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February 18, 2006
Child's Play
Children of the Playstation era have grown up in a totally different world from that of what most of you have. A recent focus group (the second of 2) conducted by Electronic Gaming Monthly reveals that these kids have no respect for many of the video games we hail as all time classics and yet to be matched by any of today's hyper realistic games. So what gives?
The kids were all shoved in a room and asked to comment on many of yesteryears console and arcade classics. Their responses shocked so many of EGM's older readers, the magazine was flooded with letters and emails regarding the kid's lack of respect from where games came from and blamed today's uber realistic graphics brainwashing them to go for aesthetics over innovative gameplay.
The games the kids were asked to play were;
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (Nintendo Entertainment System - 1987)
Adventure (Atari 2600 - 1978)
The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo Entertainment System - 1987)
Star Wars (Arcade - 1983)
Defender (Arcade - 1980)
720ยบ (Arcade - 1986)
Grand Theft Auto (Playstation - 1998)
Gunstar Heros (Sega Genesis - 1993)
Galaga (Arcade - 1981)
Street Fighter II (Arcade - 1991)
The general comments from the kids were about the simplistic graphics. They seemed unable to focus on actual gameplay when characters are represented by simple dots. Many of the kids haven't even seen what some the characters looked like outside of their current 3D form. In the first focus group, one kid commented about how the original Mario looked so weird because he was flat. Another kid asked what buttons to press to make the blocks in Tetris explode. When the interviewer explained to him that you can't make them explode, the kid became totally disappointed and dismissed the game.
I am only 25 and still game nearly daily, but I still recall the feelings I got playing the "classic" games. I am from the Nintendo generation and the Playstation generation is only one after mine so in a way I can still see where the kids are coming from. However, I wonder what many of you, whom are from the Atari and Colecovision days, think of the articles.
via 1up
Posted by tranism at 2:30 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Well, I'm 40 and I guess that you'd call me Generation ZX80 - how do you feel about games in monochrome where the screen flickers every time it updates ... :-)
I enjoy the classics, but I also like the immersion that I get from the current gen stuff. It's the playstation era that I seem to have skipped - playing the games now seems underwhelming. The hardware can't match the ambition of the early 3d games on the ps one.
Posted by: neil h. at February 19, 2006 3:22 AM
Well I'm from pong, and phoenix, and frogger... later I got hooked into donkey kong(s) and stayed up many a morn till 4am, then would finally sleep with dreams i was hiding behind rocks, climbing ropes and being shot out of barrels... as much as I'd love to try the new games, I don't want to shoot that junk again.
Posted by: A.J. at February 19, 2006 4:57 AM
Haha, that is too funny. It is kind of like music. Most top40 stuff is all about the "fluff". A good game is always about gameplay. Graphics are just the recording quality.
Posted by: Scott Burton at February 20, 2006 3:54 PM