-sided discussion about the acceptable extent and intent of such violence. At that time, I reasoned that one should consider both how realistic the violence is portrayed and the intent of the violence in the game itself. Over time, though, I have given the issue much thought, especially vis-à-vis the Bible. Now, dare I say that the Bible does portray some violence, whether it be Samson slaying a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, Joshua and his armies after the walls of Jericho fell, or David beheaded the felled Goliath after the slung stone found its mark. Considering these and many other examples, violence in war or in defense of one's home may be unavoidable. However, in the context of this blog, the crucial issue is how far does one go with violence for the sake of fun...

In my opinion, one has to look at each case and conclude based on personal convictions in relation to God’s word. In the case of NES Pro Wrestling, just like professional wrestling in real life, the “violence” is so cartoonish and rendered in that vague 8-bit style that the game is more of a stress reliever and less of a desensitizing force. I have observed my boys play the game, I have talked to them about how dangerous professional wrestling really is, and I have discussed how pro wrestlers are trained professionals who practice how to NOT hurt their opponents and yet execute athletically acrobatic moves. So far, my boys have not executed such moves on each other; more importantly, they understand that violence outside of a video game is inevitable in certain situations, such as during war or in defense of one’s home. There will be more on this later.

Appreciating the Great to Discern the Derivative

As time passes, it is confirmed for me, again and again, that the simplicity and pick-up-and-playability of "old" video games is vastly superior to the glitz and graphics of today's three-dimensional offerings. Sure, one may marvel at the visual explosion of garish hues of any PlayStation game, or guffaw at the side-splitting and muscle-tearing action of XBox Kinect or Wii games, or even be wowed by the audio saturation emanating from one's quadrophonic sound system as one plays games... well, on any of those consoles. However, I find that it is difficult to trump the quaint jaggedness of 8-bit or 16-bit sprites, the plip-ploppiness of 25-year-old game sound effects, or even the mind-bending elegance of one D-pad and two, three, or six buttons.

The reason why I am waxing nostalgic and gushing with needlessly verbose prose is because I experienced a moment of peculiar lucidity today. During a work training session, rather randomly, I asked one of the attendees (who happened to be my age) if he remembered the infinite-life trick in Super Mario Brothers for the NES. For a few seconds, the attendee (who was attending via WebEx, actually) admitted some ignorance, but then corrected himself and recalled with impressive clarity that if you jump on a certain creature (in this case, a Koopa) a certain way (on the edge of its shell as it descends stairs made of blocks), you can set up an infinite loop of life gain. Floored by his apparent recall of that tactic, I filled in the blanks of his description by noting that it happens in World 3 and results in cryptic symbols replacing numbers next to the Mario life indicator that is displayed before the start of each level.

As this moment of lucidity passed, I was reminded that though games like Super Mario Brothers were easy to learn and somewhat challenging to conquer, there were arduous aspects of the gameplay that made even seasoned gamers pause, such as trying to advance anywhere in Legend of Zelda; also, there were wondrous moments of revelation that etched indelible impressions in our psyches, such as the infinite life trick. What was revealed to me was that while the simplicity of those old games lured us into becoming fans, it was the hidden and the discoverable that kept us returning to play over and over. There was something eminently rewarding about unearthing such tricks or conquering levels of ridiculous difficulty. I contend that games today, even with their Easter eggs, hidden levels, and downloadable content do not have the payoff of  the infinite life trick, of setting the correct tree on fire, or climbing the once-inaccessible tower to find a 1-UP (a la Knuckles the Echidna). I suppose it's because these games live in the rosy-tinted world of my memories. However, when I watch my sons play the old games or I hear a co-worker describe his son's admiration of Super Mario Brothers, I realize that if we all bring up our children to appreciate the things of the past, we bless them with the gift of discerning what is great from what is derivative.