28 January 2008

Relive your childhood. (Or maybe mine.)

So I'm sure that with all these gaming posts, I'm alienating some of my readership. (Not that it's that big, anyway.) I've thought a bit about it and realized that I really just gots to be me. I love video games and since it's Winter-een-mas and all, what better time of the year to fully embrace my affection for the digital gaming world?


With that in mind, my brother and I (Duggy's on a business trip) were discussing video games with the tots over dinner. My oldest boy, who has definitely inherited the gaming bug from both parents, was wanting to know who came first out of the various personas he is familiar with. Donkey Kong? Mario? Who? (for answer, see comments.) This lead into a discussion of video game history from the first home console, Atari, through Sega, Nintendo and to our latest console, the Playstation 3. (To be honest, we thought Pong was the first video game, but with a little internet research, I discovered that it was predated an entire year by the game Computer Space, of which I've never heard. Of course, it's no question which game was the most popular.)

As we were talking of old Atari games that we loved, River Raid, Pressure Cooker, Pitfall, Dig Dug, we moved on to the old school Nintendo faves. Do you remember Bubble Bobble, Gunsmoke or Kung Fu? We spent hours upon hours on those babies. After we were done with dinner, we got online to see if we could find any other titles from long ago and we found one of the most awesomest sites on the web.

Every Video Game

It is so cool. You can play all these old titles, for free, online. It's like going back in time and having your old favorite toys in your hands again. Now, I won't lie to you. I can't play these games for too long anymore. Once you've tasted the future that is now, the grip of the old games is lost. But for nostalgia's sake, it's pretty fun to mess around with them once again.

That feeling of, "Oh my gosh, I remember that." is relived over and over. Things that you had forgotten are brought back to the forefront of your memory.

For me and my brother, those were some good times.

I guess you could call it "A Visit From the Ghost of Winter-een-mas Past."

Play on.

6 comments:

Tricia said...

Donkey Kong. Mario was the character you played while trying to rescue the lady from Donkey Kong, but he was nameless at first.

I guess he did well enough to not only acquire a name but get his own gig later on.

Roy, Dublin Taxi Driver said...

Gaming is very much a part of my house, My son has both an xbox360 and a PS3 and I play the odd game with him
By the way I always put an accent on blogs I read.... I imagine yours in A Dolly Parton type voice, am I miles out?

bethany said...

i love that old nintendo. my brother and I played that when we were little, and not so little. I have two "in-need-of-repair" in the garage. I want them fixed, but don't think I want to pay what it would cost...maybe it wouldn't be that much.
I loved super mario 1, and super mario 3, and contra were our ultimate faves. brad grew up with bubble bobble.
i love those games...
do you know a shop in corvallis?

Tricia said...

roy- yeah, you're way off. that's pretty funny. i always read your blog in an irish accent, but i'm sure i'm way off too because i only know of one irish accent and i'm sure there are more. (although i have heard one which i can't understand at all.) i have a west coast accent which is what american newscasters and most tv show people use. it's the american "non-accent." i wish we had an xbox, then we could play halo2 and 3. we loved halo on the computer, but they didn't come out with subsequent computer versions. *sniff, sniff*

bethany- i don't know of any shop. i can't believe you have two nes in your garage! that's so cool. maybe if you opened them up you could see if a wire was loose or something easy like that? super mario was the very first game i beat. it holds a near and dear place in my heart. and i totally forgot about contra! you are wicked cool, my friend.

bethany said...

I'm not sure...but I think yesterday was Wednesday. ¿que pasó?

Mansi said...

ooh boy! if my husband sees this post, I'll have to buy him a Wii:) just stumbled here:) you have a nice space...