January 6, 2012 scottcjones 2Comments

After the surgery, I donned the pair of retirement home-style sunglasses that were inside my recovery kit and went home to begin what I was certain would be a glorious convalescence. I got into bed straight away, anxious to start listening to one of my audio books–Swamplandia by Karen Russell–and sleep and do nothing for several days. “All right, eyes,” I said to my eyes. “Go ahead and get busy healing.”

Let's rock, everybody.

It took me about an hour to figure out that Swamplandia is a terrible book. Unfortunately, because one of my curses is that I have a touch of O.C.D., and because I held out hope that this story of a failing alligator-centric theme park in the Everglades might suddenly turn a corner, I kept listening. Which, in retrospect, was a poor choice. Why, after all these years, I still can’t walk away from lousy entertainments is truly beyond me.

After my surgery, the nurses had informed me that it’s essential not to get anything–even something as seemingly harmless as water–in my eyes during recovery. My solution to this problem was to wear the protective sunglasses into the shower. If you’ve never showered with sunglasses on, you must try it at least once in your life. It’s exhilarating. I began referring to these morning rinse-offs as “rockstar showers.”  I would soap up while imagining that I was Ronnie James from Dio.

All of this was kind of fun at first. I was optimistic. My second audio book–Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers–was excellent. I consumed massive bowls of ice cream at night and napped like a little elf in a woodland glade during the day. I wore sunglasses everywhere I went, with impunity–even indoors. I felt certain that I was on track to having the best convalescence anyone recovering from corrective eye surgery had ever had, in history.

Then, a week after the surgery, after seven straight days of no television or movies, no videogames, and no Internet, I realized that my eyes were not getting any better at all. If anything, they seemed to be getting worse. One afternoon, while folding laundry, I realized that I could not even see well enough to match up pairs of my own socks, an activity that I absolutely loathed even when I could still see just fine. I threw socks all around the room, probably not unlike Ronnie James does backstage after one of his rockshows when he is having rockstar tantrum. I thought, What have you done to yourself?

I assumed not being able to match socks properly was as bad as things could possibly get, that this was a kind of last-straw for this ordeal. But the next day, I discovered something far worse: I attempted to look at some pornography, and saw only blurry, flesh-colored shapes moving at high speeds (and sometimes medium speeds). That was the moment when I first began to suspect that not being able to see or focus on anything for an extended period of time could potentially lead one down the path towards temporary insanity.

And here we are, folks, already at level 1-2. This is the first level in the game that takes place across multiple gameplay screens. In other words, as I navigate the girders, a  kind of meta camera follows me upwards, revealing still more gameplay real estate.

The level opens playfully, with Mario already riding on top of an enemy’s head. Hilarious. Once I leap off the head, I hustle over to the far lefthand side of the screen to the garbage can. Again, I have no idea what the garbage can is here for. Wait. Perhaps since these are known as the “Big City” levels, the garbage cans represent something one might find in an urban area. OK, that makes perfect sense.

I notice a clothesline-like structure directly above the garbage can. I leap up to it, and Mario automatically attaches himself to it like a trapeze artist. I press up on the directional pad, and Mario begins to spin. He spins slowly at first, but the longer I hold up on the D-pad, the more speed he seems to gain. Another press of the A button and he sails skyward, landing gracefully–ta-da!–on one of the upper platforms.

There’s a new kind of enemy to deal with/avoid here: a speedy little mouse. This bug-eyed cheese-eater circles the same platform over and over again, so my jump must be timed to land when he is on the underside of his platform. Also: there’s another one of those stupid rising-falling fireballs with the word OIL tattooed on the side of it. And there’s another door-key situation.

The trickiest part of the level, and the level’s entire reason for being, is timing my jumps through the mouse and OIL fireball area while holding the huge key above my head. What makes this a challenge is that each object moves at a different speed. After a few moments of careful observation, I realize the time is right, and I seize it. But there’s a problem. I have made it past the OIL fireball unscathed, but I’ve underestimated the speed of the mouse. I suddenly realize that I can’t possibly vacate the platform before the little bastard makes another pass. So I leap into the air–A button–with my heels barely clearing the top of the mouse’s head. As he continues on his journey back to the underside of the platform, I jump over to the door icon on the next platform. Mario inserts the key, then performs a cartoonish dash through the now-open door. So long, level 1-2. Hardly knew you.

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