Gaming evolution.

[Figarou]

Dang....I remember when I was a quarter-dropping arcade hero some 20 odd years ago. But the games I played back then can't compare to whats out today.

The whole gaming thing just starts passing you buy if you don't keep up with the trend. And even though I'm only 40, I might as well be shuffling along with a walker and holding a cone up to my ear.

When you guys get old, you're gonna be sitting down to play PS9 or Xbox 1280 or Nintendo Pii with your grandkids, and you'll be looking around like...... "Oookaaay, where's the controller?" and they'll just roll their eyes and say, "Controller? Grampa, you control the game with your MIND. Duh! Here, stick this on your forehead."

Pffft.

[Shadow Wulf]

So true. I remember back then I was obsessed with my super nintendo, I use to have a blast on that system , I also still hold my ps1 games close by, once in a while I'll play an old school game. Heck Im still nagging my friend to let me borrow Parasite Eve for the ps1. Unlike most gamers now, I look back to the past to see how far we came and actually miss those days.

[Xiroteus]

I know what is going on with video games, even though I am behind on owning systems, my last system was the Playstation One. I like to know what is going on so I hope I will not be clueless in the future, I doubt it since I like technology.

Do people even play arcade games anymore? I did a bit fifteen or so years ago, air hockey, not a video game, about the only thing that would stand out any longer.

I have tired playing older games for the Nintendo, most do not hold my attention other then good platformers. (Mario etc..)

[Kzinistzerg]

I still play games on my atari, so i don't know what you damn kids with your new-fangled computers and your controller with more than one button on them are doin'... *grumblegrumblegrumble*

[Lukas]

Do people even play arcade games anymore? I did a bit fifteen or so years ago, air hockey, not a video game, about the only thing that would stand out any longer.

of course they do, trip to japan anyone?

[Xiroteus]

Do people even play arcade games anymore? I did a bit fifteen or so years ago, air hockey, not a video game, about the only thing that would stand out any longer.

of course they do, trip to japan anyone?

I remember seeing that, I was half serious when I said that, since there are no arcades in the area, that could be a reason why they feel so distant.

[Midnight]

I used to play a few arcade games... back in the `eighties. "Vulgus" is one I still remember fondly. But back around `88, `89 when those horizontal scrolling "Conan" type games got popular I was never able to get used to games going sideways instead of up and down...

[Scott Gardener]

Yep, I know the feeling. I grew up during a time when 8 bit graphics were mind-blowing, and "Super Mario Brothers" was blowing Pac-Man out of the water. I fell behind because of other interests, followed by college and medical school, followed by this, that, and the other thing. Jump to today, and a PlayStation 3 plunked into my lap with Ratchet and Clank Future. Its visuals in 720p 3D-rendered glory just makes my nostalgia seem all the more quaint.

I remember the Atari 2600. One stick, one button. Now I'm looking on eBay to import a Dual Shock 3 controller, jumping the gun on its American release by several months. This bleeding edge instrument combines force feedback with motion sensing, and works wirelessly through Bluetooth radio frequencies up to thirty feet away; I could game in another room if I could see the screen. It's got two joysticks plus a third touchpad directional controller, plus the four iconic circle, X, square, and triangle buttons, plus four more buttons in front, plus "select" and "start," and one more PlayStation logo button in the middle. One controller, and it's got more controls than the entire NES console. That's just the controller.

Game consoles these days are better DVD players than DVD players. Home theater buffs routinely tout the PS3 as one of the best Blu-Ray players, and X-Box 360 can with a plug-in do a similar treatment with HD-DVD. Both can upscale regular DVDs to high def in their sleep.

And, game development has evolved. Modern games are produced like blockbuster movies on multi-million dollar budgets, with professional producing, acting, directing, and the like being a normal part of it--I remember when getting Mark Hammill for the game "Wing Commander 3" was unusual enough to draw tech headlines.

As for getting back into gaming, there's a bit of a humbling. While Ratchet and Clank was easy enough for an old fogie like me, some of the demos of first person shooters were pretty sobering. As I was trying to figure out which button does what, I got shot and killed frequently (Blacksite: Area 51 and Timeshift) and devoured by Velociraptors (Turok).

The demo of Turok itself summed up modern gaming and the sense of generations, as one of the other commandoes shouted at me, "if you fall behind, I'm leaving your a**!"

[JoshuaMadoc]

I played:

Powered Gear, Cadillacs N Dinosaurs, The Punisher, Tenchi Wo Kurau 2, Aliens VS Predator, Gunblade N.Y., Time Crisis, Sunset Riders, The Simpsons, etc. etc. All pre-2000s.

It takes me roughly 3 days to fully get used to some console's control config, so i'm confident that when i hit 60, i'll still take that long to get used to a new gadget.

[Scott Gardener]

Another thing I noticed, is that games today have a different goal as far as holding your attention.

When games were a quarter a pop, they were designed to get you killed off as soon as possible. You had three chances, and you earned additional chances through repeated play, in order to get you to chuck in more quarters. Home game consoles were at first based on these games, so they imitated this objective. Once the game was over, you started at square one. Then, the Nintendo Entertainment System introduced "cheat codes" that got you past several levels...

Fast forward to today, in which you're spending $60 up front, the equivalent of 240 quarters. Games today are designed to keep you going. I got Ratchet killed off hundreds of times; I joke about being personally responsible for the near-extinction of the Lombaxes. But, each time, I started over right next to the spaceship and the weapons dealer, with all my bolts and raritanium. Heck, getting killed so often helped me power up the character more by going back through the level.

[Aki]

Cadillacs N Dinosaurs,

Nostalgia!

I used to play that game tons when I was younger. Never got past the first few levels because I sucked terribly, being rather young and all. But still very fun.

It's kinda funny, because even though I'm young I can still remember some of the older days of gaming. I used to play Duke Nukem and some old adventur-ish game with some knight trying to get into this castle with a dragon to save a princess (Something Quest..can't recall. Dragon maybe? Or maybe Dungeon. Or maybe not even quest...) which was fun because when you screwed up (which I did, lots) you got a nice little sequence of you dying which was kinda fun to watch. Oh, and the Blade Runner game, heh. Never finished that either because I was too young and stupid to understand much, but it was still cool.

Oh, and the classic Goldeneye. That game was such fun back in the day. I'd spend so much time mining hallways just to explode all the mines, hehe.

The demo of Turok itself summed up modern gaming and the sense of generations, as one of the other commandoes shouted at me, "if you fall behind, I'm leaving your a**!"

I really need to play that demo. I used to love Turok back in the day.

I wanna kill dinosaurs again. It's been so long since there was a game about that. I wonder why, because man, dinosaurs make cool enemies. Especially T-Rexes because there are few dinosaurs as recognizable or as terror-inducing as them.

[Faolan Bloodtooth]

My brother and I are retro game fanatics pretty much

We have Midway arcade collection, Sega Collection, Sonic Collection and a few others i forget the name of

But the game i've been playing the most right now is retro as...

Final Fantasy I

Yes that's right, the original Final Fantasy on my almost destroyed NES

Gotta love old games!

[Wulfur]

By the way the whole thing about playing a game with your mind is already existant it jsut has a problem of diffrent thoughts do diffrent actions for diffrent people.

[tyger]

hehe I watch back to the future part two and laugh. when it gets to the part with the two kids in the cafe plugging it in and seeing that you use your hands the comment cracks me up everytime. " aw... you gotta use your hands?.. that's like a baby's toy. " anyway my favs have always been pac-man and Donkey kong. I still sing the song pacman fever and take a huge nostagia trip when I hear those sound effects.

[Scott Gardener]

I remember that scene; it was classic. The future shock of seeing a "retro" eighties bar (back in the eighties, when I watched it, a rental on VHS tape) was pretty funny. I figured that kids in 2015 would see Pac Man type games as pretty simplistic, such as the one featured in the movie. Note, however, that as primitive as that game looks today, it's clearly got elements of some of the most popular cutting edge games, such as a first person shooter theme and the use of real motion props not unlike the Wii in basic idea, even if not the same kind of technology. I have found most die-hard gamers to be quite respectful of older titles that contributed to the evolution of today's games.

As a side note, I'm really enjoying playing through Okami. Yes, it's a PS2 title that's about two years old now, but it's still pretty cutting edge, and my PS3's upscaling to 1080p makes it look pretty eye-popping. What gets me is how games have evolved into a very emotional, story-driven element. I never actually got scared for the Princess in Super Mario Brothers the way I do for the people of Kamiki Village.

[Blue-eyes in the dark]

Not so fig, i find that i enjoy old school much better than most of the new wave. like castlevania, golden axe, knights of the round, old tmnt, streets of rage, river city ransome, mother 1-2 (or some may know them as earthbound)

there are so much more but i just can't seem to put them to text. lol

[WereWolfBoy]

i know i love those old school ones too i played sonic the hedgehog when i was grwoing up and streetfighter.

[Scott Gardener]

Shows my age. To me, "old school" is Pac-Man, Defender, and Centipede.

[outwarddoodles]

As a side note, I'm really enjoying playing through Okami. Yes, it's a PS2 title that's about two years old now, but it's still pretty cutting edge, and my PS3's upscaling to 1080p makes it look pretty eye-popping.

I've heard on the grape-vine Okami is coming out for the Wii. The game has distinctively similair dynamics to Zelda games such as Twilight Princess, which I've heard is why Nintendo is excited to add it to it's ever-growing Wii collection. (Except that I feel as though Okami was the last PS2 game with a unique and refreshing art style -- most companies only focus on more and more realistic graphics.) So, if you adored Okami, I'd recommend downloading a Nin-64 emulator and playing Zelda:Ocarina of Time.

Which leads me to another point. All you peoples who had to shell out the big bucks for your Atari and NES, my generation is downloading it free off the internet. I've been using a SNES and Gameboy emulator for years, due to my older brother's fanatic adoration for retro-styled games (he fancies himself an atari connoisseur, visiting the retro-game tables at flee-markets and having regular fanboy-moments every time he sees one of his favourite titles for sale. His prized possession most likely being his recently-bought Atari.).

In some ways, I can almost say I can sympathize with older-gen gamers. I was surprised, and even slightly horrified, to check out Nintendo's website more than a year ago to find gameboy color and Nintendo 64 to be including under retro systems, right along with NES, SNES and Original Gameboy! Now, the only two consoles existing on the Nintendo website are the Wii and Nintendo DS In retro-spect, I'm not longer surprised, being that the gameboy colour is now three systems behind in the nintendo handheld scene, and the 64 now two consoles behind. In fact, now a days, graphics that were released on the '64, which were, by that time, pretty damn amazing, are now being completely mimiced on the DS. Whatever happened to four shades of gray?! I had such a fangirl moment when I saw three-dimensional Pokemon RPG on a DS! (on a side note: I don't think I can count how many times I've called the DS a gameboy DS. I'm assuming Nintendo had politcal correctness-issues?).

I'll have to admit though. I'm really spoiled when it comes to video games. Save for the old-timer RPGs, RTS games like SimCity, and exciting platformers like Donkey Kong and Sonic, I can't stand retro-games. They're so boring!! Give me my '360 any day over my SNES!

On the other hand, I can't understand how children younger than me can even get into games. My little sister, 9, used to take time to get past the Title screen on Guitar Hero (to this date, she's trying to beat the Devil in Guitar Hero III, I'm so proud she's almost beaten Easy.). And I remember beating Ocarina of Time at her age. Without the more simplistic gameplay of older consoles to build herself up, I can't imagine how I could ever train her to play something like Halo. I really wish I still had my '64, and I'd let her loose all over Starfox 64. I wouldn't say this is an issue of Age and understanding either. My dad had difficulties beating Guitar Hero on Easy, too (although is proficient at computer RTS games like Age of Empires, Sims-games, and Civilization.).

And on, the other other hand. I'll admit to being a button-mashing snob. Twilight Princess on Wii or Gamecube? Gamecube please! Does that make me a little behind on the gaming scene?