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Can kids master the video games their parents loved?
- jncfhnb 2y agoThe internet and availability of knowledge has rendered most of these games much easier than the original audience had it
- noobermin 2y agoI actively avoid googling information about games because it cheapens the experience. I don't know why you'd want to do such a thing.
- PUSH_AX 2y agoBecause you’re playing a souls game and you can only take so much suffering?
- jncfhnb 2y agoElden ring in particular is just full of shitty unintuitive knowledge checks that are not easily learned by trial and error.
- Tainnor 2y agoI absolutely hate how they won't explain crucial gameplay details (never mind the confusing story/lore) and somehow that's part of the experience. DS2 seems particularly bad (case in point, that ridiculous adaptability stat - also I had now idea where to go 90% of the time). That said, DS1 is still a great game that's insanely replayable.
- vintermann 2y agoMany games these days assume that you will. Minecraft was until recently a prime example.
- danlitt 2y agonethack and dwarf fortress are classic examples of this property
- aidenn0 2y agoNethack predates google by quite a bit.
- noobermin 2y agoSome might but most don't. If they did, they wouldn't have long laborious tutorial levels.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoNah, those that don't expect you will figure itbout with 1000 hours of trial and error usually, which is not really acceptable
- danlitt 2y agoOf course you know why! Good on you for resisting, though.
- rcxdude 2y agoFor me it strongly depends on the game. A self-contained narrative game or a puzzle game? No, figuring it out from what's in the game is the point. A sandbox game, especially a small early-access one with a nonexistant/incorrect/broken tutorial? Hell yeah. Also competitive RTS and FPS games. PVE FPS and platformers it's not so useful to do so until you're already somewhat OK at the game and you want to do something like speedrunning it.
- inasio 2y agoPlus the potential availability of the parent that had already mastered it
- vundercind 2y agoMy kids have no idea how good they have it with parents who understand “hold on, I just need to make it to the next save!”
- tstrimple 2y agoOr parents who understand you can't just pause a multi-player game.
- jdwithit 2y agoIt cuts both ways, though :) My son is obsessed with the Switch Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. You can save at almost any time, plus the game autosaves constantly. He always tries to pull BUT DAD I GOTTA SAVE GIMME A FEW MORE MINUTES. Sorry bud, I saw the autosave icon pop up 10 seconds ago, you're good.
- Jensson 2y agoVideos showing how to beat every single game really helps as well, much easier to learn how to play a game by watching someone play than reading a guide in a magazine.
- tines 2y agoI think the ubiquity of gameplay videos really takes something away from the experience. I feel like it puts you in a different mindspace when you're "unspoiled" and seeing everything for the first time. And having to experiment, discover, and make progress through only your own brainpower is like, better for your brain in some way I feel, than it is to go running to a guide to give you the answer every time you can't figure out what to do in 30 seconds.
- rufus_foreman 2y agoI learned arcade games in the early 1980's mostly by watching someone else play. When a new game showed up, I would typically watch people play for at least a couple hours before putting a quarter up. I wasn't rich.
- Arrath 2y agoYeah but consider that videos don't have the sheer swagger of a 1.4mb blob of text on GameFAQs headed by a lovingly rendered piece of ascii art.
- valiant55 2y agoI got stuck at the age of 6 in Link's Awakening for the OG Gameboy. I convinced my mom to let me call the tip hotline so I knew how to progress. I was stuck just before the seventh? dungeon where you need to revive the rooster to fly over the pit to the entrance. I had the revival song and level two bracelet but for the life of me couldn't figure out what to do next. After about 5 questions where I answered yes to all of them the gentleman on the line directed me to the town satue. I remember my mind being blow when I discovered GameFAQs.
- jmkr 2y agoIn Sonic 3 there is a carnival level. At a certain point in the game there's this spin bouncing platform you need to move to get past. Many hours/days spent trying to get past that part. Year later, in college I was thinking back on it and I looked it up, turns out it should have been much easier. Seeing your comment made me look it back up. Apparently it's called "the barrel of doom" and well known. Before discovering GameFaqs, some games just ended at a certain part because you were lost.
- tiltowait 2y agoI figured that one out only by luck (I got bored and decided to spin dash), and only after multiple lives lost due to running out the clock. I don’t think it’s even supposed to be that hard, but the way the platform bounces down if you jump on it gives you the entirely wrong idea as to the solution.
- ubertaco 2y agoThat and the fact that it gates progress entirely using a mechanic that had, up to that point, never really been introduced -- you might have noticed it on accident, but the whole design of the game (go fast from left to right, jumping sometimes) and, as you mentioned, the fact that it bounces when you jump on it, lead you to have no idea how to solve it correctly. My spicy take is this: that particular obstacle is not "they upped the difficulty", but is instead "they designed this poorly."
- riwsky 2y agoFromSoft would like a word.
- jFriedensreich 2y agoi wonder much less if they can versus how much exposure to high fidelity AAA games and movies is enough to not be able to enjoy or connect to the classic games i loved. i hope i will find out one day.
- idiotsecant 2y agoHow much do you love playing cup-and-ball? I think that is your answer.
- throwawee 2y agoCup-and-ball popularity fell off but net-and-ball is going strong.
- radicalbyte 2y agoMy son, 10, is way better than I ever was at the games of my childhood. Although he has gamed since he was 4, I only get a computer (C64) when I was 11. It was old at this (this was 1991).
- wil421 2y agoCan he beat a bunch of NES or SNES games? Does he have to keep his Nintendo on all week so his friends can resume playing next weekend? DONT UNPLUG IT MOM! Does he have a near impossible level where the one random neighborhood kid has to come over and beat it? Did he have to buy GamePro or another magazine to understand how to beat something? What about that one unintuitive Sonic level on Sega Gensis? The one where you had to press down or up, can’t remember but we’d always run out of time. Don’t get me started on Battletoads or TNMT. Kids these days have it easy. Mom, hang up the phone you disconnected my AOL and I need to beat Pokémon Red. Get off my lawn.
- garciasn 2y agoMy son is absolutely mind-boggingly good at video games compared to me. We played the Q1 port on the Switch and he had several maps mastered in a day, along with RJing, jumping in general, and aiming in a way which took me months to master. I apparently sucked at video games but he is definitely able to crush on anything I have thrown at him from back in the day, all the way back to NES on Retropie.
- wil421 2y agoI didn’t have the reaction time until I was a little bit older. Good for your kid! My kids are to young but they like watching me play Pokémon. I tried to show them Mario Kart on switch but they didn’t have the attention span to play. What games did you start with?
- Suppafly 2y ago>Kids these days have it easy. Sure but also a bunch of people in this thread have been vastly over-estimating how many of their peers actually beat a lot of these games. Plus modern games have plenty of stupidly challenging levels. I pretty much fail on any game that makes you make dozens of perfectly placed jumps in a row or walk across narrow platforms and end up having my kids complete those for me.
- stevekemp 2y agoI've told my child, 7, that when he completes the original Super Mario Bros he can get a switch and play mario-kart. He consistently gets to the end of 8-2, so he's damn close, and he loves the game! Though he has a slight preference for Kirby, also on the original NES. Most of his friends seem to be obsessed with Minecraft, and Ultimate Chicken Horse, to the extent that when he had a friend over I overheard him saying "Mario is old, but it's still fun!" in Finnish. So I guess there's hope for me yet :)
- tstrimple 2y ago> Most of his friends seem to be obsessed with Minecraft, and Ultimate Chicken Horse It's really difficult to compare creative multiplayer games like Minecraft with Super Mario Bros. I think it's perfectly natural for kids to prefer to play games they can actually play together. Especially sandbox games that allow people to play the same game with drastically different play styles. When I play Minecraft with my kids, I'll go hunting and scavenging with my son and we'll use the resources collected to build out and decorate a village with my daughters. They all have learned about redstone enough to start automating some of their own builds. This is all vastly more engaging than taking turns watching each other play a single player game.
- therein 2y agoI entirely agree, something special about multiplayer sandboxes that spark something that cannot be sparked otherwise. Next level would be to play Rust together. Organizing boxes at home while parents are out to gather resources when raiders arrive. Back to our roots.
- stevekemp 2y agoAgreed, completely different games. When he plays minecraft he alternates between trying to build things he knows, or just wandering around and placing dynamite everywhere to blow things up.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y ago
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago> They’ve now independently played through Pokémon Shield, which is vaguely set in Britain, if Britain were comprised entirely of castles, villages and London. I dunno, sounds about right to me. I wonder what it is about games that grab some kids but not others. I was hooked from the very first time I saw Mario on my dad's NES at about age 4. Tons of other kids in the same age and same situation shrugged and gave it a pass.
- Barrin92 2y agoOne of the games that it turned out my dad loved, but that I randomly stumbled on here on HN first is Star Control II, or in this case the open source remake of it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925538 Was absolutely surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I think the late 80s and 90s are a particularly timeless period given how much strength there often was in the artistic direction. To me a lot of stuff from the early 2000s actually holds up less well.
- sumtechguy 2y agoThat game was bonkers when it came out. Reminds me I should give it another run. It is also one of the few games that used the pc speaker in a way that was not just random beeps. When I heard that I had to spend a few days figuring out the timer chip to make it so I could do something similar.
- nwellinghoff 2y agoStarCon II adventure mode remains one of the best games I have ever played. Really took you in. My friends and I would all sit around the computer and play it for hours. Some good old Melee action was always great as well. BTW the O.G. creators are getting together and finally making a sequel! https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2024/04/kickstarter-launch-incoming/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/2024/04/kickstarter-launch-inc...
- aidenn0 2y agoHow did I miss that! Thanks for the heads-up.
- currymj 2y ago2D games were a relatively mature medium by the 90s, so the games people were making by then were just good. It took a long time before people developed a set of conventions after the general switch to 3D games. So a lot of the games from the late 90s - early 2000s period might have been really innovative and sold well, but often aren't very fun to play today unless you are a connoisseur of weird old games. it's almost like the slow shift away from silent film -- studios invested in it hugely and there were blockbuster talking pictures, but it took a while before people really figured out how to handle it artistically.
- smprather 2y agoI clicked link expecting the likes of Defender and Joust. Nope.
- PopAlongKid 2y agoI too was hoping for something about the 25-cents-per-play video arcades, I was partial to Xevious and Gravitar. (Which are still available in one form or another, either on PC or Playstation). Except, I was already not a kid at the time, late 1970s to mid 1980s peak game arcade experience. Maybe the title should include "games their grandparents love".
- empressplay 2y agoThere's a local retro video arcade frequented by all ages and the older patrons dominate the high score tables :)
- vintermann 2y agoI think your expectations of how long generations are, are a little off...
- joezydeco 2y agoMy kid wanted to try my Robotron 2084 standup in the basement. He first got confused by the lack of continues, then just gave up because he was playing for free.
- kingkongjaffa 2y agoThis article is dumb the modern pokemon meta is harder and more complex than when we were kids. Fps on the other hand, I’m pretty sure I would smoke 99% of kids on halo3 or call of duty 4.
- kingkongjaffa 2y agoThis article is dumb the modern pokemon meta is harder and more complex than when we were kids. Fps on the other hand, I’m pretty sure I would smoke 99% of kids on halo3 or call of duty 4.
- noobermin 2y agofpses since Call of Duty are a different breed. The Quake skill ceiling...just didn't exist. I'm not sure such a thing is politically correct now in modern games (read okay with management given they want to sell cheap dopamine, not adrenaline)
- thot_experiment 2y agoCoD/Val still have a skill ceiling most people will never reach, I sorta agree with you though, esp battle royale style games are only popular because you don't have to be good to win. In quake if you're bad you will never take a game off me, in Apex you might get lucky.
- nine_k 2y agoTo play Quake or Counter-Strike competently, you have to use a PC, a keyboard, and, crucially, a mouse. A console controller can't hope to compete. And a ton of players play on consoles from a sofa, before a large TV. To capture this audience, the FPS games had to slooow doooown.
- galkk 2y agoDon’t forget that many tvs also have horrible lag, even in “game mode”.
- aidenn0 2y agoCounterStrike (back when it was an HL mod) was the last game I really got good at. And by good I mean "somewhat competitive people didn't hate having me on their team" not "I was the MVP." I sunk a lot of time into doing so.
- 2y ago
- wslh 2y agoThere are always more stupid questions that we can imagine. If you just look an average kid playing something like FIFA you would have an answer immediately. In FPSs you can confuse kids with real military personnel. Regarding interest, I think less sophisticate games such as Minecraft has an appeal because they have a social aspect and this depends of the specific kid. In general, their parents games are super easy comparing with today's games. Mainly arcade.
- danlitt 2y agoOf course they can't, the majority of them are rendered unplayable by the manufacturer. For the consoles I played as a kid, this is just tongue-in-cheek, but it is quite likely kids today will not be able to even show their children the games they grew up with. Duck FRM.
- VonGuard 2y agoThe Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment specializes in generational knowledge exchange through the medium of video games. There is nothing that warms my heart more than watching that information transfer in real time. Watching a parent explain to their child how to properly hold an N64 controller. Watching the child's mind explode as mom/grandma/dad/gramps shows them the warp zone in level 1-2 of Super Mario Bros. Frequent "Mom doesn't know about video games, how'd she do that!?" kind of quotes from the kids. Watching dad and daughter charge through a Sierra adventure game, looking up the manual in Archive.org and figuring out 40 year old puzzles together. The family that plays together, stays together.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoI assumed you needed 3 hands to properly hold it, since the day i started using it
- robertlagrant 2y agoThat sounds great!
- ryandrake 2y agoIt would be great if my kid was into the video games I was into as a kid, but I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that she's a different person, grew up in a different environment, has different expectations out of video games. You can't force someone to like something. Same with movies and music. I tried to get her into Harry Potter and Star Wars and the kid/teen movies I grew up with like The Goonies and Flight of the Navigator, but those movies just so old to this generation, and there's nothing in it for them to relate to. It's like trying to get "11 year old me" into The Howdy Doody Show.
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoAnd the thing is there is plenty of new content targeting that generation that is very good. There is a lot of changes in cultural values and norms that just aren’t captured by all our old 1980’s movies. For example views on gender, race and sexuality are wildly different than what we encountered as 80’s kids. Not to mention socioeconomic and geopolitical changes too. That isn’t to say that 1980’s movies are garbage. Far from it. It’s just like the parent said… trying to get 12 year old me into old junk like pink panther or whatever cartoons were watched in the boomer era. I mean hell, half the plot lines in older shows don’t work if everybody has a powerful internet connected computer in their pocket.
- kleton 2y agoOedipus Rex doesn't work if there are paternity tests but that doesn't mean it can't be appreciated.
- borggambit 2y agoI would say the topics mentioned were basically non-topics in movies of the past unless explicit like Mississippi Burning. I think it is more like the Matrix. Super relevant with AI but traveling through phone lines and pay phones, what? It would have to seem so dated the way black and white movies have always just felt too distant for me.
- KingMob 2y ago
- localfirst 2y agoi've been looking for these two ROM packs for NES forever First mystery ROM: It was called 101-in-1 or one of those bootleg multiple games in one cartridge and there is a menu list of all the games you can play and at the bottom there is two crab like characters walking towards the center from the left and right and when they meet they pull away from each other but different color. The games in this cartridge were insanely tough. Second mystery ROM: side scroller but there is this weird dune like worm monsters, definitely not kid friendly as the game had creepy images but it was the hardest game I ever played on the NES
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoWhy would I torture them. When I look at old games, I'm always shocked about why I endured some of the terrible design choices. I'm so glad for modern game design and don't torture my children with old stuff. Doesn't mean they get life easy, I let them play at stuff that's harder than their current age and they get plenty of frustration: put a 3 years old on new super mario bros u and see what happens.
- jader201 2y agoWe must have played different games/consoles. Maybe your reference point is Atari 2600, in which case I’d agree with you. But NES/SNES, and other consoles that followed are far from “torture”. I’ve gone back and played — and enjoyed — some of these games even recently. Sure some of them lack polish, and don’t handhold you to learn the game — that’s what the manuals were for! But my son, who just turned 17, played through — and beat — several NES games a couple years ago and had a blast (SMB 1-3, and Mega Man 1-3).
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoNo, I'm talking about NES/SNES/PS1/N64 era. My children are much younger than yours though: 3 and 6. The reflexes are just not there yet. Of the old games, I probably can replay Castlevania SOTN, Super Smash Bros 64. I can make personal exceptions for Super Mario World 2, but not for my children, those games are highly unforgivable, even for stuff that repeats over and over: dying puts often you so far back in the level that after 10 deaths, they correctly get frustrated with the game, it's not fun anymore to repeat the same part that you already know can do. And the gameover offers no value, but it's there ready to annoy you. For the others many game I've played, they are all full of farming, permanently missable secrets or poor punishments for failing. I played them back then and loved them, but I was trying to play Final Fantasy VIII recently (I played JRPGs extensively as a child) and I was going to vomit over the amount of farming and boring battles that are there. I remember picking back up the legend of dragoon as an adult and the dialogues were atrocious. Castlevania SOTN aged well because the exploration is still incredible, but the challenge of the gameplay (combat) drops significantly once you can read English and can make some strategy: all bosses end up being very easy. The thing we lost are couch co-op games: bomberman 64, bomberman world, baldur's gate dark alliance 1 and 2 (I know there are the remasters, but those are indeed remasters) and such, these are so rare now, you need two computers every time.
- stonethrowaway 2y agoIt’s very hard to say. I’m aged in gamer years, and over the last few decades I’ve seen the average age of gamer climb much higher than I expected. When I played Amiga or NES or GameGear, it was strictly in the kids territory. Adults sat around drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and having a chat. Talking business. Nowadays I think the average age is nearing 35? Has it passed it? Teens and young adults met up in PC Cafes but that era is gone, so now it’s all online. Are kids going to be better than someone with 25-30 years of experience? Can they play FPSs better than the CAL generation of counter-strike players? Kids who spent their teenage years evening after evening meeting up to play Melee games? It’s doubtful. Envious of new graphics? Not really. As a kid the games captivated me for what they were. Games strived to be unique, original. I think they’ve succeeded. My point of comparison for TailSpin was the tank (or ape) aiming game where you both sight the other and press fire, and TailSpin looked miles better with rain and thunder effects. No envy on my part, I got my “wow” many, many times over. Defeating Joker in Batman after 100+ playthroughs is triumph enough.
- theshackleford 2y ago> When I played Amiga or NES or GameGear, it was strictly in the kids territory. Adults sat around drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and having a chat. Most of the adults in my life gamed growing up. I’ve got photos of my old man draped over the couch playing the master system from the early 90s. It was my grandmother who introduced me to computers through sharing the games she loved with me. She was particularly fond of Duke 1 and 2 and wolfenstien 3D
- bitwize 2y ago> It’s very hard to say. I’m aged in gamer years, and over the last few decades I’ve seen the average age of gamer climb much higher than I expected. I remember being in the car and talking to my sister about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My dad's face crinkled up in a mixture of confusion and disgust. "Teenage... Mutant... Ninja... Turtles? Teenage... Mutant... Ninja... Turtles?" These days I see dads the age he was then, walking with their kids, and they're both rocking TMNT T-shirts. The same with Zelda or other franchises I love. I'm convinced that people my age and younger are sort of living an extended childhood. I don't know whether I should feel bad about this... but I don't.
- Modified3019 2y agoMost old games need serious modding before I’d actually recommend them, because they are haunted by lots of terrible design choices. Secret of Mana holds a special place in my heart, but really needs the Turbo romhack to really enjoy. The great thing about this romhack, is that it’s multiple hacks gathered into a system that allows easily activating or deactivating the parts you want: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27890.0 https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27890.0
- deafpolygon 2y ago"- Removes stamina (attacking / running / blocking)" That's a core part of the gameplay and trivializes a lot of encounters.
- ehnto 2y agoI can't even play at a level I used to be able to play in the games I loved, I imagine they would fair a bit better given the time. I think it is time too, I can't dedicate 4 straight hours to a single game problem like I could before, and I can't get the reps in for competitive game training like I used to. Competitive games need a "masters" category for washed up casuals!
- j_timberlake 2y agoI hope they never know what it was like playing World of Warcraft in 2006, when quests sometimes asked for 10 of an item with a low drop rate, from mobs with a low spawn rate.
- Eumenes 2y agoWould love to see my kids master games like Ultima Online or Everquest ... too bad nothing like that exists today.
- aidenn0 2y agoReally? Everyone I know who could be described as having mastered Everquest flunked out of college. I'm fortunate that I could never get into those games. I beta tested UOL and tried everquest for about 6 months.
- Eumenes 2y agoLol well, yes, I wouldn't want them to spend as much time as I did on them. But I ran a guild and learned alot of important social skills that translated well to the business world.
- toast0 2y agoUO today isn't the same as UO back in the day, but it's still around. There's a community of reverse engineered servers that he plays on for free, he got tired of paying for the real server. Can't really get the same experiences without the people though.
- alexpotato 2y agoOne of my favorite intersections of classic video games and modern emulation is that there are updated versions of Tecmo Bowl that have current players and rosters. I have an eight year old and he likes playing Tecmo Bowl with his friends b/c: - it has the current teams he and his friends know and like - the learning curve is pretty quick so you can get up and running with someone who has never played in only a few minutes See https://tecmobowl.org/files/file/779-tecmo-super-bowl-2023-presented-by-tecmobowlorg/ https://tecmobowl.org/files/file/779-tecmo-super-bowl-2023-p... for more info.
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoThe tecmo super bowl NES rom is not that hard to hack from a roster standpoint. Pretty basic with rudimentary knowledge of hex and a hex editor. Hm, I wonder if they have increased the number of teams on modern roster hacks, I should check on that.
- aidenn0 2y agoI played a hack a few years back; they didn't just change the roster and team locations/logos. They also added in 4-3 defenses for teams that use it, which impressed me.
- robin_reala 2y agoFor people who didn’t watch British TV in the 90s, Dominik Diamond (the last parent in the article) compèred GamesMaster, which was the video games show. Although I guess we all read Digitiser as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GamesMaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GamesMaster
- Xcelerate 2y agoI grew up in the 90s, and the time period during which something was created seems to have little correlation with whether I like it or not. My grandmother had an original Nintendo with Super Mario Bros 3, and I much preferred that over whatever was recent for the time (GameCube?). I never got into modern multiplayer video games, and old school Tetris remains one of my favorite games to this day (along with the 40 line clear variant). Some of my favorite music was written hundreds of years ago. Or a few decades ago. Or in the 90s. Or now. There's good stuff and bad stuff across all time periods. I discovered the Miyazaki films way into adulthood, but that didn't affect how much I enjoyed them. It seems like more of a personality thing whether someone is willing to give old stuff a "chance" or whether they only gravitate to the latest stuff that their friends are interested in.
- joseda-hg 2y agoI've had the experience of something being more enjoyable as a Child, less because of the time period and more because the nature of the art just worked better for who/what I was at the time I've seen for example Narnia's book series mentioned as an example of this
- soulofmischief 2y agoFor frame of reference, the original Nintendo wasn't discontinued until 1995. The GameCube wasn't released until 2001. I do find it fascinating how many thousands or tens of thousands of man-hours might go into developing a video game or other interactive media, but the shelf-life for mass enjoyment and cultural relevancy is measured in years or at most a decade or two, unlike more traditional forms of non-interactive media such as literature, photography, painting or even film. In the case of video games this is particularly true today due to rapid advances in graphics and computing capabilities, and also rapid evolution in game design and mechanics. For example, a large swath of early 3D games suffer from outdated control schemes such as "tank controls" which anyone outside of enthusiasts might find too jarring for enjoyment. Some titles have thankfully gotten rereleases with improved mechanics and QOL, and have found new audiences. I imagine this is logarithmic and that video game shelf life will expand over time? Unless interactive media and technological progress are forever entwined.
- PetitPrince 2y agoI know it's kind of an exception, since it's such a "pure" game, but still: one of best NES Tetris player right now is currently 14 (he was born 20 years after the game was released) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Gibson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Gibson
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWhen I try to get my 12 year old interested in the games I played as a kid I get laughed out of the room with side-eye "boomer" comments (I'm Gen-X, but "boomer" seems to be slang for "anyone over 40" these days). It's all in good humor, but there's no competing with what's out today. That being said, he is playing Skyrim V which was released 13 years ago ...
- bitwize 2y agoI got my sister a NES Classic to play with with her kids. Her boyfriend hacked it and put every single NES ROM on it. The kids' conclusion? The graphics suck, and they much prefer Xbox.
- flobosg 2y agoThe article reminded me of Andy Baio introducing his son to video games in chronological order – https://waxy.org/2014/12/playing-with-my-son/ https://waxy.org/2014/12/playing-with-my-son/
- honkycat 2y agoSomething has absolutely been lost in the transition to 3d and voice acting, and all of that crap. When I was a kid, I was playing games made for adults, or at least teenagers. Mega Man X, Super Mario World, Turtles in Time, Metal Slug... those games were tough! I learned to read from Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. We would go to our mom as 4 and 5 year olds and beg her to teach us so we could play these mysterious games with amazing graphics and music. We all went into kindergarten learning to read, and I tested at a 12 grade level in 3rd grade. --- Modern game design in some ways is better than it ever has been. Games like Dead Cells have taken the arcade "keep starting over" mechanic and fine-tuned it into an amazing mechanic. Elden Ring has such rich, amazing lore, coupled with a challenging adventure game with awesome combat, and the ability to build a character to fit your personality. Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a real tabletop RPG, it really is the zenith of modern RPG storytelling. However, something has been lost in translation. Beat-em-ups, SHMUPs, and character action games like: - Devil May Cry 3 - Godhand - E.S.P. Ra.De - Ninja Gaiden Sigma - Resident Evil 4 - Streets of Rage 3 - Contra - Metal Slug - Alien vs. Predator ( the beat-em-up ) are not simple games, as they first appear. They are challenging masterpieces that emerged from arcade genres, and were developed by former arcade developers. They have intricate scoring systems that let you push-your-luck and be rewarded with a higher score. Your competition was the other kids in the arcade, and climbing that leader-board. The ultimate achievement was a 1cc, clearing the entire game on one credit. Bonus points if you get a high score! They came from a culture where scoring systems mattered. Modern games are great, but I miss the old days. There is a youtuber called "The Electric Underground" who has some great content on arcade game and character action game design. Highly recommend his review of Resident Evil 4 Remake.
- Yeul 2y agoI sometimes read alarming articles in the media about literacy rates and attention spans. I played Planescape Torment and other text heavy games in my teens.
- lacker 2y agoOne day I told my son, "You should check out this video game I loved when I was your age. You adventure through a huge underground empire, collecting magical treasures and weapons." He got excited, and then I loaded up Zork. "Here you go!" West of House You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here. ...he looked at me expectantly, waiting for something to happen. "Aren't you going to load the game up, Dad?"