Go Go Hardcore Grandma!

One of the most entertaining blogs I’ve seen in a while is Old Grandma Harcore. Here is the author’s description:

This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. Her favorite game of all time was Final Fantasy VII, her current task is reaching 100% in tour mode of Outlaw Golf 2. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.

One of the reasons I love this blog so much is that it reminds me of my late grandmother. My grandma didn’t use 4-letter words, nor did she play Xbox or PS2 or even NES. What she did do is watch me play every video game I ever played during the NES and SNES generations.

My grandma was the kind of lady that liked to sit and go through crossword puzzles, smoke a few cigarettes, feed the cats, and watch me finish Bionic Commando or Mega Man.

She went through crossword puzzles like no one’s business. She was eventually able to quit her smoking habit, but the crossword puzzles never stopped. Day after day. Book after book. When I try and do a crossword it takes me like a week just to do one. She would finish a book a day, sometimes.

I would sometimes finish a game a day. She would then sometimes give me a ride to the local rental store to pick up Mega Man 2 or whatever they happened to have that piqued my interest that day. I would proceed to play through it and would hear, “Oh, drat!” when I failed to take down a boss.

There were times that I know that she wanted to watch me play video games. “Well, doesn’t look like there’s anything interesting on TV, now,” she would lament. “You can play your game if you want.” Sweet!

I’m not sure why they were so fascinating for her to watch. Maybe it was just for the sake of variety. Maybe it was because she loved me and enjoyed seeing me have fun. Maybe there is something visceral and energizing about video games that gives members of the Greatest Generation something else entirely.

Many studies have shown that video games help children with terminal conditions feel less pain. I know of no such studies that have tested the affects of video game playing on the elderly. Perhaps there are new possibilities for the use of video games in nursing homes. There can be no doubt of the benefits. It would also be interesting to see what kinds of reactions there are to playing games like Medal of Honor or Call of Duty.

Who knows? Maybe video games will enable young people to overcome the long-maligned “generation gap” between the elderly and the youth of America and make connections with those who are our forefathers. I know it happened with my grandmother. There were many other things that created and fed the connection between grandmother and grandson, but it cannot be denied that video games was one of them.