Freestone Unleashed

Scott downloaded a demo of a video game called Sonic Unleashed yesterday. Today, Freestone can get through the whole game in five minutes, and each time he plays it, he gets a higher score. Watching him play, I thought what every parent of a six-year-old boy thinks. "Wow! He's a genius at this! How can I turn this into a lucrative career path?" Freestone's little character was racing through what looked like a Greek fishing village, collecting gold rings, jumping over buildings and dispatching bad robots. I couldn't believe how fast Freestone figured out what to do!

Not having played video games since Pac Man, I decided to test my skill, to compare it to Freestone. I thought maybe it was a lot easier than it looked. Nope. My character immediately started weaving around like he'd had one too many Ouzos. Every time he tripped over a crate or crashed into a wall, the character said, "Oof!" or "Ugh!" He managed to miss every gold ring as he staggered around, lost. One minute into the game, my confused and disoriented character was cornered in a dark alley by three husky robots and kicked to death. Freestone was yelling, "Square! Square!" Too bad I didn't know he was talking about which button to push. Pushing the Square button, thereby neutralizing the Greek robots, could have saved my life.

Now I believe in evolution. A generation from now, boys are going to be born with giant thumbs, suitable for operating PS3 controllers. Freestone already says thing like, "Mom, pause this game. I have to go to the bathroom." Only he's not talking about a game. He's referring to real life. Six-year-olds have trouble separating fantasy from reality. Hey, if your fantasy takes place on a sunny day in a Greek fishing village, I don't see a problem with that. As long as you avoid the robots.