Video games: Then and Now...

VIDEO GAMES: Then and Now

I am an old school gamer. I can honestly say I lived through the golden age of gaming. A time when developers didn't have fancy CGI and gigabytes of memory... they had to make due with what was in front of them (8-bit graphics and chiptunes) and even with so little they made works of art. A time when cartridges ruled and it took actual skill to get through just one screen of a game. A time when "hard mode" was the only mode!  

Since memory was so limited back then games could not be super long the way they are now so they needed to be challenging, otherwise you could just run through them in an hour or two. Like I said before it took actual skill to get through even one screen of a stage! Coordination, timing, accuracy, and most of all patience. These four things were the key to being successful in any game that you played, especially that last one... patience was the key.

There were no "easy modes" or "save spots". There was however the occasional half way point, but even then you only had about three lives to spare (that is if you didn't lose any getting to that point) and once you got to the "GAME OVER" screen that was it... back to the beginning of the level. There were no "online tutorials" or "game faqs", you had to figure everything out for yourself. You had trial and error (and I'm not talking about Error from Zelda either!). Let's just say you would get very well acquainted with the "GAME OVER" screen. I always saw old school games as a metaphor for real life and the real world, where nothing is simple or easy.

These days kids don't even realize how easy they have it! Now you can choose your difficulty level, and even if you put it on the hardest setting it's nowhere near as difficult as older games. Now you can usually save the game wherever you want (you don't even have to find a save spot in most games anymore) and if you die you can continue pretty much right where you left off. You have strategy guides, video walkthroughs, and everything else right at your fingertips.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy newer games. I'm just saying that kids these days have no idea what "hard mode" is. I can go on and on about this until I'm blue in the face, but I'll get to the point. The reason I decided to write this was because of a video I saw on youtube of kids from this new generation of games playing the original Mega Man (Rockman) for the first time. Let me just say, it was glorious! They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Their screams and cries of
"It's not fair!" and "It's too hard!" not only made it all the more enjoyable but also very clear how forgiving most newer games are.

...and without further ado... you can watch the video below.