At the Lobo Theater in Albuquerque (recently converted into a second tier first run theater--meaning it runs movies that have been out for a while, but still command more than bargain basement ticket prices), they have ten vintage video games. Vintage meaning these things came out in the early 80s when video games overtook pinball, but had worse graphics than an eighth grader could come up with using MacPaint. I was part of the original video game generation. I spent a little bit of time playing these quarter games, the same ones big prognosticators said would bring down my generation with attention-deficit disorder and wrist and joint problems. All kinds of studies were given money to figure out what these new eaters of change would do to us, and by the time the studies came out, the games had changed.

Last night at the Lobo, before checking out Woody Allen's sublime Sweet and Lowdown, I played a game of Centipede. This was my game of choice way back when. The track ball and rapid fire gun button. That's all there was to it. Move the little gun around, blow up the insects, move on to the next level. I got the high score (these machines are reset everyday, I think, because beating the high score wasn't hard).

At Movies 8, another frequent movie going spot for me (these are second run movies that cost one to two dollars, depending on what time and what day it is), I play pinball. Usually the Addams Family pinball game, but occasionally it's just whatever pinball is open. Pinball is easy. Two flippers and the button or lever that shoots the ball into play (is it a plunger?). Keep the ball out of the hole. Sometimes, on good nights, I get free games.

I can't play new video games. It's not that they scare me, it's just that I'm not interested in learning how. I've played a few of those shoot em up games with plastic guns attached and I always lose because I shoot everything--including the good guys who are supposed to be helping me, but keep running in front of my line of sight. What kind of idiot charges in front of a guy with an itchy trigger finger? I don't discriminate when I'm shooting, which is another good reason for me to not own a real gun. But when I played video games as a kid, everything on screen was bad. Shoot everything, ask questions later.

In the span of a week and a half, two separate publications (Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly) have run articles on the new Playstation 2--which doesn't come out in the U.S. until September, but was just released in Japan to robust sales. Because of a computer chip called the "emotion engine," these machines render animation quicker than anything ever before. The developers of the machine and the games say that this is the machine which will take game consoles out of just the 13 to 25 age bracket and break it to adults as well. So we can all crowd around the TV with--do they still call them joysticks?--those controls in our hands and have a nice family evening playing games.

I just want to be the first person to say it ain't gonna happen. I don't like the new games. I don't care how great the graphics are, I don't really want to play a Karate game where, if I punch the right buttons and move the sticks in a certain way, I can tear my opponents head clean off. For one thing, I'd try to do it every time. And another, I don't have the patience. I don't want to learn how to use a new controller. I just don't care about these great graphics and realistic tears, I just want to blow something up for fifteen minutes and then get back to work.

At home, I play a souped up version of asteroids called Maelstrom. When I blow up certain things, vocal samples from the movie Army of Darkness play. The other game I play is a card game called Forty Thieves. Two decks of cards that I have to sort, in order from Ace to King by suit, into eight separate piles. At work I play a simpler solitaire game, a simple version of Tetris and, only when I'm playing head to head with an office mate, a medieval army game called Myth.

They are diversions--and even labeled as such on my computer at work. They take up fifteen or so minutes and then I get back to work. A little carnage or card playing to clear then head and then it's back to intense scrutiny of television commercials.

Better graphics aren't going to change the world. And all this pre-hype--almost six months before the game shows up on our shores--only does one thing: increase interest in the company's stock. And when the sales for the new game console come up at expectations--rather than above and beyond--then people will ask what went wrong.

I've got an answer right now. The rest of us are still playing Pong, because we really don't give a shit--we just want to keep the ball out of the hole.

Matt Worley can be a real grumpy old man about some things.