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Wiii change: Virtual bowling easier on the back |
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Written by Dan England for NEXTnc
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Friday, 03 August 2007 |
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Photos by Eric Bellamy |
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Top: Rosemary Fri releases her virtual bowling ball while playing on a Nintendo Wii at Cyber Planet Arcade, 3000 S. 23rd Ave. #2 in Greeley.
NEXT picture: Fri, left, and Mary Behling share a laugh while playing the bowling game.
AND: Behling of Greely holds the Wii’s remote control.
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Video games, up until that one Wednesday night at the Cyber Planet Arcade, escaped the attention of Mary Behling and Rosemary Fri.
They didn’t shoot Space Invaders, gobble up dots in Pac Man or do anything related to Mario. They still don’t know who Mario is, and among gamers, he’s David Beckham, Lance Armstrong and Tom Brady all rolled into one. When video games got more advanced, and more bloody, the two ignored them with a purpose.
It’s not like they are in the video generation anyway. Fri is 74 and Behling is 77, and they both live in Greeley.
Fri likes to play tennis and bowl, and usually Behling is right by her side.
In fact, years ago, both Fri and Behling were physical education instructors at the University of Northern Colorado were they taught classes such as bowling. Fri also coached tennis. Yet Fri’s back began to hurt, and so she gave up bowling.
She gave it up, that was, until Wednesday, when she picked up a video game controller for the first time and joined a Wii bowling league at the Arcade, 3000 23rd Ave., Greeley.
There were the kinds of moments you would expect from two ladies whose hair almost matched the neon blue light illuminating from the 50-inch TVs. One time the system crashed and the software had to be reset, and that sent them asking for the capable assistance of Paul W. Rumrill, who owns the arcade and started the Wii bowling league.
How do you reset the software? Just press this button? Oh.
But they thought the Wii was fun. The Wii’s gimmick, after all, is that the controller requires the user to mimic the action of the sport. You have to “throw” the ball, in other words, and you have to get up and move, not shoot things while sitting in a chair, and that’s what these former physical education instructors thought was so darn dandy about it.
“It’s almost the same thing,” Fri said of the bowling, “and my back doesn’t hurt.”
Rumrill’s base is the younger crowd since he opened April 28 and started charging by the hour to play the machines on huge TVs in a darkened room and the chance to listen to songs like Journey’s “Who’s Crying Now” over a cool soundsystem. He plans to do some marketing in the schools this fall and hopes things will pick up once classes start and the word spreads. He also hosts things like Halo tournaments.
Still, the Wii bowling league was a way to take advantage of the console’s universal appeal. The Wiis are, in fact, more popular with the elderly nationwide than expected, and some nursing homes and living assistance apartments have installed them in their gathering spots. Rumrill would love to see groups of adults hanging out in his arcade, and the bowling league, he hopes, is the first step to that, even if it hasn’t really taken off yet.
“Why not try to encourage the parents to play?” Rumrill said. “What I usually see with the Wii, especially, is parents are just there to drop off their kids and don’t want to play. Fifteen minutes later, they’re on the Wii having a blast.”
Once the bowling was over, Fri and Behling tried out tennis. But the balls, darn it, just kept skipping by the flailing racket of Fri.
Shoot! There goes another one.
Back in her day, not many balls got by Fri’s racket. She coached tennis at UNC and was a top player. Even at 74, she can still rip it down the line.
But with a Wii controller in her hand, tennis was baffling.
“How are you two hitting it back and forth like that?” she asked two younger guests playing the game.
“Because we’ve done this since we were 5,” one answered.
Well, they still had fun, even with the tennis, and before they went to pay, Behling took on Fri for one last game. She ripped another backhand past Fri’s racket and smiled.
“I only beat her once, ever, in tennis,” Behling said. “She beat me all the time. So this is fun.”
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TO PLAY
Cyber Planet Arcade, 3000 S. 23rd Ave. #2, charges $3.50 an hour, $8 for a three-hour pass or $21 for an all-day pass.
The hours will change soon for the school year. Those hours are 3-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 p.m-2 a.m. Friday, 10 a.m.- 2 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.
Cyber Planet opens at 10 a.m. every day during the summer.
For more information, go to www.cyberplanetarcade.com. | Only registered users can write comments.
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