Do games make you feel old sometimes?

[ElectricCatfish]

Now that I think of it, anyone remember plugging in game systems to the RF switch instead of using the typical video ports? Now that is a really old way of doing things. The HDMI is so much more advanced and easier than using a few screws to mount a system to some crazy antenna/RF-switch configuration. I hate oldschool TV. No nostalgia for me. Not to mention the countless shocks I've gotten from the RF switch.

C'mon the shock was good for ya, woke ya up.

[Israfel]

Wow this seems kind of pathetic for some of you guys, especially the teens.

It is kinda weird--how on earth can you be a high schooler or a freshman in college and feel old? That's just bizarre.

[The Coop]

It is kinda weird--how on earth can you be a high schooler or a freshman in college and feel old? That's just bizarre.

Maybe they have some rare strain of a game-related Progeria

[Secret Agent Man]

It is kinda weird--how on earth can you be a high schooler or a freshman in college and feel old? That's just bizarre.

It's probably due to the fact that game consoles, computers, etc. evolve at a very fast rate, and when we see the technology we have now compared to what we grew up with, it is a bit of a shock.

I know I'm not old in the traditional sense. I don't think anyone here's trying to claim that or anything. It just makes us feel older when stuff like this happens.

[whatfruit]

I got into an argument with a 14 year old the otherday because he said that the playstation sucked and that the Xbox and 360 were the best console ever. I tried to correct him pointing out that they best console was the sega master system. I could have frozen the universe with the line he uttered next "what the hell is a sega"...............Computer games are doomed.

P.S 2008 these games are now 10 years old and i remember getting excited about there release

StarCraft

GTA

Final Fantasy tactics (FOOKIN WHEY)

Baldurs gate

Half life

Gran Turismo

Tekken 3

Resident evil 2

WWF Warzone

Crash Bandicoot.

[sgx]

I was playing Rez HD last night and realized I played that game like 5 years ago on PS2. 5 YEARS? What the shit?

[Katsurugi]

I agree. There are a lot of games out there and typically, every new generation of consoles has a shorter and shorter lifetime now. But even with these realizations, I still feel old when I talk about some games, especially younger people. My most recent experience was when I was talking about the Tony Hawk series versus Skate with the younger brother of my friend. We both agreed that the series has gone downhill, but he was talking from a perspective of Underground and on while I was coming from THPS2.

Just don't really tell me the year things came out and I'll be okay. It's said when I find anniversaries for items. Last year was the 20th anniversary for Final Fantasy. I bought a FF OST from CDjapan with a discount and got a bonus item. I can't believe it's been 20 years. This kind of brings to mind what I might do when the 20th anniversary of Chrono Trigger rolls around. I just really don't know. I better be able to get some awesome merchandise on that day. Other than that, I just might sit around and do nothing for a good 30 minutes pondering my existence. Then, New Game+.

I've always been a gamer and I think I will continue to be. Personally, I think that the age of some games turns people off. Children in this generation are missing out on a lot of good titles. Some parallels can be made. I can see how Halo is this generation's Doom. But there are titles who deserve honorable mentions since they cannot be emulated in any way. Few are the constant fixtures in the game world like Tetris.

Some games I love to death:

Super Mario Bros. 3

Ninja Gaiden

Sam'n'Max: Hit the Road

Monkey Island series

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy 6

Suikoden 2

Warcraft 2

Starcraft

Duke Nukem 3D

Max Payne

Descent (including Freespace)

Zelda: Link to the Past

It's good to know that some games are made very well like Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and Eternal Darkness. But it's rather a tragedy that despite being an engaging gaming experience and quite polished, they don't do fantastic. If you haven't played Psychonauts for PC, I suggest you do so. I'm very happy that VC exists to work around the hardware unavailability. But in a more perfect world, every single game ever made would be on VC. (Goldeneye 64, anyone?) ;_;

[Palpable]

They should try getting 120 stars at SM64, or beat Zelda 2. They won't be able to. And we will. That's separating the men from the boys.

I never beat Zelda 2.

[Fenzark]

To be honest, I don't think anyone in their 20s should think about themselves as 'old'. We have experienced alot of stuff that the previous generation hasn't, and I am actually glad that I've seen gaming from NES and upwards. It does give some perspective. And while most kids these days seem to like FPSes and gore-filled games, I still take pleasure in playing a good Mario platformer or two. I think that's cool.

[jayc4life]

You know what both rules and sucks at the same time?

Getting 2 hours a week to play games as part of coursework (I'm doing Games Development, you see), but the hook is they have to be pre-1990. It's the reason I rediscovered how catchy the Chase HQ theme was (the one I requested, and nobody's picked up on it, probably because either these things take up a lot of people's time, or I just don't have enough posts to validate a petty request like that.) and more importantly, I've rekindled my love for International Karate +.

Commodore 64 ftw. Back when I was 3, my brothers got it for Christmas and Terminator 2 was our first game for it. Man, those were the days. Still hard to believe that was all of 15 years ago.

[Hum4n After All]

If anything I feel young. Even though I am. 18 years isn't that old.

[Sir_NutS]

Well I'm 25 and the things I enjoy the most (music, games) are most of the time over 10 years old, so yeah. It's not so bad tho.

[zykO]

about a month ago, i went to visit a friend. i had just played Jackal on the NES (i love that game more than i love you). afterwards, when i arrived at my friend's pad, we got faded and he showed me Assassin's Creed for the first time.

i felt like an old. fucking. man.

[q-pa]

I do remember the off-air television in TV channels, and that is pretty ancient.

You mean before they just went to paid programming during the late-night hours?

7AM Saturday morning Star-Spangled Banner FTW.

But back on topic:

It still jarrs me to hear the PS1 and Saturn described as "old-school." I suppose it's okay if these kids never grew up with old systems, but I know that it's never to late to enjoy them later in life--even if they're seen as a different type of "fun."

I only played the MegaMan series, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger and Yoshi's Island and beat SMB2 during my college years--and loved them all. I'm currently working my way through the GBA remakes of Final Fantasy 1-5.

Finally, I extend my sympathy to all of those who grew up in the pre-NES era, while the rest of us are talking about 8 and 16-bit systems. I suppose how I'll know how that feels all too soon...

[Oscillated Future]

I mean, in 50 years, S'Mario 64 won't just be old school, it'll be part of the golden oldies of gaming.

S'Mario 64 is and will be a classic for the ages. It definitely feels good to have been part of the console revolution.

[Armoured Priest]

....was the sega master system. I could have frozen the universe with the line he uttered next "what the hell is a sega"...

If I had a dollar for every time I've had that reaction happen after I mention the Master System. Then, they mistakenly think you're referring to the Genesis.

Also, I remember Christmas, 1980. I was 5, and dad had bought the family an Atari 2600. It came with "Combat". He also bought "Space Invaders", and "Outlaw". Thus, an addiction was born. The RF switch that came with the system wasn't even automatic. You had to toggle a switch to change the signal so that you could play.

[Rexy]

Gaming is a weird experience for me. Myself, I juggle a lot of the old and new stuff so whether it makes me feel old or young doesn't seem to baffle me. I bet it's leaning more to the latter though as when I was young, I rarely ever had anyone to talk to about my gaming experiences and I was paid extra pocket money for every end-level boss that I didn't chicken out of and give my father the controller to have a bash at.

Nowadays, I'm the kind of gamer that has homed their reflexes enough to get through most situations and can appreciate whatever that's given rather than trying to be a fanboy for a certain fad (I was a Sega/Sony kid but found loves with Mario and Kirby later on, and for Crash and Spyro my feelings aren't confined strictly to the games from their initial creators like most so-called "fans" are).

You know the kind of gamer that I could potentially be - the kind of person to look a generation or two behind, keep up with the modern stuff and still play some really old stuff in little time at all; the kind that somehow ends up with Tales of Symphonia, Super Mario Galaxy and Mega Man 2 on the go in the space of a week, for example.

I just see gaming as a pleasure of mine, something to escape from the real world to end up partaking in. It's only ever going to make me feel old if in five years from now, you feel as if you're starting to grow out of it all and games you remember as a kid become increasingly cuter and sickeningly unbearable as time would go on, like it's trying to end up doing to Kirby right now and has been doing after Kirby 64's release. (Someone needs to bring back Shimomura as a director; Sakurai's material, even Dream Land and Adventure, are too leniant for their own good.)

This is a rare out-of-the-Competition-forum post by Rexy. Ignore or respond at your own will.

[The wingless]

I've never quite understood the idea that reminiscing on games makes one feel old. I can comprehend the concept, I just don't understand it.

To me, thinking on where games and myself have been makes me feel elated and somehow... worldly. Games have grown up pretty much in tandem with me. My infancy was paralleled with the Vectrex, Coleco, Atari, and Commodore 64. My childhood, nintendo, sega, turbo graphix 16, 386's. My teens, playstations and pentiums. My college years, ps2s, xboxs, and gamecubes. And now in my twenty-somethings, 360s, ps3s, and Wiis.

It's exciting to have the knowledge that I have. To know that I was around when an O with an oomlat was a dragon. When the cut scene *was* the reward. And to parry that knowledge with specular lighting, motion capture, havok physics, online matchmaking...

You feel old?

Baby, I feel good.

...so the point, I suppose is that, if you feel that way, my God must it suck to be you :/

[EvilHorde]

I don't feel old, I'm just glad I've been there and seen the good old days. The first system I played was C64. I have nothing against new games but I'm still one of those "they just don't make games like they used to" guys. Back then games were just so simple and based on a one good idea. There's just something really heartfelt and passionate about those old classics. Now they're trying to make every game a huge movielike experience with big budgets and gadgets and whatnots. Thats why I really enjoy games like Super Monkey Ball, Kororinpa, Mario Party... Those laidback, simple, fun games.

But yeah, on another note, I just tried Rainbow 6 Vegas and its totally awesome, can't wait to play the heck out of that one, so I really can't complain about the "sad state of modern big-budget, big business games." I just doubt that after 10 years I'm still gonna remember that game and refer to it as one of the "good ol' games."

[Rexy]

Yeah, now that I think of it, this is a big comparison that I can see between what was my youth and what the youth of today have to endure.

Think about it - most of us ended up weilding controllers with nothing more than just a d-pad and 2 action buttons (maybe 3 if we were Sega kids). We were given the basics as a means to introduce ourselves to gaming as a whole. Then as time went on, more and more stuff gets thrown in in each passing generation, like added action buttons (mainly 4 or 6 depending on the controller), shoulder buttons, analog sticks, motion functions and the like - it sounds like a lot for a youth of today to end up taking in, or so we think.

So, how are we expected to get more youths introduced to gaming while escaping from the complexity of it all? That seems to get me thinking depending on the age of the child itself.

The first gaming experiences for two of my younger cousins was the more recent Super Princess Peach, which seemed to show a laid-back setup to introduce their target demograph. By that I see it to work well for the girls, though it makes me think where are boys going to go. I have a younger cousin about 5 who can't even get through the first level of New Super Mario Bros (though it's amazing on how he can at least get to the first checkpoint), yet although I know he's going to steady himself in time, it's really tough to find a means to introduce someone of his type to gaming without resorting to the cartoon cash-ins (namely Shrek and the like).

I find it weird that we as initial gamers ended up embracing simple setups while the kids tend to end up going through the more complex ones; maybe not straight away, but they could adapt to the situation a lot faster than we did (hence the RF discussion earlier). I bet nostalgia is undeniably going to vary from person to person too due to this, but we should at least appreciate games for what they are, not for how old they are.

[Poke'G]

Now that I think of it, anyone remember plugging in game systems to the RF switch instead of using the typical video ports? Now that is a really old way of doing things.

You think that's old, when my family bought an NES, we had to buy one of those rabbit ear adapters for the RF switch which was fastened to the TV set via two screws. It's still hooked up that way in my family's basement.

It's weird to consider that many high schoolers today were born after the advent of the SNES, which means that if they are first borns, it's pretty likely that they never played an NES.

Heck, I've read posts and blogs about people reminiscing about Star Fox 64 and other games circa '96 being their first forays into gaming because they were only four or five at the time.

[Dunnowhathuh]

Nah, though that might change 20 or 30 years from now. My chronic back injury definitely makes me feel old though.

[!Nekko!]

I remember connecting the Atari to our television using those two horse shoe shaped connectors that you had to use a screw driver to fasten.

[Doulifée]

Everything makes me feel old

yeah i concur, seeing what we have now... street of rage and final fantasy 6 still own a place in my museum of old goodies. and my first step was on a thomson mo7 with basic. Time when we could make our own Vg in the basement.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

All the games we grew up with shouldn't make you all feel old. They should make you feel proud.

These games were made back when all that mattered was pure, unadulterated fun. I used to be able to walk into Blockbusters and know that whatever SNES game I picked up would be fun as all hell. Soul Blazer, Super Metroid, Illusion of Gaia, Castlevania: Dracula X, etc. These games were all fun as hell.

As opposed to now, when I have to sift through loads of garbage hoping that there might be something worth playing. Last time I rented a game was back in like '05 when I finally got to play RE4.

Take heart, gentlemen as we've seen some of the best. Most of this new breed of teenager haven't had anywhere near the amazing experiences that we have. Instead of feeling old, you should feel pity.