Never 2 Old

What does one write about in ones first blog on a website for gamers? How about games. What a novel notion.

Ive been playing video games for a long time. We are of the generation. We had Pong and Pac-Man and then Asteroids and Food Fight. We had Galaga and Spy Hunter and so many other classic games. I remember being addicted to pac-man on my Atari 2600. I played that game for hours. I played Indiana Jones with its ridiculously bad graphics. It was so cutting edge at the time. The idea of entertainment in digital form was new and so were my reflexes, still in their child-like, adaptive period.

So I grew up learning how to use a joystick like the one on our 2o2p banner. After the joystick was the game pad, then more complicated joysticks, then WASD and a mouse.  I grew up fighting aliens and eating mushrooms to make me bigger and bouncing a square "ball" off of a rectangle before it disappeared off the screen. I grew up defending little mounds of pixelated "bases" with a huge trackball and a single button and lots and lots of quarters.

The arcade was a virtual heaven and my favorite haven. The games we played at home on our Ataris and our Commodore 64s and our IBM XTs paled in comparison to the wonders in the arcades. Big consoles with big joysticks and big buttons controlling characters on huge monitors. By the time the idea of 8-bit graphics hit the scene, arcades were cranking out some fairly amazing games. We got the home versions, sure, but that wasnt until at least the Super Nintendo.

I remember Street Fighter (not the Turbo Edition), and Gauntlet the best from the early days for myself. I remember the first time I played Mortal Kombat. It was in a small arcade in a Sears at the mall I frequented with my parents. I watched in awe. They looked REAL! There was blood! It was amazing. It was hard. I spent more money on that game in the arcade than ever before and ever since. I feel like, while that was a huge point of change for me, it was also a huge point of change for the game industry in general. Here was a game that was violent, designed for a more mature audience. Here was a game that did not allow creativity to be stifled by only catering to younger children. What about those geeks/gamers in their 20s, 30s, 40s? Id like to thank the creators of Mortal Kombat for getting the ball rolling. Now the industry is inundated with games for a more mature audience.

We may call ourselves "2old2play" here but I know it is only a name. In fact, we are those people that WILL play. We teach our children that video games are for creativity and entertainment and education. We use games to de-stress and relax after life has beaten the shit out of us every day. We use games to keep in touch with people that, because of distance, we may not see as often as we have in the past. Gamers over 25 do not play games. We use games. At the same time, we can  take comfort in knowing that a vast majority of the games coming out and in development are being made by people our age. They are making games for us.

So, while we may get the "You still play video games?" question when we cannot contain ourselves about the latest releases, it should not bother us. I grew up, we grew up with video games. They are our companions and a means to many ends. Someday, well be too old to go to a rave, well be too old to dress "in style", well be too old to be considered cool by your kids and your kids friends, well be too old to do so many of those things we loved to do when we were younger.

No matter how many things we outgrow, I hope one thing always stays the same. We should never, ever, be too old to play.