Things I Miss: Video Games

I have literally lived a life that has never been without video games. As early as I can remember, back to the house in Tustin, California, we played Pong. Sure, we had other games and toys, but I distinctly remember the digital stick paddles moving up and down as we turned the dials clockwise and counter-clockwise. It was a rudimentary game, called Pong because of its resemblance to ping-pong, but I found it closer to air hockey, as you just had to get the “ball” past the opponent. The amazing thing about Pong was that it wasn’t a game for a console, it WAS the console, sold through Sears. It was such a hit when it was released for home consumption in 1975, that an upstart debut comedy show, called Saturday Night Live, had a recurring segment with Al Franken and Tom Davis having goofy conversations over Pong games. As rudimentary as it was, I was fascinated by it, entranced by the idea of using handheld controls to manipulate images on a screen. Little did I know how much technology would improve over the coming years.



Like everyone else my age, I had an Atari 2600. If Pong inspired my love of video games, the Atari knocked me head over heels. My favorite games were the most simplistic, yet hardest to master. Megamania, a version of Space Invaders, was fun and challenging. Adventure was an early game that required a little bit more than most games, including retracing one’s steps and looking harder for things that weren’t easily discovered. Before Pole Position even hit the arcades, there was Night Driver, the original first-person racing game. Yars’ Revenge was like Space Invaders turned on its head, with the player as the invading alien against the defending cannon. Pitfall was a huge hit, and it was easy to see why. Swinging on vines and jumping over crocodiles was a new concept for video games, and the gameplay was unmatched at that point. Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of the more difficult games, though not as ridiculously puzzling as Riddle of the Sphinx. The favorite game in our household was Kaboom, a game that aped Missile Command in a way, involving a stereotypical striped-shirt criminal dropping bombs off the top of a wall, forcing the player, controlling water buckets at the bottom of the screen to catch them, putting them out. As levels increased, the bombs dropped faster and faster, requiring near perfect reflexes. There were disappointments, too. The adaptation of E.T. was a stinker, while the build-up to Pac-Man merely led to severe let down. I distinctly remember my parents purchasing the game, yet arriving home from the mall past our bedtime, so we were forbidden from playing until the morning. As if it were Christmas, Matt and I got up in the wee hours of the morning, plugged in the cartridge and, having been familiar with the arcade experience, sat dumbfounded at the images and sounds that came out of the television. Whatever we were looking at, it wasn’t Pac-Man.



Soon, video game consoles briefly gave way for home computers. Text sometimes replaced graphics, but with more of a story, a predecessor to the complicated fantasy games that would arrive down the road. Zork was one of the more popular games, and much parodied in its style. In fact, just the other day at work, I saw someone had written on a white board,
You are in a hallway.
>

We always had Apple computers growing up, and there were plenty of games to choose from. Scrolling and simulation games seemed to be my favorites, with Karateka and Swashbuckler in the former category, Tai-Pan and the Ultima series in the latter. I still remember looking for reagents, moongates and members to join my party on the quest for the eight virtues. Eventually, at the same time that consoles were entering into a Silver Age, PC games exploded into all new realms. Civilization turned gamers into either great leaders or despots. 7th Guest was a creepy puzzler that I always found incredibly engaging. Then Myst blew the doors off of everything, with spectacular graphics and amazingly complex puzzles. LucasArts had the most entertaining games, with Sam & Max, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. They were cartoony and silly, but often rewarded players who shared that sense of humor.



Nintendo became the heir apparent to Atari, the deluxe set coming with a gun for their Duck Hunt game, and a robot used with a game called Gyromite, but eventually most would simply skip the whole robot set-up and press the darn red and blue buttons themselves. After a while, the gun and robot became albatrosses that Nintendo eventually ditched. Nintendo would eventually grow bigger than Atari, establishing franchise games such as Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, and Metroid. If nothing else, Mario, originally the unnamed character who would jump over barrels and fireballs in Donkey Kong, has become the most recognizable video game character in existence. It’s a testament to the strength of the games that the Mario legacy continues to this day, both as a foundation for new games, and symbol of nostalgia.



The Sega Genesis intended to muscle into the video game market, having some success in comparing their superior graphics to the NES, and having Nintendo fans, upset over the delays in the Super NES, giving in and purchasing the Genesis instead. Sega had their own symbol to establish, which they did when Sonic the Hedgehog replaced Altered Beast (a personal favorite) as the free game with purchase. Games such as Cadash, Earthworm Jim, Golden Axe, and Mortal Kombat, among other ports of successful coin-ops, had some success, but eventually Super NES would emerge, dominating not only the market, but my video game playing time. Super Mario returned with his own world, and Donkey Kong had his own country. Street Fighter II became the game that was played most often amongst friends, with every player trying to master special moves. The game reached such heights that I bet most guys my age would be able to recite the names of all the characters by heart.



I might be hard pressed to pick a favorite platform so far, but if you were to combine all editions into one, then Playstation would win hands down. The original introduced me to Crash Bandicoot, Wipeout, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and the game that took up most of my spare time, Final Fantasy VII. Then, a friend convinced me to give Nintendo another try by picking up the Nintendo 64. I expected to enjoy the 64 version of Super Mario, but was surprised by Mario Kart. GoldenEye was the be-all, end-all of James Bond games, but two games inspired by comic books became my all-time favorites, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Shadow Man. The former became a huge bestseller, while the latter languished in obscurity, much like the comic, but was filled with fantastic gameplay.



I now have a PS3, but I rarely use it for video games. I just don’t have the time. I wish I did. I love the Simpsons game, finally putting the beloved cartoon family in a game worthy of their antics. I picked up Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, was impressed by the cut scenes, but the idea of mastering over twenty characters exhausted me before I even began. For pure enjoyment, I find I can never go wrong with the Lego games, whether Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman or hopefully more characters to come. The first game I’d play if I had the time, however, would be a baseball game. I’ve had one for nearly every platform listed here, and the current intricacy of baseball games is unbelievable. Again, the problem is time. I’d love to play an entire season all the way through, but by the time I’d be able to, real life players would be traded, series won, and I’d quickly lose interest.



I don’t own a Wii, and never got one of the Microsoft systems. I’ve never played Warcraft or Halo, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War or God of War, the Sims or Half-Life. For as many video games as I’ve loved, there are hundreds upon thousands of others I’ve never touched. Like all of the subjects I’ll write about in “Things I Miss,” I wish I had the time and resources to experience them again. Oh well, back to Angry Birds and Bejeweled 2.