Gaming at its core has changed, yes there’s new graphics, there’s new audio options, there are new formats and new competitors but that’s not what I’m talking about. Gaming has lost its spirit, its underground soul, its no longer something to being able to do, it has become something normal that our mothers and little sisters also enjoy with us.
Is this a bad thing? Well I suppose if your mother or little sister is annoying then yes, but otherwise not really. However I’d like to take the time to look back on the old school underground style of gaming and see if there is anything about those days that continues to be irreplaceable.
In the old days games were difficult, but we enjoyed them for that reason, finishing them was a task that non-gamers simply could not do, the hand-eye coordination involved in addition to the knowledge of patterns and accurate timing that enabled us to go through levels, our will to not lose a life because it would be a quarter lost, everything mattered.
There were no upgrades or checkpoints to help us out, cheat codes came after we finished not during and so we had only ourselves and the tips of our fellow gamers at the arcades. These days the day a game comes out all its secrets are in the magazines and cheat code websites.
Competition was lovely they weren’t just limited to head to head competition like fighting games or first person shooters, even single player games were competitive, people went out of their way to get top scores not just for themselves but to show others they were the top dogs at that arcade. There was so much incentive to be good at a game, overthrowing the current top scorer and not losing your money among others.
The equivalent of the old stomping grounds known as the arcades today is online play, well examining the problems with online play I’d much prefer an arcade, online gaming while great when developers take the extra time to make sure the netcode is alright, often times is laggy which gives everyone the excuse of lag when they lose, no one is there to witness these matchups in person and thus there is no crowd hype or anyone to see the skills of upcoming players.
These days I don’t play many new games because I feel like they cheat me with easy gameplay and being not even half a day long. There are few games these days that truly make me want to play them based on anything other than looking pretty. At least back in the day if I wanted to try a new game it only costed a quarter and more often than not the game would be good, where as up until these current consoles there were no demos.
They say what’s old is new but quite honestly in the case of gaming that would be false. There’s no work ethic in today’s gamers, most shy away from challenges like a really difficult game or playing a really good player in a competitive game and that quite frankly is the opposite of what gaming is all about.
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Sir, I agree wholeheartedly. If I were to put a moderately easy old game (i.e. Sonic 2) I have no doubt that most gamers who grew up nowadays would give up because they couldn’t handle the challenge and because they lack the patience. No saving, checkpoints are every level. They would just rage-quit.
I agree with your article all too much, making this is likely my last generation of being a hardcore gamer. A question thats been eating at me for 2yrs now is, why in this gen do so many games AND consoles(360/PS3) NEED patching after release? when i think of it the wii actually has the most stable console/games so far…. how sad are the times ….(sigh)
firmware, upgrades, etc. leading to new (esp req.) features are fine by me, i am referring to repair of product after release.