controlled animals with weapons such as golf clubs , toilet plungers , freeze rays and lava blasters . There are laser motion detectors . There are silly hats . There are barrels of TNT . The mini-games are go-kart racing and bumper cars .
We played that game over and over again for years .
The terribleness of Over the Hedge was actually a large part of the allure for us , I think . With nothing much in way of actual gameplay requiring our intense focus , we spent hours bantering and laughing over silly mid-air flips . It ’ s no secret that my father and I are essentially the same person , born a generation apart ; when we argue , it ’ s usually because I see too much of himself in me and rebel against the possibility that my life will play out exactly like his . Because of this , spending time together quickly grows awkward without some form of distraction , something we can talk about besides ourselves . Video games - specifically , terrible video game adaptations of movies - were that something for us , an outlet where all our similarities did not chafe but rather enabled us to work remarkably well as a team .
To this day , I have never connected more with my father than the triumphant moment when we finally conquered the level with the rollercoaster in Over the Hedge . Maybe that ’ s why we kept returning to Over the Hedge , long after we completed the storyline and unlocked all of the bonus items . Maybe we were trying to recreate that connection .
Don ’ t get me wrong ; I love my father , and we undeniably understand and appreciate each other . But the fact remains that we didn ’ t spend much time together outside of family vacations and infrequent
weekends spent gaming . It was a shame , then , when I started secondary school and began to set aside less and less time for our PS2 sessions . “ Maybe tomorrow ” became “ Maybe next week ,” and then the weeks blurred into months and suddenly five or six years had passed and I hardly saw my father any more and the Over the Hedge disk stopped working . How much fun with him had I missed over those years ? How much closer would we be , how much better would we get along , if only I had spared a couple of hours every week ?
Thirty-one years after his graduation from Swarthmore , here I am , following in his footsteps though I ’ ve spent my life distancing myself from the path he took . Is this my way of trying , still , to reconnect with him , having failed to revive the video game that used to unite us ? Maybe we just need to relax and fall back into a pattern of trust and teamwork , the way we used to so effortlessly as we double-jumped our way through levels . Maybe those glorious days of gaming were a blessing rather than a necessity to this beautiful , messy relationship we have .
Over the Hedge might have been fried , but Up still worked , as did The Incredibles , another favorite movie-game of ours . I powered off the console and stuck the controllers back in their drawer before going to report on the situation to my father .
“ Those games were fun , yeah ?” he said .
Yes , Papa , they were fun , and I think we should start playing again . Who knows ? I might even let you kick my ass at Crash Tag Team Racing - if I can get the disk to work .