This was the phrase most frequently uttered tonight, in varying states of desperation.
That’s right, I found a reason not to pack tonight, even though I’m moving in four days. Kevin called and wanted me to come play video games and have dinner, so of course I was there.
First we played Guitar Hero II. OMG. I am so addicted. It was the first time I’ve ever played, and I did really well. I stayed in the 90% range and I think my highest consecutive note tally was 92. Granted, we stayed on the Easy level, but still. Kevin was impressed, and usually he just laughs at my lack of coordination where those frakking controllers (and in this case, a guitar) are concerned. He said I would have an easier time of it since I could play the piano, and he was kind of right — I found that it helped me get the timing down a lot more quickly than I probably otherwise would have.
After a few rounds of GH, he popped in Halo 3. Oh good LORD I am so, so, so insanely bad. So bad. I have never been great at those first-person shooter games at all. I just don’t have the coordination to control the movement joystick and the “looking” joystick. Consequentially, I usually end up walking around in circles, or staring at my feet or up in the sky as I run into walls.
We hung out at the practice level for a while (in which I ran into numerous walls, accidentally blew myself up with a spike-launching grenade, and got splattered by Kevin in some random armored vehicle) and then moved into the co-op missions.
Can I just say that my nephew deserves a medal? I have never seen a more patient kid. Because take one look at the post title — that was me. I was supposed to be following him, but I kept getting lost. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s got a split screen, and I couldn’t figure out where I was on my screen, and I couldn’t even find me on his screen.
We chose the mission where we have to pass through several checkpoints and go down this long highway while battling alien combatants in various scary flying machines with various scary weapons, and Kevin’s driving this jeep and instead of hitting the button to shoot, I kept hitting the button that made me jump out of the jeep, and so Kevin would have to circle back and rescue me. Multiple times. I couldn’t figure out how to cross this narrow bridge and kept landing on my face in a gully. I could barely climb a ladder.
Once we’d wandered into the middle of this firefight (because Kevin had to come back for me again), he says, only slightly exasperated, “Jenny, you go stand in that tunnel and don’t move. Don’t do anything. I’ll come back and get you when I’ve killed all these guys.”
Talk about humiliating.
He hijacked an enemy armored vehicle and I managed to get myself into the turret, where I had unlimited ammo. I just had to learn how to move my line of sight so that the target on the screen would lock onto the enemy soldiers. I think I managed to kill three and shoot down one flying drone-type thing, and Kevin was so excited, you would’ve thought I beat the game.
Such a great kid. He told me I’d have to come back on a Saturday, when he’d have plenty of time to “teach” me.
Hi. My name is Jen, and I got royally schooled by an 11-year-old.
