For some Long Islanders, gaming is a means of staying connected
Alex Holcombe, of West Babylon, 27, opens up one of his arcade sticks beside friend and fellow gamer Kinsey R. Sheppard, of Baldwin, 27, in West Babylon. Credit: Barry Sloan
Brother and sister Mike, 35, and Jackie, 38, Burd of Levittown have a long-standing tradition. Twice a week, they get together and go to battle on Nintendo NES playing Dr. Mario at level 20.
"Whoever wins, we put an M or a J on the calendar," says Mike. "My heart races, I get that fear of losing and that joy of winning. I love the competition."
Video gaming has become the sport of choice these days. Many people are reaching back to their childhood and reconnecting with the home consoles they grew up on.
"My goal is to recreate the feelings I got as a kid by playing a game and beating it. It’s my midlife crisis," says Fred Hicks, 46, of Patchogue. "After the hustle and bustle of being in a 9-5 p.m. job, playing video games is an escape. I can sit down on the couch for an hour or more and forget about my troubles for the day."
Fred Hicks' Game Boy collection. Credit: Barry Sloan
Hicks has a game room/bar in his home where he owns over 50 video game consoles including Nintendo, Wii, GameCube, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 and 2 plus a video arcade cabinet that plays hundreds of games that he built himself.
"I found instructions on the internet, got materials from Home Depot and put it together," he says. "It took me a good part of a year."
CABINET COLLECTING
George Portugal, 41, of East Meadow grew up going to arcades sinking countless quarters into video game cabinets like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Today, he owns 30 of his own cabinets, which he prefers over home consoles.
Fred Hicks plays Galaga on his Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) in his game room in Patchogue. Credit: Barry Sloan
"With arcade cabinets, it’s a deeper feeling than just playing the game. Playing a video game on a TV in your living room is different from the tactile and physical experience of standing in front of the cabinet playing with the original controllers and the original monitor," he says. "It’s a bit of tunnel vision. You lose sight of everything in the periphery and become more immersed in what you are doing."
Brandon Navarro, 41, of Mineola, also collects arcade cabinets, owning 35 with a full basement game room including original Street Fighter II, Star Wars and X-Men titles. However, he likes the challenge of repairing broken ones.
"They can take anywhere from two hours to three full days to fix," he says. "But, there’s something to be said for taking what others thought was trash and restoring it to something beautiful that puts a smile on people’s faces. It’s a good sense of gratification."
SOCIAL GAMING
Some players use video gaming as a social outlet. Mike Weissberg, 34, who grew up in Plainview, connects with his crew using the multiplayer function on his internet-connected home consoles.
"Gaming is how I keep up with most of my friends socially because they are all scattered around the country," he says. "We play together, chat and have fun. The game is not necessarily always a Call of Duty type, sometimes it’s Pictionary that we are all playing on the same Zoom call."
Alex Holcombe, of West Babylon, 27, left, and Kinsey R. Sheppard, of Baldwin, 27, play Tekken 7 on a PC in West Babylon. Credit: Barry Sloan
In addition to playing these video games, collecting them is a game itself. Many video game players are also rabid collectors who are always looking for deals to complete their libraries of retro titles that are out-of-print.
"Growing up, I was hunting for treasures in the games themselves. As I got older, it turned into me hunting down the games, which became the treasure in real life," says Richard McWilliams, 35, of Bay Shore, who traveled across the country seeking out every PlayStation 1 game. "The hunt itself is very fulfilling."
However, one thing becomes an issue for collectors — storage.
"I refer to my collection as The Blob," says McWilliams. "It just keeps getting bigger every day." He has games through his house and garage as well as in several storage units.
VIDEO VAMPING
But not every player is focusing on a nostalgic look back. Many younger gamers are actively competing in video game tournaments and sharpening their skills.
Alex Holcombe, 27, of West Babylon, who won Tekken 7 tournaments All or Nothing in Deer Park and Way to the Summit in Garden City both in 2018, trains two hours a day in what he calls The Lab.
"I’ll pull up a match I lost and re-watch it to study situations I struggled with and determine what I should have done," he says. "Then I take that information, go into training mode and do the same thing that just happened so I know what to do for the next time."
Holcombe and his pal, Kinsey R. Sheppard, 27, of Baldwin put on local video game events through their organization called Mid-Tier Summit Gaming. However, the duo has a bigger goal.
"We want to have a major tournament come to Long Island," says Holcombe. "They have them in Chicago, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Daytona, FL, but we don’t have anything in New York. We thought, why not launch one here?"
Mid-Tier Summit Gaming will be part of the upcoming Cradle-Con on May 14-15 at The Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. Plans for future tournament activity can be found on its Facebook page (facebook.com/MTSummitGaming).
David J. Criblez is a reporter for Newsday's exploreLI, covering entertainment-related events from local music to stand-up comedy to festivals.
