Monday, March 24, 2008

Tuesday Toot - Adam Finishes Zelda


Adam finishes Zelda

OK, I can hear the protests of parents everywhere saying that you shouldn't let your kids play too many video games, but in this case, I really believe this is quite an accomplishment and educational experience for this seven-year-old (or I've drunk too much Nintendo Kool-Aid). Prior to this, Adam played through most of his games without reading any of the text, but The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass required him to pay attention. After a while, he got stuck and kept asking me for help, which I couldn't provide so I went to Google. I printed out a 42 page walk-through from GameFAQ and showed him how to read the table of contents and navigate through the document. Now these walk-throughs are not written for first graders, so I thought that he would probably give up on the game. He did have to ask for help once in a while, but for the most part, he was able to find where he was and decipher what he needed to do. He solved puzzles, annotated maps, went fishing (his favorite) and fought plenty of bad guys. For the last battle, he needed some help from me drawing a figure. Afterwards, we both celebrated that he completed the whole game. Between the reading and puzzle solving, I'm sure that he actually learned something through the process. (Boy is he lucky to have a mom who likes video games.)

Now for the portrait... I often think that I try to capture perfect portraits of my kids so that I can always remember them as flawless children. For 1/500 of a second, they are actually perfect, and I can forget all the swirling chaos around the moment. Like when I ask Adam to smile, and he squints his eyes, and then I ask him to open his eyes, and he looks totally goofy. Or when Dova climbs up on the chair with him, or walks in front of the camera, or tells Adam, "Now it's time to mess up your hair" and he does it. And with props it is even more difficult, where he is holding the Zelda case crooked, especially against a striped shirt, or covering it up with his fingers or there is some weird reflection in his glasses. Speaking of glasses, Adam broke his third pair of glasses on the bus, so he is back to wear his first pair which is the only pair that isn't broken. You see? I NEED these photographs to keep my sanity! Thankfully, they humor me through the photo shoots. Plus it gives me an excuse to buy more photography equipment (this taken with my new F1.8 50mm lens).

3 comments :

Marylin said...

Well done Adam! That's a tough game - i don't have the patience to finish it but even my husband found it hard work.

A great achievement :)

Melissa said...

I'm there with you on the problem solving skills. The games actually provide a great place to practice "out of the box" thinking. Goodness knows they don't get it in school.

latree said...

I always think all gmaes are hard to play. I really can't play games.

The picture is great, and the smile is o so sweet.....