Kids Today...

[Gameguy]

For anyone complaining about "kids these days.." how many Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, and Odyssey games do you have in your collection? If you don't have anything from before you were born, you're guilty too.
I have around maybe 20-30 Atari 2600 games. I planned to get a Colecovision as I played the games on emulators in high school but decided against it because of potential reliability issues, I've heard that plenty of systems and controllers have problems. I had a Vectrex but it died on me within an hour of playtime so I sold it off along with all of the games, it took up a lot of space too but the games were fun while I could play them. I have a few Intellivision games but no system and I plan to sell the games off, I never really got into the Intellivision especially with those controllers. I would like to get a Coleco Telstar at some point, a teacher of mine brought in his old one and it was fun to play. I have some handhelds from the late 70's and early 80's too.

[Poofta!]

I understand what you're saying, but that's taking it a bit far calling me "juvenile" like that. I wasn't saying their opinions were wrong- I'm just vexed that they were being biased simply because old games aren't gory or feature macho men beating up hookers. And- fanboy...ha! I DO actually play a few newer games- I've got a Nintendo Wii just like many others do and there are a few classics here and there. But, they still can't compare in terms of novelty to some of the older games. There are a few retro games a bit over-rated just because of nogstalgic value, like "Altered Best". But, most of them deserve to be respected and played. I'm not looking for another internet argument, I've already been through enough with some trolls on Youtube so let's not go there. I just think kids never even give the oldies a chance. And,no, I'm not "cool" just because I like the classics nor do I just play 'em to seem unique in personality. I play 'em because they're BETTER.

1- there are plenty of old Gory games. Plenty
2- the wii is not representative of today's games, its mainly for small kids and non gamers, the handful of hardcore games on it sell like shit. Go out and get a 360/ps3 and play some of the AAA stuff. Its not bad. Uncharted, gears of war, these are freaking fantastic games. If the only modern console i had was the wii, id hate modern games too.
3- see, this is why i scolded you to begin with, you think older games are BETTER. Theyre not. Youre the biased one. There was just as much shit then as now.

[Arkhan]

1- there are plenty of old Gory games. Plenty
.

Splatterhouse, Narc. Done.

All the gore you could ask for :)

Modern games kick as much ass as old games. Metal Gear Solid 4 man!

[Game Freak]

Im in the same boat as you although, as I am 19, soon to be 20, I have already travelled through the high school/teenager years appreciating the old things from days past and dealing with a lot of bullshit because of it. I have over a hundred cassettes, records, laserdiscs and a big collection of old videogames. Im glad to see younger people than I appreciating the past like this. Makes me not lose faith in the current generation of high-school goers.

I spend more time playing Super Nintendo than I do PlayStation 3. Period.

Same here man, I dont have a 360 or a PS3 and pretty much dwell in the past. I'm almost 17 (this month actually) and I have hundreds of VHS, LaserDiscs, Vinyls, audiocassettes, etc. I have jsut about every animated Disney film not because I was once a kid, but because I admire the art style and creativity shown through them. I also love classic films from the 80s, 70s, even back to the 40s and 50s (Casablanca is an AMAZING film!) I watch TV Land all the time and spend my weekends and vacation mornings watching music videos on VH1 Classic. The Super NES is my favorite system of all time, and i have an affinity for other systems such as the NES, Genesis, and Atari. I don't have the wallet to invest in some of the more obscure, expensive systems just yet, but I definitely enjoy the older stuff for the most part.

Let's face it, the culture that kids today are exposed to is pretty much garbage, and its just insane what children are exposed to at such a young age. Parents dont care about game ratings, getting their 11 year old children Halo and Call of Duty. Preteen/teenage girls go crazy over Twilight and whatever singing sensation Disney turns out next. It's just crazy...

[Arkhan]

Same here man, I dont have a 360 or a PS3 and pretty much dwell in the past. I'm almost 17 (this month actually) and I have hundreds of VHS, LaserDiscs, Vinyls, audiocassettes, etc. I have jsut about every animated Disney film not because I was once a kid, but because I admire the art style and creativity shown through them. I also love classic films from the 80s, 70s, even back to the 40s and 50s (Casablanca is an AMAZING film!) I watch TV Land all the time and spend my weekends and vacation mornings watching music videos on VH1 Classic.

you sound like me

i used to watch like threes company and shit at 2 am every night on TV Land, when i was like 13

[NayusDante]

I wish I had TV Land when I was a kid. I grew up watching Nick at Nite, with Jeanie, Lucy, The Munsters, Gilligan's Island, Brady Bunch, Happy Days... Now it's stuff like Malcolm in the Middle, and 90s sitcoms.

Get off my lawn.

[Arkhan]

I wish I had TV Land when I was a kid. I grew up watching Nick at Nite, with Jeanie, Lucy, The Munsters, Gilligan's Island, Brady Bunch, Happy Days... Now it's stuff like Malcolm in the Middle, and 90s sitcoms.

Get off my lawn.

were the same age, lol. You did have it. What were you doing?

[Famidrive-16]

Visual Aid Time!

Panels 1 & 2 depict what your classmates think they are experiencing now...
Panel 3 depicts what they will find when they return to these 'awesome' games in 10-20 years...
And finally, Panel 4 depicts their reaction to their misspent youth.



she's still cute, w/e

[NayusDante]

were the same age, lol. You did have it. What were you doing?

It wasn't on the basic cable service here, just the extended packages. NOW it is.

[ShinobiMan]

Like so many others have said, keep on keeping on with your love of retro games. I too think it's awesome that someone as young as yourself can appreciate the classics. I was once in your shoes, but the kids thought I was crazy for loving Atari games, not NES or SNES. We all grew up with those!

[yoshilime53]

I'm young, and i love old stuff. I think VHS and laser disc's are cool, and i have a retro game collection. I grew up with the N64 and gameboy color, and man, there were some good times. Basically, i like modern things, but also old stuff is neat.

[Arkhan]

laserdiscs kick ass.

like in SLC punk when the guys like "DERES A MOVIE ON DERE"

with the HUGE SHINEY LASER DISC.

[Sanriostar]

For anyone complaining about "kids these days.." how many Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, and Odyssey games do you have in your collection? If you don't have anything from before you were born, you're guilty too.

...Some of us don't exactly have too many options for that criteria. :|

[thom_m]

she's still cute, w/e

Yeah, she is. I thought that when I saw the panels. But her body does look really strange on that pic, I gotta say (and that from a guy who really likes chubby gals). Maybe it's just the clothing. By the way, Icarus: are those just random pics you found, or its already some meme I'm not aware of?

Off-topic, I know, but worth noticing. Now back to our normal programming.

[MonoTekETeA]

"Remember one this Angus. Screw 'Em!"
-Grandpa, Angus

[Aswald]

Hmmmm...can't directly reply, for some reason...

Have to hit "Quote."


This is an interesting topic, because this sort of thing has been around for so long now. How many people in 1989 made fun of my CV while they were playing their NES consoles? Even I won't argue that an NES is technically superior to a CV (just how much so).

Then came to 16-Bit Era, and soon those people who stuck with the NES were the dinosaurs.

And when the 32-Bit/CD Era came around, well, the difference between an NES and a CV became largely academic, like comparing a tennis ball to a golf ball next to a small mountain.


There is something about the classic era that people who make fun of it usually fail to mention: in spite of the lesser technology of the time, the arcade scene had much more variety. There were the car games (second-person), gun games, and fighting games you saw so much of during the 1990s (and the 2000s?), but there was also so much more: Jungle Hunt, Moon Patrol, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Mr. Do!, Battlezone, Star Fire, Pengo, Qix, Defender, etc.-style games. By extension, home console owners would benefit from the variety, as well as having the games one didn't find in an arcade (backgammon, reversi, RPGs, etc.).

Thus, there was a much greater chance of any given person walking into an arcade finding something he'd like. This could only have helped keep the arcades going. Even if the visual and audio technology of, say, a one-on-one fighting game is so much better than that of such a game from 1983, it just won't appeal any more to someone who does not care for such a game.

Games that rely strictly on graphics and sound have VERY limited lifespans.

[123►Genei-Jin]

I'm 33 now and I like both old and current gen, I guess and just a gamer and don't care that much about nostalgia or technology, I simply play what I like.

[Rickstilwell1]

My neighbor is like 14 and when we were younger he used to come over and play my old games all the time. He still loves old games. And my cousin who's just slightly older than him still thinks it's fun to try out certain old ones even though he is usually immersed in online Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

That was funny when we hooked up my Commodore 64 for the first time and we were trying to load games from floppy and cassette. It was definitely a WTF experience for both of us until I figured out the command that will boot any floppy you put in the drive, but when we tried cartridge games like "Clowns" and "Choplifter" we actually got some fun out of it. He couldn't see it being worth the time to load cassette though. "I waited 8 minutes and all I get is this?" It was pretty funny.

[UnpluggedClone]

Google 4 Gaga

[ryborg]

she's still cute, w/e

No.


Yeah, she is.

No.

[Famidrive-16]

No.



No.

Shananagens.

[thom_m]

Shananagens.

Shenanigans indeed. And I want my "Yeah, she is" in context, Mr. Ryborg: I DID say her body looked weird, damn it! LOL But I sustain that she's still a cute girl - at least, from the neck up; I like chubby girls, but there's something strange there.

And I still wonder where did Icarus got those pics from - a Photoshop crop tool miracle, for sure.

[Poofta!]

her face is cute. the rest of her makes me want to man the harpoons.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Google images, it's a treasure trove of time saving. But, one can creep on Facebook, view public and private photos without an account. While I don't technically Facebook (I don't have an account), I can still use it for some purposes. :evil:

Some people will post anything on the internet... Seen/unseen again. But after Ero Guro exposure, you are pretty much desensitized to anything else post-able.

Shenanigans? Like Pedobear's nickname is Aqualung type shenanigans? LOL

[ryborg]

But I sustain that she's still a cute girl - at least, from the neck up; I like chubby girls, but there's something strange there

my eyes. they vomited. you can have her :bigmac: :bigmac: :bigmac: :bigmac:

[Aussie2B]

Yesterday I played Super Mario World with my 12 yr old son for a fair while. We started a new file and completed all 96 goals later into the evening. Of course a break was required to watch canada win the Olymic gold in hockey. He has a SNES in his room, and plays a lot of it. As we played Mario, he says dad we should play E.V.O. we haven't played that for a while. He loves a lot of classic games, however I don't think many of his friends do. Sometimes I think a lot of kids have not had enough exposure to the older stuff so that has a lot to do with their level of appreciation.

That's very true. I think most people, be them kids or adults, would be able to appreciate older things if they're simply raised in an environment that values them. My fiance's little sister, who I've known since she was 7 and is 16 now, has spent her entire life around two considerably older brothers who play older games just as frequently as new games. Her exposure has been completely mixed and varied, and as a result hops from era to era herself without a second thought. I can see her playing a new Wii game one day and SNES game the next, and I've never once heard her comment about the graphics or audio of older games being inferior. She just takes a game for what it is and has fun. I'm actually a little envious of the children and younger siblings of our members here. What a wonderful opportunity they have to try so many games, both through our collections and emulation. When we were kids, we were lucky if we got a couple new games a year, and old games were out of our access unless they were ones that we or our family members personally held onto for years.

Sadly, we really grow up in an "out with the old, in with the new" world. For the most part I didn't have anyone encouraging me to appreciate older stuff when I was a kid, but I did have a family that was generally behind the times and I watched a lot of black and white Nick at Nite. I never got the message that older things lost their value. I think most parents mean well, but when Dad measures the size of his penis with his plasma TV and Mom gets a new wardrobe every year, kids get the message that life is all about constantly getting new stuff to replace older things, even when there's no need for replacement. Remember when people would actually repair their electronics, shoes, clothes, etc.? Does the average person even know how to sew on a button or stitch up a hole anymore? Almost no one has any interest in preserving and valuing what they have these days.

[UnpluggedClone]

Google 4 Gaga

[sebastiankirchoff]

My brother is 8, almost 9 years old and ever since he was two I have showed him the awesomeness of the SNES and NES. I wanted him to start with something easy and fun, and now he is playing really complex games on the 360 and PS3. The amazing part though is, unlike most kids his age (or even older than him), he still loves old games and will still play my SNES and any older console and never complain.

I think it is how kids grow up that affects what kind of games they are going to play in the future. Like several people have said before, if a kid's first game was Halo or Gears of War, they are going to look back at older games and automatically call them crap because they don't look as good as new games and never give them a chance. With my brother though, I taught him at a young age to respect games no matter how old they are and to give them a chance.

And as a bit of advice, you shouldn't say that everything modern is crap. There is still plenty of great stuff that comes out (Fallout 3, Valkyria Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid 4), and in every generation there is going to be crap. I am sure there were some pretty shitty games and things back in the 80's and 90's too.

[Rickstilwell1]

My brother is 8, almost 9 years old and ever since he was two I have showed him the awesomeness of the SNES and NES. I wanted him to start with something easy and fun, and now he is playing really complex games on the 360 and PS3. The amazing part though is, unlike most kids his age (or even older than him), he still loves old games and will still play my SNES and any older console and never complain.

I think it is how kids grow up that affects what kind of games they are going to play in the future. Like several people have said before, if a kid's first game was Halo or Gears of War, they are going to look back at older games and automatically call them crap because they don't look as good as new games and never give them a chance. With my brother though, I taught him at a young age to respect games no matter how old they are and to give them a chance.

And as a bit of advice, you shouldn't say that everything modern is crap. There is still plenty of great stuff that comes out (Fallout 3, Valkyria Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid 4), and in every generation there is going to be crap. I am sure there were some pretty shitty games and things back in the 80's and 90's too.

Exactly. I have about 75 Atari 2600 games I decided to keep because they were fun or right for me, while I just parted with 45 games I felt did not meet my standards. One's trash is another's treasure so it's good that there are people out there with different tastes. Ever since the beginning there was junk, and there is still junk today. You just have to find the games that appeal to you.

[Enigmus]

Any kids that in the 11 - 14 year old range were introduced to old stuff at a young (had older brothers) etc... If the first thing you ever play is halo then it would be hard to play the old stuff.

So, it's really easy for a 11 year old to play with 6 button combinations in Halo 3, yet it's really hard for them to use an Atari 2600 joystick, with only a stick and one button? Sadly, I know this to be true, and it's a really depressing thought for the future brainpower of the world. Man, where did we go wrong?

[kedawa]

Obviously, this is a broad generalization, but...

Old games: difficult challenge with simple controls.
New games: simple challenge with difficult controls.

There are very few modern games that will kill you within seconds if you fuck up, so kids who aren't accustomed to that find it frustrating.

[thom_m]

my eyes. they vomited. you can have her :bigmac: :bigmac: :bigmac: :bigmac:

Heheheh! What else can I say? Poor chick! LOL By the way: Icarus, I googled "Ero Guro" after reading your post. Thanks for a lifetime of regret.

Now back to topic: I was enteeing my building the other day and was shocked to accidentally see a neighbor playing Super Mario World through his window (Since I'm probably the only guy in my whole town who owns working SNES). I apologized for being nosy, and asked him about his SNES...only to find out that he was emulating the game on his PS2. He also seemed quite thrilled when I told him I had the game on cartridge. He's no kid, actually; must be on his early thirties. But, where I live, it's rare even to find adults who enjoy the classics. Good to know there's a fella who enjoys both modern and retro gaming around.

[Aussie2B]

So, it's really easy for a 11 year old to play with 6 button combinations in Halo 3, yet it's really hard for them to use an Atari 2600 joystick, with only a stick and one button?

I'll play devil's advocate and say yes, if only because it feels so different. As someone who started gaming with mostly NES and didn't have much exposure to arcades, I'm still most at home with a controller that evolved from that NES pad design. I have gone backwards to system prior to NES and have also picked up arcade sticks, but I don't think my hands will ever feel 100% comfortable with them. I can't fault kids born many years later from me even. At this point we're probably getting kids that aren't even fully comfortable with D-pads. It's sad, but I'd say it's easier to get someone to open their mind to the look and sound of old games than to get them to adapt to something that's physically awkward to them.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I'll play devil's advocate and say yes, if only because it feels so different. As someone who started gaming with mostly NES and didn't have much exposure to arcades, I'm still most at home with a controller that evolved from that NES pad design. I have gone backwards to system prior to NES and have also picked up arcade sticks, but I don't think my hands will ever feel 100% comfortable with them. I can't fault kids born many years later from me even. At this point we're probably getting kids that aren't even fully comfortable with D-pads. It's sad, but I'd say it's easier to get someone to open their mind to the look and sound of old games than to get them to adapt to something that's physically awkward to them.

The reverse is true, too. I was a NES kid, but I had some exposure to Atari / Coleco.

I got my PS2 in 2006 or so, and uh, I still can't get used to the damn analog sticks. I keep ramming them as fast as they'll go. My brain can't process "press the stick just a tad", I just push the stick as far as it'll go. Likewise with the Dreamcast's L/R buttons and the Dual Shock 2's pressure sensitive buttons. I hate them. >_<

[Icarus Moonsight]

I started with Pong... Someone want to send me a Space War cab to see if this "can't stand what came before you were born" hypothesis holds water? :D

I like tons of stuff that existed before I was born. For the first and obvious, I enjoy breathing air and drinking water...

[CelticJobber]

Maybe its because I live in a relatively poor area, but I still know of teenagers whose first systems were Super NES or PSOne.

I guess I'm old now, but the biggest videogame-related arguments when I was in junior high and highschool were over Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter (and later Tekken), Genesis vs. SNES, and N64 vs. Playstation.