AprilandJake.com

It's been since the air raid drills in the days of Command and Conquer: Red Alert since I've played a game “over the Internet” with a friend. Oh, how times have changed.

Back then, I played with Scott Waite. I had borrowed Red Alert from my cousin, Anthony, and used to play it early in the morning before school. Sometimes Scott and I would chat about the game at school, so we decided to play a game together. But, there was no possibility of Internet-play back then. We had to connect via modem. Preparation for the game was meticulous: first, we planned a time at school, then I would return home and ask my mom if I could keep this appointment to garner my tank armies in an attempt to overpower a tesla coil-entrenched base. Reminding me to make sure that I kept a few attack dogs in my base to ward off enemy spies that might try and infiltrate my ranks, she would approve, and the hour appointed for war would draw nigh. We would again call one another and one of us would agree to call the other through the game over the modem. When I would receive the call, I would first need to warn everyone in the household not to answer the phone when it rang, because the bell would be tolling for me – to engage in animated combat. These requests were generally met with wonderings about this strange technology and what in the world a young babbling boy on the computer in the basement might be up to suggesting such a thing.