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Achievement
Unlocked :
Paternal Bond
By Khye Lin Tan
Click . Beep , beep .
ScritchascritchascritchaSQUONK SQUONK SQUEAAAAK oof .
The startup sequence paused for half a second too long and I knew at once that a galactic error message was imminent . I ’ d tried inserting the disk as it was , dusting it off , polishing it , even washing it , all to no avail . The console had declared its rejection . The game was over before it began .
“ Hey , Over the Hedge doesn ’ t work any more ,” I yelled , fishing the outstandingly scratched disk out of our battered PlayStation 2 .
My father stuck his head into the room . “ Really ? That ’ s too bad , I liked that game . What about the others ?”
“ Haven ’ t tried yet , I ’ ll let you know .”
We hadn ’ t touched the PS2 in five , maybe six years , since the weekend my grandmother took a turn for the worse and my mother rushed down to KL - Kuala Lumpur , about 4 hours ’ drive south from my home in Penang , Malaysia - to see her . In this time of much distress and pizza ( neither my father nor I can cook to save our lives ), my father decided that the best way to keep a twelve-year-old entertained was to have a gaming marathon . Cue button-bashing , joystick-waggling and intense frustration as we worked our way through all 27 levels of Up .
( Yes , Up , the video game based on the movie with the saddest love story montage in Disney-Pixar history . Spoiler alert : the levels with the crocodiles are the ones you have to be careful about .)
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Up wasn ’ t our first movie-to-video game obsession ; that honor went to Over the Hedge . If you thought the movie was bad , the game is even worse : a raccoon , a turtle , a squirrel and a skunk run around battling mind-