Ever since 1Up.com ran their stories on “What Today’s Kids Think of Yesterday’s Games” (Child’s Play I / Child’s Play II), I’ve been fascinated with the results. I’m not sure why I’m surprised that 9 to 12 year olds had never seen or played Pong before — my 15 and 16 year old neices told me a few years ago that they didn’t know who Mr. T or Ronald Reagan were. I guess when you start getting older you lose track of just how quickly time is passing by.
While flipping through games I haven’t tried over the weekend, I ran across AMF Bowling for the Xbox. Mason and I grabbed controllers and we gave the game a whirl. Unfortunately for us, the “throwing system” was so complicated that halfway through the game neither one of us were able to knock over a single pin.
Then, something clicked. I rebooted my Xbox and went into the emulator menu. From there I pulled up the Atari 2600 emulator and launched Bowling (1979). While no one could ever argue that the first game had better graphics (screenshots below), Mason and I had an infinitely better time playing the latter. In fact, the first game, he even managed to beat me! I challenged him to a rematch, of course, and somehow managed to edge the best out of 3 (my Xbox, my rules).
While graphics are a lot, gameplay is everything. Why can the gaming industry not see what my 4-year-old sees?
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When your dad and I took our niece, Denise, out for her 16th birthday, and mentioned the Beatles, and she said “Who are they. Oh, yeah, I think I’ve heard of them.”, that was our first eye-opener about generation gaps and growing older! After that, they come fast and furious. Grab on to something; it doesn’t get any better!
Mom