Unstuck
The Good Old Days by Jimmy Glue
T
o quote a good friend, “back in the day, our idea of multiplayer was fighting your sibling for the controller”. There is no denying that times have definitely changed, but have gamers changed too quickly? Granted, we move with the speed of the latest technology, so let me revise my question. Are gamers spoilt? Not only spoilt in choice for games, but spoilt with innovation, technology, and all things remotely electronic. Referring back to my first comment, I grew up in a time where 2MB RAM with a 20MB hard drive was considered fast. I saw the floppy come and go, the USB making its appearance and owned a Genius Thumb Ball while it was still popular. (For those that don’t know, a Thumb Ball was like a mouse, but instead of moving the whole mouse around, you directed the cursor with only your thumb – on a ball.) Back in those ancient times, borrowing a game from a friend had the same attached excitement as when the ice-cream van came chugging down the road. The games were simpler, although it did take some serious floppy swapping to
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install Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis. Games weren’t complained over much, well, at least not in my house, as owning a new copy of Dune provided months - and I mean months - of unadulterated fun. Checking in on your friend’s game progress and trying to beat him to the credits was always considered a secondary objective. I raise the question of being spoilt just as the pricing and release dates for Microsoft’s Kinect and Playstation’s Move are announced. We are quick to jump on the wagon, flailing our controllers of unhappiness, but we sometimes forget how simple things were in the past – and we were happy. Now, if a game has the same graphics as two years ago, its considered old, redundant and most likely given the tag of horrible. True, technology has changed the way in which we develop games, and what’s the point if we can’t progress, but … And that’s why I raised the question. Let’s not even get into the games of today compared to the titles from yester-year. I mentioned Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis, so let’s use that as an example. The game was a point-and-click adventure with no dialogue (all the talking was text-based), the sounds were synthesized noises that came straight out of the PC case, and it’s
needless to say that the graphics were 8-bit. But still… we were happy. There was no talk of how bad the pixilated Indy was, or how scary the noises were, or having to click on ‘Use’, ‘Talk’ and ‘Walk’ to do any action. Making steady progress in technology, we have become accustomed to photorealistic graphics, Dolby Digital 7.1 and HD, 3D, LED, LCD and HDMI. What would the world be like if all of those things were never invented? Would we still be happily playing our little games, blissfully unaware of what we could have had? Ok, granted, I have also criticized a bad game – for I am one to call a spade a spade – but most games aren’t deserving of bad reviews. There has to be at least one factor that stands out, as I think the only real bad game would be a blank screen with a small light flashing in the corner (and then the game will have a title like Count The Blinks) I think we have become a bit spoilt, and I would even go as far to say arrogant, with the games that we so heartily enjoy today. Many people have poured their life savings into developing titles, and I think that we should really stand back a bit and appreciate what the little guy has done for the industry. Any advancement in technology we should see as a gift, not as a financial burden or wonky design, but as a trial run for things that will shape the world. So when you clean out your cupboard again, install that 8-bit sucker and enjoy the good old days. It was some of the best years in my life... pixilated graphics, monochrome screens, Thumb Balls and all. g
gamecca column • issue 14 • August 2010