Oh how well I remember Donk, Donk, Donk coming out of that small room off the family room for hours on end!

Sorry, Les, you can’t pull age on me- I played Pong when it first came out. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw Squirrel Kombat…

My cousins had an official Atari Pong console for their TV set, as opposed to the many rip-off Pong consoles that were produced.

we had a Pong console too.  much fun to be had.  lol i remember my mom dating a guy that worked for Atari and gave us a 2600 and a bunch of games.  i was sad when they stopped dating. 

I was thinking about the state of gaming the other day and I think today’s gamers(the younger generation - middle schoolers and high schoolers) are vastly terrible gamers.  How often does a game come out some kid beats it and that’s it?  They may not beat it efficiently or have found all the secrets or have grown a lot skill-wise while playing it but they beat it and that’s all they care about.  Now it’s all about multiplayer which is good for some genres of games as far as building skill, but I’m not even sure building skill in multiplayer situations translates as much as it needs to in beating the plot of the game.

My youngest brother is in middle school and spends 2-3 hours every day playing Gamecube or Super Nintendo.  He can get a new game for Gamecube and play it a couple hours every day for a few months and when I get home and play with him on it for a few hours and be whooping his character all over the place or be doing the single player story much more efficiently despite never having played it before.  For example I came home from Spring break and played him in some of the Super Nintendo games because he’s “been practicing” to beat me for awhile.  I throw in Super Mario Kart, whoop him 10 times consecutively he decides to change the game.  We played Tecmo Super Bowl from 1993.  I haven’t touched that game in a year and he’s been practicing yet 4 minutes into the third quarter and the score is 112-0 in my favor.

You may think that my brother just sucks as a gamer and has no ability, but I watch his friends come over and play and he is the superior player usually.  I’m worried that the generation of gamers being brought up are going to change the industry for the worst.  I wonder how many of them would actualy be able to beat games like Myst, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Kart and other games that require thinking and skill to beat.  I think games these days are mostly just getting prettier and easier but nobody realizes how easy the game has become because they are so enamored with the graphics.  Anyone else see the same trend?

Hey man I’m only 19 and I was playing that exact basketball game on my 2600 when I was in the 5th grade. My gaming career is a weird one because I ended up following the same route as some of you old guys and not to mention my dad has sold arcade games since the day I was born so I was in that showroom all summer long playing arcade games for free as a cheap form of babysitting.

I’d kill for LucasArts and Sierra to make adventure games like the used to. Gimme some Kings Quest, Loom, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion and I’ll slobber for life.

Oh, I also STILL play text adventures all the time… Just download the winners from the IF competitions and away I go.

Yeah, I dunno, Theo. People my age that play games I compete against and typically end out on top - but there are many a gamer better than I, I’ll tell you, they’re all older than me .

But I mean, even WoW scares me. The number of people who complain on the forums about classes needing fixes for X Y and Z over issues that playing class X requires more skill is amazing. Mages in particular are a tough class to master but are incredibly powerful. I hear calls to improve mages like 4 times a day. I say, “it’s all about the 30 yard range” and people go “wtf?” like they don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve only played against a mage (looking to roll one a few months from now), and I can see clearly that managing the space between them and you is crucial. I’ll bet most mages don’t even see that, much less that they can manage distance competently.

It’s an interesting question, Theo, “What’s the gamer’s generation gap?”, or is there any? I’d contend that the only gap I’m facing is just because I’m grown up, and exceptionally intelligent. That might account for a difference in strategies and outcomes during gametime. I’m aware that many of the people I play against are like 10-16, and typically I’ve got no problem pwning them. Maybe the development of rational faculties is part of it. I dunno.

Wait, there’s someone who actually beat Myst?!!

(I only got through the first world before becoming exasperated.  I beat LTTP though.)

I keep all the games I like and replay them when I don’t have money to buy something new.  The really good ones I replay just because they’re awesome.  Beyond Good & Evil would fit in this category.