Generation Old

Whenever I reminisce about gaming as a child, my main memories consist of two things. The first is the memory of the first time I ever saw a Mega Drive. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember the awe I felt and the constant pestering to my mum, from then until christmas for one of my own. My second main memory is one of a fair few years later. I was a Sega kid, my best friend was a Nintendo kid and we were at each other’s houses constantly playing Mario, Sonic, Toe-Jam and Earl, Donkey Kong and Streets of Rage.

Of course, we never noticed how crap the graphics were, or how clunky the controls were, because we never knew any better. Our parents would tell us about their days playing Pong and Space Invaders and we laughed at how much cooler our games were. My mum bought me a TV Boy. If you don’t know what a TV Boy is, then basically it’s a lot of truly ancient games in one device (like Tic Tac Toe, about 50 different varieties of Space Invaders and a very basic Pac Man), which you plug into the TV. I actually remember being amazed at how games had progressed so much. I mean, it seems laughable now, with our cinematic cutscenes of today, but I mean, the TV boy had games where you would look at something and think ‘What on earth is that? Why is that square thing chasing that round thing?’ and ‘Oh my goodness, the sound is actually killing my ears!’, so when you go back to the Mega Drive after playing it for an hour, you really notice the differences.

I also remember seeing the Playstation graphics for the first time. It was so cool, it was something I had only imagined could happen. After only ever seeing 2D graphics, it was simply amazing to see realistic people, running around and everything! Of course, it took a bit of adaptation. Getting the hang of Tomb Raider took a very, very long time. The Playstation 2 came with ever more excellent graphics. I remember watching my uncle on Gran Turismo 3 and saying ‘Wow, that looks so real!’

Why am I going on this trip down memory lane, you might wonder?

Well, the thing is, as much as seeing these things for the first time may cause awe and excitement, I feel just a slight sadness for the kids growing up in this generation. Right now. I have a son, just turned 2, and his first memory of gaming will be the awesome graphics and storytelling of today. He will grow up used to the quality of games such as Mass Effect and the like, and it makes me wonder, will this new generation of kids care much for past games?

Gran Turismo 3 looked so realistic back in the day but of course you can see, if you went and played now, that it doesn’t actually look too realistic at all. The original Tomb Raider, such a groundbreaking game on its release, looks horrible now. Sure, it’s been remade, but I wonder if, when the day comes when I show the original to Aiden and say ‘This is what I played when I was young!’ he’ll just laugh and think it severely old fashioned, compared to the super cool games he’s playing.