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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."
This one's getting boring.
From the article, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried:
Bobby: It's probably because the Nazis felt bad having a cement fighting place, so they put little trampolines under-
Parker: Wait. What do Nazi's have to do with it?
Bobby: Because Zangief is a Nazi.
EGM: He's Russian. Not German.
Garret: He's a communist.
Bobby: Then why is Zangief's place a Nazi place?
EGM: It's not.
Bobby: Yes it is-it had a Nazi sign on the cement.
Parker: It couldn't have been. They wouldn't have let that in videogames.
Bobby: Whatever.
This proves it... Video games DO rot the brains of young and impressionable children. They wouldn't have allowed a swastika in a video game? Pure blasphemy I say, plain and simple. We need to bring back video games that teach children some history. They should at least be able to recognize a swastika in a video game!
If your child's video games aren't teaching them valuable lessons about World History who is?
I didn't see any mention of Nethack. Nethack rocks! But I'd bet most "Whippersnappers" would hate it.
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.
Those little punks need some sense beaten into them. I think it would be appropriate to administer a severe beating to each by smacking them upside the head repeatedly with an old Atari joystick, then pistol whipping them with a Nintendo light gun.
Or, maybe I'm just over-reacting because the artical makes me feel old.
Back in my day, we didn't have consoles at home. We had to walk uphill, both ways, to the video arcade. And we had to put tokens in the machines. We didn't have quarters because of the war. But the point of the story is, I had an onion on my belt.
Everything went downhill after Sierra stopped making their classic Space Quest series, King's Quest series and the such. These were games that actually look some sort of cognitive abilities and sometimes puzzles could stump you for days depending on how you viewed a certain situation. These days, it's all about point and click and there is no more typing "look east", "east", "throw midget east".
Seriously.. I think I remember having to throw a midget once, but for the life of me I can't remember which game it was in.
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
We had to tie a flashlight to a string and hit it with badminton rackets. Kids today don't know how easy they have it and are way too spoiled. Thankfully, social security will be broke buy the time they retire and they will have to sell their organs just to buy catfood. I'll be laughing at them from the grave.
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.
i feel like this article should've featured Bill Cosbby asking the questions, while plying them with Jello Pudding pops...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Proof that kids can relate to the older generation:
Dillon: And to think 20 years from now, people are going to think, "Oh, you're playing [GameCube Zelda game] Wind Waker? That's boring."
EGM: What will you say when your kids say Wind Waker looks boring?
Parker: Get out of my house. You're out of my will.
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.
> And after you saw through his head, you fly inside your X-wing."
Oh, give up up, Raph. Nobody's playing SWG:Jump to Lightspeed either.
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
You really have to wonder when Rachel says something like "I like this game because I can do all these things that are so against what I'd ever do in reality. Of course eventually the boundary between reality and video game will become blurred, and I will be compelled to act out my violent fantasies against my classmates. And it's all because evil corporations prey on weak, susceptible minds like mine, so they can desensitize me to violence and demand more and more violent video games."
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Funny timing.
:(
Last weekend I was at the Gameworks in Las Vegas, and was playing a Ms. Pac-Man machine that was next to a few other vintage arcade machines (Robotron, Centipede, Xevious, Missile Command) that were standing alongside a wall in an alcove.
Enter a group of kids.
One of them says, "Hey, look! Old-fashioned games!"
I couldn't help but utter a Homer Simpson-esque, "D'oh!" in response.
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.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
'cuse me, but at 27 you are still considered by many to be a "whippersnapper" and by quite a few to barely have achieved true adulthood (now considered around 25 or so). At that, the term is "young adult". Don't confuse the legal definition of "adult" as it pertains to smoking, drinking, sex, voting, conscription, etc. I'm talking about the commnunity/society definition and recognition among "older" adults. Of course there are differences among individuals with some achieving adulthood much sooner, but sadly, others much later.
For you to talk about "nostalgia", reminds me about one time when I was in an arcade and I heard a couple of 17-ish "men" say, "yeah dude, I remember way back when, like a year ago, that ..."
"EGM: Now imagine you've reached the 10th stage, and you're on your last life. Once you die and you put another quarter in, you don't just continue from there--you start all over.
Parker: Are you serious?
EGM: Yep. When you lose all your lives, you have to start over. You don't keep going.
Parker: And you guys back then were OK with this?"
Hehe, suck it punk, you with your continues and save points!
I remember slugging my way thru those classics like Defender and Galaga.
Imagine playing any new console game with nowhere to start but the beginning. Then we'd really see who had the skillz.
Hehe.
ahh... I remember when nostalgia wasn't overrated. Now THOSE were the good ol' days....
The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo
by Richard Aronson [aronson@sierratel.com]
In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran "his game", and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer.
Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed's game. He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange occurred:
ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn't on a grassy gnoll. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A little vocabulary is a dangerous thing.
The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
You young whippersnapper.
I have a collection of silent radio plays.
Hell I can describe *exactly* what locations in Zork I, II, III, StarCross, PlanetFall and Enchanter looked like. I remember vividly what color the sky was, what the walls looked like, paintings on the wall, weird machinery, smells, music playing, etc.
I also played the hell out of Wolf3D the day the shareware was released. (We downloaded from BBS's in those days). But I can't say I have the same vivid memories from that game. I can't say I have any sort of emotional attachment to that world at all.
Which makes me wonder if nostalgia will even exist for current games. *Is* there a level of emotional attachment to worlds / characters / situations in today's games? There have been very few games since then that have blown me away on a story / personal imagination level. ("The Dig" from LucasArts was totally underrated on that level).
Looking back on it, *all* of my favorite games have one unifying factor. The graphics weren't really that important. I challenge anyone to name a greater single player RPG than Baldur's Gate II. (Ok mayble Planescape). Those graphics were pretty lame even whent the game was released.
The way I see it, we're doing a lot of things with graphics today _because we can_. We're going through a sort of adolescent flexing of muscles in the gaming industry. There's been so much change in the technical department, that graphics have caught everyone's attention. And we all know where they're going: They're going to look like films. Not just a little bit, they're going to look *exactly* like films. And then we know where they're going to go next: They're going to go Helmet VR. And then when we're all done thumping our chests and graphically beating the pants off last month's graphical wonderkind -- we can get back to writing compelling fiction.
Not to say that its not happening today. Half Life II is currently my happy place. But that's one title in a sea of 3D trash that no one will ever have any emotional attachment to at all.
My two cents.
Popo
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Ok, this is just begging to be posted:
Hey Hey 16k
Awesome-est animation about nostalgia games ever.
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
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.
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out? - Will Rogers
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
Sorry. That link went to the second page. Here's the real links _200310/ai_ziff109674
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdegm/i
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.
/combat/pacman/shooter themes. A couple years of that made people take a serious look at the cheap home computers that were flooding out and the bottom fell out of the console market--All the main console makers (Atari, Coleco, Mattel) even lost focus and interest and turned towards making computers or console-to-computer expanders. The thought was that if that is all games had to offer that the programmability and more "serious" apps gave PCs more educational and productivity appeal.
You sound almost like you time-warped in from about 20 years ago, or you took a quote from the era and replaced "Atari" and "2600" or "5200" and replaced them with "Nintendo" and "N64". Anyone else remember that era?
I remember getting my Atari at the height of the craze (1982 or so?) and there were some awesome games (Yar's Revenge, Missile Command, Circus Atari, almost everything from Activision--amazes me what those wizards could do with 4k of address space and only enough RAM to hold your scores, lives and *ONE SCANLINE* of screen data). I also remember the side-effect of the craze--by Christmas 1982 it was already happening. Everyone was caching in on the craze. I clearly remember ads in Archie comics touting crappy games featuring that walking Koolaid pitcher, Bubblicious gum and Quaker Oats (WTF!? yes I'm serious).
Each and every one of these junk games was some kind of poorly executed variation on the adventure
Consoles didn't die though--a couple years later the NES took the world by storm. Technically it was only a modest step upward from what Atari and Coleco had offered to that point (still had a CPU based on 1970s tech) but it had excellent marketing and ORIGINAL GAMES--at least for awhile (side-scrolling platforms were nearly nonexistent on home systems to that point, much less ones as well executed as Super Mario).
Things are a BIT different now, since todays console owners tend to already have PCs (so computers aren't likely to steal marketshare from consoles). The crucial thing is that we're at a peak now creatively and the economic curve is following (game sales were brisk this record-setting year). There will be a saturation point where more people will be like you and say "I'm tired of the n-teenth sequel that is the same game except for more detailed graphics". That'll probably give the industry the kick-in-the-butt it needs.
At any rate did anyone else notice a new phenomenon this year? It seems to be the start of a retro-craze: Atari has re-released the 7800 with the best of the 2600 and 7800 games built right in, and there was a big pile of "system-in-a-controller" units out there (from legitimate retro systems to 100-in-1 bootleg NES to the Spongebob Joystick with original games). It's bigger than just Jeri's "64 in a stick" toy for nostalgic geeks too--those bootleg units at the mall kiosks got a lot of attention from teens who weren't even born when the NES came out. I see that as an early indicator that the "same old new thing" is losing its appeal.
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.
These kids aren't trashing my gaming history - they've given me a stack of new ideas for the kind of games that I can write the bare bones of in a week :)
Playaholics: Free online games: Driving MadSuttree, a weblog about casual games development
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.