At the end of this month, I'm going to Detroit for a small ubergeek convention called Penguicon. I'm on eleventy million panels about everything from audiobooks to Star Trek, and I'm also pfacing off against Shawn Powers, the editor of Linux Journal in a very serious, very important battle for the ages featuring Combat on the Atari 2600. To warm up for this epic battle, the convention committee sent us each an Atari Flashback II so that we could enjoy our own training montages. I picked it up from my mailbox earlier this week, gently put it into my trunk, and drove home safely and calmly, respecting all traffic laws and my fellow drivers.

Once in the house, I unleashed my inner 8 year-old and tore the box open with reckless abandon. I grabbed the power supply and jammed it into the wall. I connected it to our television, and dove into Adventure, then Dodge-Em, then Yars' Revenge. I may have thrown some late 70s album rock onto the Sonos, to complete the experience.

"So ... it's great that you're having so much fun," my son said from the other side of the room while I was cheering the successful introduction of my Zorlon Cannon to the Qotile's bitch face, "but I'm working on my senior project here."

I toned down my celebration. "Sorry."

I switched to Asteroids, and after clearing two screens, I swear I could feel the chlorine in my lungs and on my skin from any given day in the summer of 1982.

"Hey, remember when you guys used to play your mom's 2600?" I let one small rock drift across the screen, while I racked up points blasting flying saucers.

He sighed and turned around in his chair. "Sort of. This is a really important project."

"Okay, I'll get out of here, but will you play with me when you're done? I need to, uh, practice."

He cocked one eyebrow. "You need to train? What?"

"For this thing at the end of the month. I'm playing Combat at this convention."

"You are so weird."

"I know. Will you play with me?"

"Yes." Our roles thoroughly reversed, he returned to his work and I went back to my office.

Awhile later, he called out to me. "Okay, I'm done!"

I stood up carefully, and slowly pushed my chair beneath my desk. I walked carefully through the house and did not scare my dog when I nearly tripped over her near the aquarium in the living room. I did not nearly stub my toe on the dining room table, and I was not out of breath and flush with excitement when I met Nolan in the family room.

We turned on the television, and a few minutes later, we faced off in tank pong with maximum walls. It was a furious battle, ending in a 7-7 tie when my last-second shot found its mark.

"Again," he said.

I suppressed a smile, and bumped the reset button. I quickly built an 8-3 lead, and Nolan never caught up.

"Two out of three?" I asked.

He made a face that was a combination of amusement and determination. "Yes."

He built a 10-2 lead almost instantly. I spent more time spinning around than I did actually driving my tank, though I bounced all over the map.

"I think there's a problem with this game," he said, as the match ended, 11-6. "It's way too easy to just chain your attacks together and completely own the other player."

"I think that's part of it, though," I said, starting a new game. "You've just got to find a way to keep moving and get in that first shot."

He got in the first shot, and the next five shots. I got in a couple shots of my own, but it wasn't enough. I realized, too late, that I was probably struggling because I'd forgotten to make Survivor play the appropriate 80s inspirational rock song in my head.

"You're the undisputed master of Combat," I said. "As your reward, you get to watch me play Adventure."

I flipped switches, and was soon on my way to collect the various items required to complete my quest.

"What's that?"

"Oh, that's my sword," I said, pushing my little box against an arrow-shaped icon.

"What do you use it for?"

"Slaying Dragons!" I said, as I entered a once-simple maze of passages that the passage of time had made as vexing as it was when I was eight.

"You realize you've gone into that dead end five times, right?"

"Quiet you. This is how we did it back in the 80s."

"You ran into the same dead end over and over again?"

"Yes, it was part of Reganomics."

I finally found my way out of the maze, and approached a castle, anxious to impress Nolan by grabbing the chalice within.

That's when the dragon showed up.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a dragon, of course," I said, holding the joystick out in front of me like I always did, convinced that if I moved it around, it would help me escape faster.

That's when the dragon ate me.

"This is really what you guys did for fun?"

"Well, there was this, and we'd occasionally fend off Indian attacks when we weren't Dinosaurizing our caves, yeah."

He laughed. "What other games are on this?"

I showed him Yars' Revenge. "This was my favorite 2600 game when I was a kid. I liked it even more than [ii]Pitfall!"

He looked at me.

"I liked Pitfall! a lot."

He continued to look at me.

"We all liked Pitfall! a lot."

"So, you're this insect creature called the Yar," I said as the game began, "and this guy here is the Qotile. He destroyed your home planet or something, and you've built this Zorlon cannon to extract your titular revenge."

I flew around the screen, through the neutral zone and chipped away at the Qotile defenses. My Zorlon cannon activated, and I waited to take my shot.

"From time to time, though, the Qotile turns into a Swirl, and shoots itself at you."

That's when the Qotile turned into a Swirl, and I blasted it out of the sky.

"Yes!" I looked at him, so I could bask in his approval.

"That's it?"

"Well, you get to fly around in this cool screen between levels, too," I said, "and the second level has a rotating shield."

He looked at the flashing graphics on the screen and scratched his chin.

"How many people got seizures from this when you played it?"

"I ... do not know."

"I bet you I can destroy it three times without dying," he said.

"Do it." I handed him the joystick.

"So I shoot at this thing that looks like a distress signal?"

"The Qotile," I said. "Yes, you shoot at the Qotile. With your Zorlon Cannon. Because you're exacting --"

"Revenge. I got that."

I watched with more pride than I thought possible (or revealed to my easily embarrassed teenage son), as it took him about two minutes to do exactly what he said he'd do.

"Does this ever get hard?" He asked.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

He shook his head and handed the joystick back to me.

"Sorry. Reflex. Um, yeah, it gets challenging later on. The missile thing moves a lot faster, and the Swirls fly out a lot faster and more frequently."

"But it's pretty much the same two levels over and over again."

"The same two awesome levels, yes."

We looked at each other.

"It came with a comic book. Did I tell you about that?"

"You are so weird."

"But I'm also kind of awesome, right?"

We looked at each other.


Wil Wheaton is weird, and he is totally cool with it.

This month's Geek in Review stands entirely on its own, but also goes well (if I do say so myself) with this week's LA Daily -- click HERE to view.

I first played NES on a department store display in 1986. It was in a place called Zody's, which in the mid-80s preceded and was then made obsolete by Target. I don't recall why we were in the store, but it was after school, and my parents had dropped off me and my brother in the toy department while they shopped for the various things we took for granted, but were load-bearing staples in the Wheaton household.

After briefly browsing the action figures and board games, we turned a corner and saw it: the Nintendo Entertainment System, sitting at the end of an aisle, waiting for some lucky kid to pick up its controller and take it for a spin.

We stopped short, and looked at each other, marveling at our good luck, before quickly bolting down the aisle and grabbing the controllers, before anyone could get between us and unlimited video game bliss.

We started with something weird called "Wrecking Crew." Though it would eventually become one of my all time favorites, the 13 year-old version of me was unimpressed.

"Pick a good one, Wil!" My brother said.

There were sixteen different games to choose from. It was magnificent. My eyes raced across the colored titles spread out before me:

Golf? No. Golf is lame.

Ice Climber? No. What happened when you played that Wrecking Crew game that you'd never heard of before?

Clu Clu Lan? That sounds like math. Next.

Kung-Fu? Bori -- wait! Kung-Fu? Like in the arcade?!

"Let's play Kung-Fu," I said.

"Is it cool?" He said.

I didn't appreciate it at the time, but in writing this now, I wish I had: this was near the end of the time in our childhoods when my little brother looked up to me, and I not only thought I was a cool guy, but looked to me as the arbiter of what was and wasn't cool. Over the next two years, after I booked Star Trek and became temporarily consumed by Hollywood and all its attendant bullshit, he and I drifted apart, and he grew to (rightly) resent and dislike me. It wasn't until we were both in our late 20s that we came back together.

"I'm pretty sure it is, Jer," I said. "I think I've played this at Shakeys."

I pressed the select button repeatedly until an LED next to Kung-Fu lit up, and hit start.

The game began, and I was blown away. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen on a console. It made our Atari 2600 feel as technologically advanced as a set of alphabet blocks, and its recreation of the arcade game I loved was even more faithful than the Colecovision version of Donkey Kong I'd declared "the most radical game ever!" when I played it at a friend's house five or six years earlier.

"Oh my god, Jer! This is just like the arcade!"

"Yeah!" He said, spurred on by my excitement as much as his own.

We alternated between Kung-Fu, Excitebike, and Pinball until our parents dragged us away what felt like hours later.

"Mom! Dad! That Intendo is so great!" Jeremy said, once we were in the car.

"It's Nintendo, Jeremy," I said, in my very best Serious and Mature voice, "and it's probably the most advanced computer that will ever be made."

My parents looked at each other. My dad's eyes found mine in the rear view mirror.

"Is that a fact," he said.

"Yeah," I said, "and --"

Before I could explain to my parents all the reasons we'd be stupid not to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System, my mother said, "we don't need another video game in the house. The Atari you already have is very nice."

I opened and then closed my mouth. This was not a battle I could win.

In the Big Trak campaign of 1980, the Omnibot offensive of 1982, and too many Game and Watch battles to count, I'd been as successful arguing these matters with my mother as I was at beating the "unbeatable (?) pterodactyl" in Joust. My brother and I shared a look that matched our parents': the discussion was over. I took comfort in the knowledge that, when I was eighteen and I could buy it for myself, the NES would take a place in my house next to a tower of comic books, all the cool Star Wars figures, box after box of Cookie Crisp cereal, and a pretty sweet fort (which, as it turns out, describes my current office pretty accurately. Minus the cereal. I’m too old for that shit now.)

However, a few months later, everything changed when I was invited to a celebrity charity thing in Hollywood, which was sponsored by Nintendo. In addition to all the usual photographs and teen magazine interviews, shoulder pads and Aqua Net, there would be a Super Mario Bros. competition.

This wasn't some silly Starcade competition with modified versions or timed levels on certain games. It was a serious high score competition, and Jeremy and I were determined to take down the Grand Prize: a complete NES system, featuring a light gun, a robot, over twenty games, and possibly First Prize: a 20 inch color TV. While all the other young teen heartthrobs were busy being seen, signing autographs and getting their picture taken, my brother and I prepared to claim what was rightfully ours. You see, we'd been unintentionally preparing for this very moment all summer long.

Since that fateful day in Zody's, my brother and I had developed an affinity for Nintendo games. In fact, you could say we were protofanboys. We'd always liked Donkey Kong and Punch Out!!, but when a Super Mario Bros. machine was installed between Arkanoid and Pinbot at our local 7-11, we played with a cult-like dedication. Over that summer, we were those guys who nobody could beat, thanks largely to a trick we learned from one of Jeremy's friends at school. He called it "the turtle trick," and it was a way to earn almost limitless free men by freezing and jumping repeatedly on a turtle at the end of world 3-1. Though we never managed to actually beat the game during that time, using the turtle trick, we obtained and held the high score for months. (For you damn kids today, not just earning – but maintaining – the high score on an arcade machine was a very big deal back in those days.)

The competition rules were simple: every kid in attendance could play twice and keep their highest score. At the end of the afternoon, the four highest scores would win prizes.

Thanks to the turtle trick, a lot of patience, and a singular focus that the presence of several young starlets tested (Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, and Nicole Eggert among them,) my brother and I completely obliterated everyone else there, and took home the the grand and first prize. My NES was in my possession almost five years ahead of schedule, and my brother and I spent the bulk of the next eighteen months playing it, talking about playing it, and wondering when we would get to play it again. I will never forget the night we stayed up until dawn and beat Metroid:

"OH MY GOD IT'S A CHICK!!"

Pause. Pause. Pause.

"COOL!"

"Want to play again?"

Pause. Pause. Pause.

"No."

The rest of our time was spent playing Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Blades of Steel, Mike Tyson's Punchout!!, and, yes, Wrecking Crew. We loved it, and to this very day it remains one of my favorite and most cherished systems, which I reluctantly put down a few years ago after no amount of blowing or smacking on the cartridges could get them to work.

From around 1990 until last week, the only Nintendo products I owned were an evolving collection of Gameboys that I always ended up using for Tetris, until 2005, when I got a Gameboy that was styled to look like the classic NES. It came with Excitebike, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and Legend of Zelda. It was, again, in the middle of the night, (this time next to my slumbering wife,) that I finally defeated Ganon and saved the Princess. It had been nearly two decades since the first time I picked up a sword (it's dangerous to go alone!) and walked across Hyrule, and though I woke Mrs. Wheaton up and got The Wrath as a result of my celebration, it was entirely worth it.

Last week, I got a Nintendo Wii (which is actually a very cool story for another time all on its own.) From the moment I plugged it in and started playing Wii Sports, I felt the magical excitement and pure joy of playing that I haven't felt since my brother and I stood in the toy department in Zody's twenty-one years ago. When I bought Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda on Virtual Console yesterday, I'm not ashamed to admit that I got a little teary as I gripped the controller in my hands, pushed start, and let the muscle memory take over and guide me through the first few levels of them both.

I was having such a great time, I asked my seventeen year-old stepson to play Super Mario Bros. with me, eager to share with him some of the joy I'd experienced when I was just a few years younger than he is now.

As I entered level 1-4, he said, "Wil, remember: you have to jump over the chain of fire and onto the top of the box."

"Listen here, sonny," I said, in my best Very Grumpy Old Man voice, "I was playing this game when you were in short pants!"

"Yeah," he said, "so was I."

I jumped over the chain of fire, and onto the top of the box. I paused the game, and laughed for several minutes.

"That's funny," I said, "because it's true."

I've never really considered myself much of a Nintendo fanboy, but if the company continues to bring this much happiness into my life, I may have no choice but to become one.

Wil Wheaton's Princess is in another castle.

If you're a geek of a certain age, you almost certainly invested hundreds of hours of your youth building and managing cities in Sim City. These days, you probably spend a lot of time yelling at the damn kids today to get off your lawn, while you hunt around the Intertubes for an opportunity to shift some funds and relive the glory days of 16-bit late 80s municipal management.

Well, grab your cane and shake your fist, because as part of the marketing effort behind Sim City 4, the good folks at Electronic Arts have released an entirely free version of the original Sim City, that you can play in almost any browser.

Uh, does anyone still run Netscape Navigator? The web version is based on the PC version of the game, and you can play it here. If anyone needs me, I'll be watching Godzilla rampage across my maps for the next few days.