noblenonsense's Blog

How video games ruined my childhood

(Tue 11/28/2006 02:05pm)

Let's be honest. I mainly use this blog to release the inner thoughts of my comic issues, desires, or opinions (just like my last blog on B-listers and fanboys). But I came accross a post on hate mail in regards to a video game and it got me thinking about what video games have truly meant to our society.

Sit down almost any child of the 80's and bring up three video games and almost all of them will have a fond* memory of said games. Examples:
1) Legend of Zelda, remember that little sword of Links? That was some awesome stuff right there. It was like a click pen. But you felt as though you could hack the crap out of anyone with it.

2) Mike Tyson's Punch Out*, I once beat this game with the assistance of a game genie (thank you dad for the best birthday present). The main problem back in the day was the lack of saving. You either played until your thumbs bled or you had a friend help you. Punch Out was by far the most frustrating game of all time. I starred fond simply because this game brings back massive hatred to the inventor for making it nigh impossible to beat Mike Tyson. The individuals responsible for said undertaking need to be tarred, feathered, beaten, and have their cold frozen hearts removed with a spork. Sound harsh? Actually I think it's lenient if you can remember the way your character fell down after such a beating...

3) Tecmo Super Bowl, this game beget Madden and all its glory. I hope and pray that one day Tecmo will unleash a massively better game than Madden just for the sake of saying they attempted a come back.

I could go on with the early games that truly made video games a major success. But in reality they took part of my childhood and thats not really a bad thing. The lone system responsible for that was the N64 and the two games that took most of my time: Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. Now I was never a Mario fan but this game with its new graphics just amazed me to no end. I had never played the original Mario Kart but by God I picked up on it quickly. I used this knowledge of Mario Kart 64, along with the several hours a day of sports games (College Hoops mainly), to my advantage in college. Never in my life had I whipped through people in a basketball video game before until I was slaughtered by Duke's full court press in the finals. Hey four free video games for spending your youth on video games is well worth it in my books.

I kind of gave up on video games after my PS2 was stolen in college my freshman year. I still had a Gamecube although it collected dust. Then I visited a friend at a neighboring college who showed me the grand work of an XBox and the beauty of the action rpg Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). I saw the ending before I started playing the game and was blown away (though I didn't understand the ending). I went out and got an XBox just for that game and eagerly awaited KOTOR II. The one downfall of XBox 360 has been the backwards compatibility even if you have a hard-drive. And the mere fact that I can't play two games that brought me back into the mix of things...kinda ticks me off as much as Punch Out. Fortunately Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great release and the joys of video gaming is alive and well.

Although video games took my childhood I'm not terribly upset about it. I still await any news on a possible KOTOR III for 360. And maybe one day I'll get a Wii...though its graphics blow.

Until next time fanboys and fangirls....BANG!