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Classic Games (Games) It's funny. Laugh.

Whippersnappers Bad-Mouth Old Games 699

Posted by Zonk from the in-my-day-we-only-had-8-bits-and-we-liked-it! dept.
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."
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Whippersnappers Bad-Mouth Old Games

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  • Where's the Death Star level of Slashdot? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cold Winter Days ( 772398 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:12PM (#11200821)
    This one's getting boring.

  • Perhaps they should have played Wolf3D! (Score:5, Funny)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:12PM (#11200831)
    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 [areyep.com] 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?
    • From Mike Tyson's Punch Out:

      Garret: "Mike Tyson" is bad publicity for this game.

      Parker: Nothing is bad publicity.

      Garret: Maybe Mr. T is Nintendo's marketing director. Mike Tyson was all like, "I'm gonna eat your dogs; I'm gonna eat your kids...."

       You're right. There's no way I could make up shit that good either, but no doubt the editors at Ziff Davis can. :)

      • Re:Perhaps they should have played Wolf3D! (Score:4, Informative)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:47PM (#11201149)
        Well unfortunatly Mike Tyson's Punch Out has a problem that other games don't it is the fact kids never grew up thinking that Mike Tyson was a hero charactor. At the time of the Game Mike Tyson was the Champ, Unbeatible, Proof that a kid from the Gheto could do something with his life. Then after going to jail and loosing fights he has been push to has been, ex Punk Kid who had his 15 minutes of fame and wasted it, and is now the Gheto Kid who wasted his life, after having the chance of a life time.
      • C'mon, nothing compares to the cracks about Adventure:


        Bobby: A duck ate me.

        EGM: A what ate you?

        Parker: A pink duck.

        EGM: What do you think this character's name is?

        Parker: Dot. Or Adventure? That's what this game is, isn't it? Go up, go up, go up.

        Bobby: Stupid duck. I hate the duck. The duck is evil.

        Parker: Go left, go left. Grab the arrow. That's the only way you can kill the duck. You have to run that into the duck.

        Garret: It's a spear or something.

        Bobby: [Enters castle] I'm just going to store
    • Video games DO rot the brains of young and impressionable children.

      ...and turns them into homicidal maniacs:

      EGM: Do you feel bad about shooting the humans?

      Parker: No, that's my only amusement in this game.

    • Re:Perhaps they should have played Wolf3D! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:36PM (#11201040) Journal
      Actually, the kid saw the hammer & sickle and thought "Nazi sign", confusing it with a swastika.

      And, for what it's worth, Nintendo didn't allow Wolfenstein's swastikas in the port to the SNES... I'd say Parker's at least half right. :)

    • Learning history from games (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Theseus192 ( 787156 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @03:07PM (#11201323)

      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.

    • I was a bit more disturbed by "I've played this on my cell phone" coming from a 10-year-old.

    • at least they actually liked Zelda. :-)

    • Re:Perhaps they should have played Wolf3D! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @04:43PM (#11202203)
      I'm sorry, but I read the whole thing and I thought that overall, those 11-year-olds had more articulate observations to make than most of the stuff posted on Slashdot, including the parent post.

  • what about the best clasic game ever... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:15PM (#11200847)
    I didn't see any mention of Nethack. Nethack rocks! But I'd bet most "Whippersnappers" would hate it.

  • Like the first one... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GeorgeMcBay ( 106610 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:15PM (#11200854)
    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.

    • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cylix ( 55374 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:19PM (#11200894) Homepage Journal
      Precisely what I was thinking and about to post on.

      The kids made a reference to Gleaming The Cube and a billion other reference.

      I've seen 11 year olds... they are not that bright.

      They make reference that are just too damned mature.

      Too bad I'm at work and I don't have time to pick through every statement that just doesn't fit.
      • Yeah, I was really wondering if 11 year olds have gotten so much more mature than they used to be.
        • What about the 10 yr old who said he "played this" on his cell phone... (referring to Defender)?

          Why does a 10 yr old have a cell phone? That's the part I'm stuck on.

      • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by magnwa ( 18700 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:28PM (#11200973)
        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.

        • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kisrael ( 134664 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @03:49PM (#11201723) Homepage
          11 year olds can be EXTREMELY intelligent, so long as they've not been told to shut up all their life.

          S'true. Also, while I can't vouch for *every* line, many of them had the feel of "precocious 11 yr old trying to say something funny to make it into the magazine", like this gem from last year:

          "Fear my pink line. You have no chance. I am the undisputed lord of virtual tennis. [Misses ball] Whoops."

          Kids can have this amazing depth of arcane knowledge, like a ton of 8 year olds who get interested in dinosaurs and suddenly can spout off as experts in paleontology. Basically, young kids are learning machines, and when they mix it with a little focus, their depth of factoids is profound.
      • The one which really got me was "Mike Tyson does not have a handlebar mustache". I don't think most people old enough to grow one know the proper definition of a handlebar mustache, let alone a 13 year old.
    • There are way too many references to pop culture things that kids probably don't know about (or care about)....

      The oldest kid on here is 11 or 12... and they're making Mike Tyson rape / ear biting jokes? Those happened quite a long time ago.

      Not to mention the one kid knew everything about Blanka's bio... very unlikely, especially when he said Blanka was his brother's favourite character of all time.

      Then there's the Adventure crack about ducks. Clearly ripped from Homestar Runner.

      I call Shenanigans.

      • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Informative)

        by I8TheWorm ( 645702 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:47PM (#11201153) Journal
        Not to shoot holes in anyone's theory, but not only have I seen an 11 year old, I own one (and an 8, a 9, and a 14 year old). My 11 year old remembers the Mike Tyson ear bite (I just asked him, but am not about to ask him about the rape trials). My 9 year old knows nothing about it... not even who Mike Tyson is.

        By 11, kids can be pretty insightful, and their logic skills (and sarcasm skills) are fairly developed. He's finally at an age where I can have real conversations with him, rather than lead him in conversations as in the past.

    • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:32PM (#11201007) Journal
      If you mine enough random sentances [retrologic.com], you can get some truly profound stuff. Every geek should spend at least a couple of hours with some source text and a markov chain generator.

      But it isn't the random generator that is profound, it is the person doing the selection.

      Similarly, while the majority of what the kids say may be worthless, a selection process can make the raw material look more intelligent than it is. You are probably reading more into the sentances than the kids actually meant, because you're only getting the sentances that you can read more into.

      Not saying it isn't fake, but it doesn't have to be.
      • They uh also sound a lot more intelligent cuz like they uh edited down the filler kinda stuff that kids like to use yunno. And adults too kinda. I'm sorta like exaggerating for effect and stuff but you get the idea right? Same words and all that but when the editors want to get all concise and shit to save column space, then the stuff they edit out sounds like a lot more intelligent.

    • Re:Like the first one... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson@ps g . com> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:34PM (#11201020)
      not all 11 year olds are unintelligent. in fact, they're surprisingly intelligent when you spend a bit of time with them.

      i wasn't stupid when i was 11, i was fixing TVs and my friends' game consoles.

      don't be so quick to demean children. they're not stupid.

  • omfg (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 ) <tmh@nodomain.org> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:16PM (#11200859) Homepage
    Because people were stupid and like addictive games..

    If it's stupid to like a game that is addictive, what is it to like a game that isn't addictive at all, but still shell out real money to play it?

  • This kids are HIL-arious! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:16PM (#11200866) Homepage Journal
    Take this dialogue from the review of the Star Wars arcade game:

    EGM: What do those lasers look like?

    Anthony: Stars.

    Garret: Fireworks.

    Bobby: Fireballs.

    Parker: Psychedelic snowflakes.

    Dillon: It's snowing up.

    Rachel: This looks like a game out of Willy Wonka or something.

    Bobby: It's like, "I'm Willy Wonka. I've created a new Star Wars."

    Someone give these kids a contact!

  • Wel (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:17PM (#11200871)
    EGM: Before this came out in compilations, we used to put quarters in arcade machines.

    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.

    • I was talking with a friend of mine (we had just installed some roms) and while the graphics aren't as impressive as they seemed to have been back then - I remember back in the day when 8 bit and 16 bit graphics came out. All of us at the time were amazed and going "wow, look at that." Yea they seem lame today compared to our standards (altered beast for sega seemed SO cool back then, but now between game play control, and graphics its crappy....but thats by todays standards, not 10 years ago).

      Though th

    • Re:Wel (Score:3, Interesting)

      by eln ( 21727 )
      Wolf3d is a great game because it was revolutionary. However, if you play a modern game like, say, Half Life 2, and then try and go back and play Wolfenstein 3D, you will probably quickly become bored.

      Yes, Wolf3d and Doom created a genre, but modern FPS games are far, far better than they are in terms of graphics AND gameplay. The intensity level is way up, and the games are far more exciting to play.

      I would never badmouth these classic games based on what they meant to the gaming industry, and hoe they

      • Re:Wel (Score:3, Funny)

        by wheany ( 460585 )
        No no no no, the official opinion is that modern games are pretty but have crappy gameplay. Fall back in line!

    • Hey Hey 16k! (Score:5, Funny)

      by aWalrus ( 239802 ) <sergio&overcaffeinated,net> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:56PM (#11201230) Homepage Journal
      Ok, this is just begging to be posted:

      Hey Hey 16k [b3ta.com]

      Awesome-est animation about nostalgia games ever.

    • Re:Wel (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )
      EGM: Before this came out in compilations, we used to put quarters in arcade machines.
      Parker: You wasted quarters on this?
      EGM: Yeah.
      Parker: That's so sad.
      He does have a point...

      I dunno. There's something about an arcade game that makes it easier to plunk quarters into than a "normal" modern video game. I guess It's that the overall game doesn't have a plot to follow through on. I wouldn't start playing Doom in an arcade because I would just be like "well I wont get very far since the game's so long".

      Last

  • 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.

  • Darn Whippersnappers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:18PM (#11200879)
    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.

  • Downhill After Sierra's Classics (Score:5, Funny)

    by hexed_2050 ( 841538 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:18PM (#11200881)
    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.

  • In my day, we didn't even have pong (Score:5, Funny)

    by scotay ( 195240 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:20PM (#11200902)
    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.

  • Old fogies bored with new computer games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:21PM (#11200905)
    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'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

      Two words: Animal Crossing [wikipedia.org]

    • Just history repeating itself (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WebCowboy ( 196209 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @03:51PM (#11201739)
      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.

      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 /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.

      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.
    • N64 was a great system though. Admittedly innovative titles were pretty sparse once you get out of Nintendo/RARE territory, but in that realm there was some great, new stuff going on: Mario 64 made a new genre, Mario Party reintroduced classic style gaming in the form of minigames, Smash Brothers is really a new type of "fighting game", one with 4 players, and where the layout of the board really matters (besides being the game that every middle schooler in the 80s doodled in his notebook)...RARE had Blast

  • this article is missing... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bje2 ( 533276 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:21PM (#11200910)
    i feel like this article should've featured Bill Cosbby asking the questions, while plying them with Jello Pudding pops...

  • These kids aren't all bad... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:21PM (#11200915) Journal
    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.
    • While a lot of you might think that these kids are ungrateful SOBs, they are more like us 20/30-somethings than you can imagine. They are at the bleeding edge of their domain, exactly like most of us were. I can remember being young and saying the same exact things about toys that my parents played with.

      These kids will grow up one day and be amazed at the latest generation of kids saying something like "You mean you actually used your hands to play games".

      I find it actually refreshing to read these kids

  • This can't be real (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Matt2k ( 688738 )
    "Rachel: I like this game because I can do all these things that are so against what I'd ever do in reality.

    Garret: That's the whole point of videogames. "

    Do all 11 year olds talk like this? This just screams "Fake"

    • Re:This can't be real (Score:5, Funny)

      by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:27PM (#11200960) Homepage Journal
      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."

  • Understanding Games. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:22PM (#11200923)
    Unfortunatly most kids have no idea on how many of these games where huge in their day and the cost of computing graphics to make snail shaped bushes. Even in the newer 3d Games I keep an eye on all the faults in the graphics Funny Shading off colors visible Poligons, Odd Movement, Walking threw objects. These are the things that future kids will see in the games and say how much they suck. Look at Doom 3 all these guys look like they are made from rubber, Those textures just dont cast the right shadow when the light hits it it just gets brigher and darker, Are these guys soposed to be scary, Why don't there cloths fold they just kida move into their arm. How come after I shoot them once they dont bleed to death after some time or try to patch themsefs up.

  • Old Skool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jafac ( 1449 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:23PM (#11200928) Homepage
    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?"

    • Re:Old Skool (Score:3, Informative)

      by Abcd1234 ( 188840 )
      If retro gaming is your thing, you should seriously consider picking up a Sega Dreamcast on Ebay. They can be had for practically nothing, and they'll read regular ol' CD-Rs with no modding necessary! Personally, I have the entire Atari 2600 collection on a single 8cm CD along with a port of Stella. Very cool. :) 'course, I also have a large collection of NES games burned and playable with NesterDC, and another with SMS games and an SMS Plus port (which is, BTW, the most beautiful emulator I've seen for
  • My 9-year-old daughter got one of those Namco 5-in-1 games from Santa this year (hooks up directly to the TV) and she thinks Pole Position rocks.

    Santa's never given her a console to try though...

  • That's no whippersnapper... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:25PM (#11200948)
    > 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!"

    ...that's Raph Koster of SOE, responsible for SWG:A Galaxy of Melee Combat.

    > 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.

  • Get real (Score:5, Insightful)

    by badmammajamma ( 171260 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:26PM (#11200954)
    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.

    • Re:Get real (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SharpFang ( 651121 )
      There are still people who "discover" Tetris, Arcanoid, FF7, Worms...
      There are several extremely simple old games that will never get too old. True, they don't catch everyone's taste, but I guess at least some of these kids would enjoy them.
      I "discovered" Zork some 3 years ago and enjoyed it immensely. I spent some nice time on roguelikes when QuakeII was on top. I killed Sepiroth for the first time about when FFXI was released. Was I impressed? Hell, yes! And I guess most of kids who aren't complete idiots

  • 'Old-Fashioned Games!' (Score:5, Funny)

    by koganuts ( 526569 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:28PM (#11200974)
    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. :(

  • Atari (Score:2)

    by dourk ( 60585 )
    I don't care what they say, Adventure was the shit. At least until Pitfall came out.
  • 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.

  • Everytime my son sees a game that I'm playing that he likes, and says "Can I play this when I get older" I say "sure, but the graphics will suck" Starting him off right, I tell ya :) (he's 5).

  • What is this? (Score:2, Funny)

    by bje2 ( 533276 ) *
    What is this? Dawson's Creek? 10-13 year olds don't talk like this in real life...
  • If hearing those kids talk about Adventure makes you want to check out the game (again), you can play a Flash version of it right here [simmphonic.com].
  • If these responses aren't fake, then it may just e the kids they picked. My experience has been the exact opposite, that kids will play a good game no matter what it looks like.

    I have a collection of arcade games in my basement Asteroids, Centipede, Star Wars, Pole Position, Major Havoc, etc). http://www.westnet.com/~chris/arcade/MyBasement [westnet.com]

    My kids (aged 2 and 4) love them. All the kids in my family, ranging up to 13 years old, won't come out of the basement at family gatherings. Pole Position seems to b

  • Bwahahaha! (Score:5, Funny)

    by st0rmshad0w ( 412661 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:39PM (#11201069)
    "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.

  • Eric and the Dread Gazebo (Score:5, Funny)

    by robyannetta ( 820243 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:49PM (#11201165) Homepage
    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.

  • We still had vivid images (Score:5, Interesting)

    by popo ( 107611 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:55PM (#11201221) Homepage
    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

    • 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.

      Every single game that you remember fondly from your youth was just "one title in a sea of... trash". You simply don't remember the trash, for obvious reasons. For every Zork or Marathon, there were a thousand worthless games that nobody can remember today.

      Looking back, I have fond memories of about as many games as ther

  • Meh. The more things change... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @03:07PM (#11201324)
    Kids these days have no respect for the older stuff. Why, I remember when my grandpa showed me this black and white TV. I remember thinking: This TV is awesome! Why on earth did I buy a 34" Sony DLP Hi-Def set when I could have a classic like this 1965 Zenith with tuner knob!

    You can keep it old-school if that's what you're into. [howstuffworks.com]

  • The kids have it about right (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @03:56PM (#11201778) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • I've said it before and I'll say it again.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by duncangough ( 530657 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @06:48PM (#11203705) Homepage

    ..if you're a Flash developer these sorts of games are far from over. Same goes if you're a mobile game developer. You just have to look at the Shareware game market to see that innovation in classic games is still strong. Sure, it's the same basic idea but these you do get the 'superbombs' included.

    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 Mad [playaholics.com]

  • Older teenagers might be more appreciative. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pentomino ( 129125 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @07:00PM (#11203820) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • "Faux" editing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeathPenguin ( 449875 ) * on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @08:18PM (#11204611)
    From page 4:
    "Garret: GTA III has all the faux cars based on real ones."

    When was the last time you heard a 13-year old use the word "faux?" Just thought that was interesting. The dialogue looked pretty good but I thought this stood out a bit.
  • Like FF6 I admit it, it's not as old as "adventure", but it had good graphics and an awesome story.

    OK my choice would be:

    a) Project Firestart for the C64 (survival horror)
    b) Aliens for the C64 (muahahahahah)
    c) Summer games series for the C64
    d) Eye of the Beholder I and II for the IBM PC
    e) Prince of Persia for the IBM PC

    You know, I miss the versatility that videogames had in the past. I'm considered blessed if I can find a copy of "Zone of the Enders" for the PS2 in my hometown.

  • Video game violence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rhone ( 220519 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @10:59PM (#11205758) Homepage
    I think my favorite part was when they were talking about the original Grand Theft Auto:

    Rachel: I really like this game, because I can do all these things that are so against what I'd ever do in reality...

    Garret: That's the whole point of videogames.

    EGM: Do you this game is a bad influence on people?

    Anthony: No, because only some people actually believe you should do this stuff in real life.
    Those kids seem to have an understanding of the difference between fantasy and real life that a lot of censorship-loving adults have trouble grasping.

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