6
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 7, 1992
LIFE
Nuts for Nintendo
Jason Arndt, Merriam freshman, plays a game of Tetris on his Nintendo system. Arndt has owned the system since his sophomore year in high school and now plays the game for up to one hour every other day in his room at Pearson Scholarship Hall.
Peggy Woods/KANSAN
By Andy Taylor Kansan staff writer
The English and calculus books remain open on Jason Adnst'd desk as the wind from an open window blows the pages to undiscovered chanters.
Faulkner and differential equations beckon. And while the wind quickly turn the unread pages, Arndt's attention is intensely focused on a television screen full of falling boxes, blips and boings.
His eyes are glued to the screen.
He blits his lip in semi-frustration.
He clasps the controller like a lost son.
And then heutters a "Gee, whiz" when the television screen flashes "GAME OVER" and 400.00 points.
Arndt, Overland Park freshman, calls himself a Nintendo addict – a disease that is becoming an icon of college life. And people with “nintendoitto” achieve a high by taking a daily dose of Nintendo products.
"I think it'a a good stress relief," said Arndt, who lives in Pearson Scholarship Hall. "And it's an addiction."
He said he played Nintendo between five to 10 hours a week this semester, down by more than 10 hours a week from last semester.
"Last semester it hurt my GPA because of playing it so much," he said. "But I don't sit around all the time and just play Nintendo. I can only play it for about one hour at a time."
Arndt keeps 16 Nintendo cartridges in his room, but he only plays Tetris, a video game in which the goal is to fit falling geometric shapes into perpendicular lines.
He said he liked the game because of the challenge of beating his previous scores.
"You actually have to think-a little bit." he said.
Ardti is far from the only student with a strong Nintendo addiction. Bur Risiek, Downers College, Ill., junior, said he and about 10 other friends were holding a semester-long tournament of Nintendo's Major League Baseball on the third floor at Templin Hall.
"There are six teams, and we play about three games a day," he said. "We have a lot of fun playing it, and it keeps your mind off studying."
Burisek said his Templin friends also held other Nintendo tournaments throughout the year.
"We are all into sports, and we like to try other Nintendo games like basketball's Double Dribble," he said.
Oliver Hall residents held an all-day Nintendo tournament in February, said Steve Kolbe, resident assistant and coordinator of the event.
Kolbe also said he would advocate having a residence hall Nintendo tournament.
He said about 20 Oliver residents played Mario Land and F-Zero on a Super Nintendo system.
"I think it would be great to have a
hall champion and then all the residence hall champions go for a University championship. he said.
But Kolbe said he had witnessed a decline in the number of Oliver's residents playing Nintendo because of the warm weather.
"It is popular in the winter months because there is usually nothing to do," he said. "It is also nice to do it because of physically hurting yourself."
Nintendo cartridge sales and rentals also are increasing. Brook Moody, assistant manager of Blockbuster Video, 1516 W. 23rd St, said the store rented an average of 200 Nintendo cartridges each weekend, mostly by college-aged adults.
"We see a lot more college kids getting them a than small kids," he said. "The college-aged people come to school." "Most of the kids are usually with their parents."
He also said Nintendo sales were high because people liked the variety of Nintendo programs. Nintendo has made cartridges based upon a game's characters, called Thieves." "The Addams Family." "Home Alone," and even "Platoon."
Also, Nintendo offers various tools and implements to make the games more real. The SuperScope, a bazooka-shaped gun, can be used for artillery and warfare programs. To capture the thrill of winning the decathlon, Nintendo users run, jump and leap on the Power Pak, a small, plastic rug with built-in sensors.
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