Events this weekend made me realise just how far we've come in the gaming industry.
Yesterday prompted a step back in time to my gaming past when, while visiting my parents who are packing for a move north, my father told me he'd found my old Atari 520ST computer and did I want it.
"Yes, please," I said - then realised he he hadn't been able to track down the floppy discs that the games were stored on or any video or power cables. Never mind, I thought, it can be a project over the next few months: get the Atari back up and running and see whether it transports me back to my youth. One of my first jobs is to see if it actually works and then try to see if I can track down some games.
I have fond memories of the Atari 520ST. I got it in the mid-80s (yes, mid-80s) after I'd had my Sinclair ZX Spectrum for a while and had loads of fun with it. Strangely, I can't remember many of the games I played on it but definitely remember playing Space Harrier, Speedball and Robocop for hours. I loved Robocop.
The keyboard had a flim of dust from years of being stored in various garage cupboards and some of the letters on the keys were a little faded but still looked good. I have a glimmer of hope that it still works ...
When we got home yesterday, Master Game Junkie, obviously still on this nostalgic roll, asked if we could plug in the Atari Flashback that we had, a plug and play console that connects to a TV and is preloaded with Atari 2600 and 7800 games, such as Centipede, Battlezone, Asteroids, Canyon Bomber and Yar's Revenge.
Master Game Junkie had fun playing games like Centipede and Battlezone for a bit then suddenly said someting like: "Man, games in the olden days were pretty boring," put down the controller and walked off. He'd had enough.
I have to agree with him. While Centipede was still as much fun as it was when I first played it, Battlezone just felt outdated and slow and even Asteroids had lost the charm of when I first played it. Perhaps some games should remain in the past but be a good reminder of just how far we've come in terms of game play and graphics and storytelling.
Now, let's see if I can track down a source for Atari 520ST games ...
How was your gaming this weekend? Did you have any moments of nostalgic gaming - or was it current generation all the way?
Stuff you might also find interesting: Game Junkie is on Twitter and you can email him here. You can also hear him on Kiwi FM every Tuesday chatting about video games with Glenn Williams, and, if that isn't enough, he has another gaming blog here. Check it out sometime. It's updated as often as he remembers.
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Oldest First
UFO: Enemy Unknown took up most of my weekend. The 2K remake better live up to the legacy...
It's not just really old games like on the Atari (or my first game machine - a Commodore 64), but all systems. I periodically remember with fondness all my old PS1/PS2 games - Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, etc. I must have rose tinted glasses on or something though, because as soon as I go back to play them (yes, I kept my old systems), I react with, "Ekk! These games are horrible", and back into storage they go. This cycle periodically repeats itself every few years.
Further to today's entry, my younger brother just reminded me that apparently our father made him play some games for hours until he'd managed to get the highest score so as to wipe out the sweary word I'd put on the high-score table. Ah, the good old days.
I started replaying Breath of Fire 3 on saturday, and have FF7 and FF9 ready to go!
I found a PS1 emulator (ePSXe) online too so have been digging out my old PS1 games ready to have a nostalgia weekend soon.
I found a Commodore 64 emulator and downloaded Wizball and Defender of the Crown (both files were about 50kbs each and took seconds to download on a dial-up modem circa 1999.
The latter game was a tad boring (and I still couldn't win a joust without spearing the horse) but Wizball was outstanding!
I tried out Star Control II - Ur Quan Masters on Saturday. Don't know if that counts as nostalgia as it's a Source Forge "work in progress". I'm not sure how good it's supposed to get, but I lost interest pretty quickly.
I have at least three suitcases full of Commodore 64 hardware and software. And no I'm not sharing mwahaha.
The nostalgic moments for me, have happened several times in the last few years where I get a massive hankering to play some good old school side-scrolling platformers, usually the one's that used to be in the Arcade. Like Aliens Vs Predator and always Metal Slug. There are emulators available which is good and just playing these games, even for a couple hours is just soooo much fun.
most nostalgia moments would be my C64, mastersystem II, snes and megadrive. C64 because they had the coolest games and many a day of school was wagged to play them! MSII for Alex Kidd and Astrix, Snes for my introduction to big RPG's and Megadrive for my intro to sonic, conversions of SF2 and MK. Ahhh the good old days, no stress or responsibilty and you could play games whenever you wanted :)
P.S. I'm pretty sure I owned the joystick in that cover picture. I've been through so many joysticks in my time, it's not funny. I was there when Quickshot introducted "Auto-Fire". How about that for nostalgia?
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After hearing Firaxis was going to reboot XCom, I downloaded the original XCom UFO :Enemy Unknown from steam for about $5 and have been furiously re-adicted to it ever since :-)