3-Year-Old Geek Goddess Sees Future in Competitive Halo

Just a week ago, I’d written about how the Xbox controller, with its two thumbsticks, numerous buttons, and two triggers, was overwhelming for NaNi, who is now 3.25 years of age, even though she’d had no trouble mastering a computer mouse by age 2.5, just like her brothers.

Last night David, Isaac, Naomi and I were playing Halo 2. Despite the fact that Halo was the first video game name NaNi ever learned, she normally will ask to play, then get frustrated and leave after a minute or two, because she’ll have her character looking at the sky or the ground, and not be able to get oriented correctly.

Well, that all changed officially as of yesterday. She’d been playing David’s birthday gift, “Superman Returns,” on the Xbox. Being able to fly around Metropolis gave her the space and freedom of movement to really figure out how to work the thumbsticks. I also discovered she knows the four “lettered” buttons by name, and is learning what each does in the games she plays.

So, last night we were armed with rocket launchers, and I was tracking Isaac, when NaNi blew me away! A moment later she took out Isaac. The icing on the cake was her “vengeful” exclamation to Isaac afterward: “Isaac, don’t say my Barbie toothpaste is stupid! That’s not nice!”

Then she did her victory dance (her own adaptation of the “gnome” dance from Blizzard’s World of WarCraft). It was sweet!