As older gamers many of us recall days waiting in line at an arcade game to play the best of the best. We would stick our quarter on the edge of the cabinet to hold a place in line as the winner dominated all comers. We were introduced to home console gaming, PC gaming on systems with less horsepower than a ten dollar mp3 player and enjoyed every minute of it.
Much like classic rock there are many games in the history of gaming which are timeless classics and should never be forgotten. Much like Bob Dylan, Boston, Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Who, there are classic video games that are required playing for our youth. Kids today are finding unknown bands like Boston through video games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero and, prior, had no clue such a band existed. And they like them.
How many of our children will find the opportunity to sore the sky’s in 1942, hunt each other in Spy vs. Spy, get revenge on Doh in Arkanoid or shoot Asteroids? We look to our peers and say “this game reminds me of Missile Command” or “this game rivals the difficulties of Battle Toads” but our children would stare at us in aimless wonder as if we’re speaking some ancient dialect.
Once upon a time we would poke fun at gamers that hadn’t logged an hour on a Magnavox Odyssey or a Coleco Telstar and then we’d laugh when one had not heard of a Fairchild Channel F or the Intellivision. Wonder and amazement was obvious on our faces when we made a reference to the Atari VCS or 2600 as the ‘young crowd’ said “oh, I think I’ve heard of that.” Today, we’re raising our own children that have never seen nor touched a Nintendo Entertainment system or Sega Master System.
How can we change things? Are our children doomed to grow up without the foundation of video games that built the world they live and play in?
Unlike American History or World History, courses taught in almost every school, we’ve got no reference point or classes scheduled to teach our youth about the history of video games, entertainment or electronics. This isn’t in the curriculum so it is up to us, as parents, to explain the generations of video games. It gets harder with each generation, however, to take them back in time and explain it all.
It’s hard to imagine a person who didn’t know Mario first arrived in titles like Donkey Kong or how that rivalry started. Luckily emulators have existed for some time now, which offer children a chance to go back in time and experience the titles we all grew up on. The question remains, will they respect the old school graphics and text adventure games or will they toss them to the side for Halo, Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto?
Hopefully as your children come of age you’ll take the time to sit them down and show them some of the old systems that once dominated the industry. With luck, Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, Sony’s PSN and other mediums will fully support old school gaming and port arcade titles like Spy Hunter, NARC, Centipede, Tempest, Double Dragon and Renegade.
Technology evolves every six months and devices continue to shrink into the palm of our hand. Companies should embrace this technology and license their titles to hand-held devices, computers and mobile phones so our children can rescue Zelda on their iPods, crawl the dungeons of Gauntlet and gain a new regard for Karnov, Karate Champ, Lode Runner and R-Type on their miniature devices.
Don’t let the history of video gaming fade.
