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."

Comments

Re:Like the first one...

[magnwa]

I referee soccer. I deal with 11 year olds and younger and older all the time. Don't doubt them. They're a lot smarter than they ever let on. I've had discussions in game with a few of them and they brought up soccer stars of old, plays that are legendary but fifty years old, and history of games and rules that a lot of advanced referees in my area don't know.

11 year olds can be EXTREMELY intelligent, so long as they've not been told to shut up all their life.

This does not bode well for the current generation

[Jailbrekr]

Back in the bronze and silver age of arcade games, we did not have the technology to create "realistic" games, so we made fun games where ones imagination was required. This level of abstraction made games fun and entertaining without the (argueably) negative societal consequences.

Today, kids engage in auto thefts, mass murder, and first person real time role playing where they can be anyone they choose to be (be it good or evil). There is no longer any need to exercise ones imagination, as that has been replaced by stunning graphics which is slowly approaching a level of realism which will make any differentiation between the real world and the arcade world difficult.

That is why there will always be a special place in my heart for the classics. They encouraged my sense of imagination. Todays games lack that.

Learning history from games

[Theseus192]

If your child's video games aren't teaching them valuable lessons about World History who is?

Actually, I learned a lot of interesting history from some old Microprose PC games. Sid Meier's Pirates! (original version), Colonization, and Darklands were all historically accurate and taught me lots of anecdotal stuff about world history that was never mentioned in school, like for instance the first permanent European colony in the New World was not on the mainland but in Cuba if I recall (Colonization), or that medieval alchemists were not just looking for ways to turn lead into gold, they were looking to cure disease and prolong life (Darklands).

Admittedly I am the kind of person who took an interest in this stuff and read further, but computer games did contain a lot of history that was just ignored or glossed over in school. I see no reason why even today's plot-light, graphics-heavy games can't incorporate accurate historical settings.