Starting at 8bit

If you started playing video games at the time of 8bit dominance then you’re somewhere around my age, perhaps a little older. Kids growing up today are starting out with games and graphics we never would have dreamed of in the 8bit hay-day.

The other night I was visiting my cousin who is 6 years old… yes cousin not nephew, there’s a bit of a gap in age in my family… my uncle bought him one of those 50 games in 1 N64 looking controller games. He loves it, and was so excited to show me his new video game.

He loaded up the main screen and showed me this list of games. “Look at all the games I have,” he was so happy. He wanted to play “Spar” with me. It’s a wolf and a pig fist fighting 8bit style. It reminded me of the fighting in Blades of Steel. We then played a game called “Zero Gravity” where you have a parachute head and you have to bash other guys with helicopter heads. I was doing pretty well in that game, though the joystick on the controller is pretty terrible and actually got stuck more than once. Anyway he said to me “Have you played this game? You’re really good.” I had to tell him I’ve been playing video games since long before he was born and I hesitated and decided not to tell him that most games look a lot better than this. Didn’t want to break his heart.

So that got me thinking, when I was six the video games I played were pretty much on the same graphic level as the ones my cousin is playing. I was wowed by everything I saw and used my imagination to fill in the parts that were less wow. Especially in games where there was no real story that I was aware of.

While I think it would be great if he got a DS (I’m working on his mother… but its an up hill battle) playing with 8 bit games builds character and forces you to respect the games that came before today’s. I think the pre requisite for owning any current system is logging 100 hours on any 8 bit system.

Starting at Intellivision and ending at 360 and the build was gradual, so every generation has amazed me. After having thought for so long that there are too many kids today who don’t have the respect for old video games they should, but at the same time, I wonder how many other 6 year olds are starting at 8bit, and working their way up?