I bought my first smart phone over the weekend. After looking over several options, I settled in on the Droid R2D2 from Motorola. It’s basically a Droid 2 with a tricked out R2D2 shell and a longer battery life. The latter of these two features is sketchy; everything I’ve read has said that it is the same, standard battery. Unless they’ve made the OS more power efficient, there’s probably not much of a difference. I jumped onto the Angry Birds bandwagon pretty early, and I can’t get enough of it.
Or, rather, I couldn’t get enough of it until my family came down with the worst chain-flu I’ve ever. I can almost hear the Killer Instinct voice saying “ULTRA-COMBOOOOOOOOO!” As the rest of the world rang in the new year, I stayed up in a dark, quiet room holding a little girl’s hair back from her face so that she wouldn’t get vomit in it. The pain of being the parent of a sick child is horrific; I am fortunate that I only have to deal with it a few days each year. She was fine in about 24 hours; just enough time for the rest of the family to get infected. This was the most miserable flu experience I can remember. It’s one thing when all you have to do is sleep it off; it’s another when you have to help someone else going through the same agony.
One thing that helped us get through this was games. We were able to fling birds at pigs, help a young robot save the world, or snipe the bad guys, while allowing our bodies to rest and heal. Again, this served as a reminder of how wonderful games can be for people who are sick more often than once or twice a year, and how fantastic charities like Child’s Play really are.
And THAT is why games matter!