Slashdot Mirror
Whippersnappers Bad-Mouth Old Games
1up.com has posted the second in an article series called "Child's Play", where they invite youngsters to experience the joys of classic gaming to hilarious effect. From the (sob) article: "Bobby: After you beat the Death Star level, there should be a snow level, then a small speeder bike level. They should make a Matrix game in the theme of Star Wars. So then you take out your sword and run up to a guy and go, "Chiiing!" And after you saw through his head, you fly inside your X-wing."
Like the first one, this one seems made-up. A lot of the quotes, while funny, seem too canned (and too backhandedly insightful in some cases) to have really been made by young children.
Parker: You wasted quarters on this?
EGM: Yeah.
Parker: That's so sad.
He does have a point...
Anyway, it's interesting to read these kids' descriptions of old games. Of course, these games are way retro; these came out before I really got into gaming, so I don't attach quite the level of nostalgia to it as others do. Now if they played doom or wolf3d and said that was crap, then I'd be like "wtf"
Anyway, it's natural if you think about it. Kids today are exposed to graphical feasts with games like Halo 2, going back to the old games when you didn't have the type of computational power to pump out those textures and polygons, is like starving.
But still, games were better back then, when they concentrated more on the gameplay and/or story before the prettiness of the graphics.
Over Christmas I got a chance to finally check out Halo and after all the hooplah, I was like, "big deal... yet another *yawn* first person shooter... oooh, another alien-esque ripoff devoid of any creativity.." This is the standard by which the new generation's gamers consider good?
I stopped buying console games after the N64 introduced a new wave of medocrity in gaming. With a few exceptions from Nintento direct, almost all the third-party games were crap. Aside from Wave Race 64 and a few others mostly from Nintendo, I really hadn't seen anything that was even remotely innovative in the gaming world. FPS's have been run into the ground and there's only so many permutations of this genre you can make before they all start to seem the same. There's something pathetic about first-person or reality-based games where the main enjoyment involves wandering around breaking things and torturing people. And the tiresome D&D ripoffs that give you carpal tunnel syndrome.
I'm sure there may actually be some decent games that have been made in the last ten years, but I haven't seen anything that impressed me.
Last year saw the rebirth of the old Atari 2600 games, with those cheap battery-powered joystick things, that have a bunch of pre-loaded classic videogames.
I got one as a stocking-stuffer, and spent hours playing the old 2600 Adventure, Asteroids, etc. (and the newer console that had Galaxians, and Dig-Dug).
My kids would just look at me, shake their heads, go back to their rooms and go back to playing their xBox.
"Mom? I don't get it. Why does dad play those stupid games?"
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Considering what they can do with graphics and sound today, does anyone actually expect these kids to be impressed by this stuff? It's like asking someone to use a pulse dial phone and think its rad. No, it sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Galaga and all that shit but I certainly wouldn't expect kids to like it when they can play things like HL2, WoW, etc. The only thing I *might* hope the kids get out of it is an appreciation of where the current games evolved from and gaming history. That's it.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
A word to the wise: technology does not great art make.
Unless you're telling me that Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus", being silent and in black and white, is therefore not as good as Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Jingle All The Way", which was of course in glorious multichannel digital sound and full color, then try to think before posting the brilliant argument that "old stuff sucks".
If, on the other hand, that is what you're saying, then...well...go on down to Wal*Mart. I hear they have loads of inexpensive DVDs with high-quality movies on them (which is to say, they have clear sound and color).
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Most of those games weren't that great 15 years ago, too. Zelda was good, and they liked it. SF2 was good, and they liked it about as much as any fighting game. Defender's got too many buttons, 720's too hard to control, Galaga's just like a bunch of similar games, etc.
I was expecting them to dismiss the old games based on the dated graphics, but they seem to have actually given each game a fair shot and enjoyed the games or found them annoying just like we did back then.
All is not lost. I've had some experience with college freshmen and high schoolers, though probably geekier than the median. Many of them are very curious and appreciative of games from before their time. I was at a party a few months ago, and someone had received a NES for their birthday, and all the teenagers piled into the living room to see it in action.
Unfortunately, much of it might be retro-novelty, since they spent a good half hour playing some tedious walking shoot-em-up before they switched to anything good.
The NES seems to represent the dividing line between primitive games and modern games. This is the point where games started to acquire modern features such as continues, save states, fractional health instead of simply dying after each hit. It's where home games started to take on the high-resolution multicolored look of arcade games, not to mention larger worlds and wider varieties of challenges. What's more, many of these games are the prequels to current franchises, like Metroid, Sonic, and Final Fantasy. That may be why NES games are such popular Easter eggs for modern Nintendo games.