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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
For editorial matters:
Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
Contact Alumni Records for changes of address, class notes, or notice
of births or deaths.
Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
Email: alumni@pomona.edu
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Student Life/ Gaming
Games Sagehens Play
NINTENDO CHARACTERS are beating the crap out of each other. Mario,
Donkey Kong and Pikachu, all beating the crap out of each other. Well,
that’s not quite right—they’re beating the gravity out of each other.
Each time one gets punched, or kicked, or thrown, he flies a little
farther across the screen than before. Damage incurred causes characters
to grow lighter, ignore the Earth’s pull a little more—and hurtle closer
to the screen’s edges, until he exits the screen altogether and the
background is bathed in blue-white, split-atomic light.
Erin Noble ’07, Jason Cincotta ’08 and Elliot Shields ’08 sit on the
floor of the Smith Campus Center’s TV lounge, each with a Nintendo 64
controller in hand, playing Super Smash Brothers. They have checked the
Nintendo 64, the controllers and the game out of the COOP store for the
explicit purpose of this match—Noble against Shields and Cincotta. Last
year, the Winslow Recreation Room (known to students as the game room)
hosted a Super Smash Brothers tournament; Noble competed against 50
other students to claim victory. He plays as Ness, a cartoon boy from
the Earthbound series who spends most of the fight in the air, floating
from Shields to Cincotta and smashing them to the ground repeatedly. “We
call this juggling,” Noble explains. “Basically, Ness hits the guy
straight down, and you can combo with this move so you can just keep
them going, hitting them over and over again. It’s hard to get out of if
you do it well.”
 Noble does it well, and he knows it. When he spotted Cincotta and
Shields in the COOP and asked if they wanted to go to the TV lounge to
play, he didn’t skimp on the bravado. “They’re kind of
up-and-coming—they’re getting there,” he said. “Playing them can be fun,
but it’s not as intense as playing with ‘the guys.’” After a few
every-man-for-himself warm-up rounds, Noble half-cocks a grin and
proposes to make the match a little more “intense”: Shields and Cincotta
versus Noble.
These kinds of playful grudge matches aren’t at all uncommon at Pomona
College, where gaming culture has become a prevalent component of campus
life. In the 2004–05 academic year, the game room—its home above the
COOP—hosted five video game tournaments, with an average attendance of
about 25 students. Smash Brothers raked in the most, with 50 students
attending. In fall 2005, the game room hosted a Dance Dance Revolution
and an Old School Gaming tournament, with more tournaments on deck each
semester.
Aside from formal contests, students unwind by playing multiplayer games
together daily. A walk through any dorm hall reveals open doors and
students crowded around a television and an X-Box playing Timesplitters
or Halo. Between classes, one may be asked to “play a little GameCube,”
and before Snack, one hears students’ proposing “one quick round of
Mario Kart.” In Frank Dining Hall, a girl insists, as each of her
friends offers a suggestion for what to do that night, that they “play
videogames!” after the movie. Students walk through the Quad holding
copies of Grand Theft Auto, Shadow of the Colossus or Final Fantasy X to
their sides.
Noble’s experience with gaming at Pomona began his freshman year with
Mario Kart and three friends from his hall. “We all became really good
friends because we realized we all loved to play Mario Kart. We’d get
together every night and play for hours.” Eventually they transitioned
from Mario Kart, a racing game, to Smash Brothers, a fighting game, and
have been playing for a while. Last year, they played together about
once a day, laughing and screaming at each other. “The people over in
Harwood—we were in Lyon, but the people in Harwood—they knew when we
were playing,” he laughs. “We were so damn loud.” After winning the
tournament, Noble decided to cut back. “I decided I would never get
better, nor would I ever want to get better, and winning that tournament
would probably be the pinnacle of my career.”
Shields, Cincotta and their friends didn’t compete in the tournament,
though they’ve challenged Noble before. “They’re young kids,” said Ryan
Knight ’07, director of the game room and one of three fellow juniors
who play with Noble. “They don’t know the ropes yet. They’re coming;
they’ve got potential. They’re looking good. But they aren’t quite able
to hang with the veterans.”
They’ve been practicing. When they take on Noble in the TV lounge, they
boast that they’ve been playing a lot and have gotten better. They jump
at the offer to play Noble two-on-one and begin trash talking early into
the match. Still, there’s a note of reverence. Even as Cincotta throws
Noble’s character across the stage, he smiles and sappily announces,
“Erin, you’re my Smash Brothers idol. My hero.” Noble doesn’t respond to
the compliment, busy trying not to fly off the screen.
The match is a close one. There is some impressive juggling from Noble,
and a few comebacks from sure defeat, but Ness is finally kick-flipped
across the screen by Shield’s character: Starfox, a fox who is also an
astronaut. The background is bathed in split-atomic light, and the
announcer booms, “PLAYER ONE DEFEATED.” There’s loud laughter and not a
little knee-slapping. By this point, a few more people have wandered
into the lounge to watch, and, after congratulating each other on the
good game, Shields, Cincotta and Noble offer their controllers to the
new players, change teams, characters, levels and keep playing.
—Frank “Bennett” Sims ’08 |
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