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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."
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.
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
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
The earliest game i really enjoyed was wolf3d, and still play it every one and a whild, but I dont want to spend money on an old consile (atari)
Uhhh.... My head asplode.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
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.
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