A Boy Named Tac

Just about everyone I know has one — a computer game handle they’ve been using since the dawn of time. This isn’t necessarily your online name — rather, it’s the name you use when you fire up a computer RPG for the first time, and need to name your character. Like in Zelda. Or TimeSplitters.

For me, it’s “Tac”. Why “Tac”? Because way back when my primary gaming machine was a Commodore 64, I discovered the game Ultima II. I spent an awful lot of time playing Ultima II, and creating all sorts of excellent character names. Really strong, magical sounding names, the sort of names your 12 year old self looks at, sits back and says, “damn that’s cool.”

And then my character would promptly die. This went on for a few weeks, until finally I gave up on the creative name thing, and — in my frustration — just typed in “Tac”.

Of course, you know what happened. That character didn’t die. He became my most powerful character, the one I was able to take all the way to the final battle.

And his name was Tac.

Ever since then, Tac’s been a good luck charm for me when it comes to computer gaming, and any time I have the chance to create a name, that’s the one I use.

So what’s your handle?

%d bloggers like this: