Welcome to Waterborn's introduction to his bi-weekly column on all things video game nostalgic.
Welcome to the first Issue of Digital Memories, my new bi-monthly column covering Classic Video Games and the culture that has grown up around them. In the coming months I will be looking at a wide variety of older video games and game-related media from the perspective of someone who grew up during the “Golden Age of Gaming.”
I will cover topics including my favorite arcade games from back in the day, my personal collection of classic video game consoles and which games translate well in today’s high-tech environment. I'll review how video games have been depicted in the media and how they have in turn affected popular culture during the past 40 years. I will look at how the games of my youth are currently influencing modern franchises and what lessons today’s developers can learn from the classics of the '70s, '80s and '90s. I'll introduce you to an eclectic cast of characters during this journey and maybe even stumble on a few
Easter Eggs along the way. So join me for a trip into the past, when arcades populated every mall, skating rink and bowling alley in the country, where kids sent away for Activision Game Patches to prove they beat the last level on Laser Blast, and back to a time when being a Pinball Wizard could actually get you the attention of the babes at your school.
I am not going to rehash the history of video games – there are excellent online resources you can refer to for a full retrospective on the industry. Check out some of these sites for a refresher course:
- www.atariage.com
- http://digitpress.com
- http://www.arcade-history.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game
- http://www.classicarcademuseum.org
Before I get started, you need to know a little bit about my background and how these games have shaped my worldview. I was born in 1967 and grew up during the era marked by the dawn of video games such as Pong, Lunar Lander, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and other great classic titles. I would spend most of my Saturday nights as a young teenager hanging out at the local skating rink or bowling alley, trying to look cool while playing video games and chasing girls. My friends and I would spend hours and countless dollars in quarters (and later tokens from Aladdin’s Castle) trying to clear levels in Defender, learning new dual-joystick moves in Karate Champ or figuring out how to get to the end of Golden Axe (a feat I never mastered).
My first home “console” was a Sears Pong set my grandmother (God bless her) got for my brother and me for Christmas one year. I quickly graduated to the 8-bit glory of the Atari 2600 Video Gaming System, where my friends and I spent hours calculating the best angles for bank shots in Combat and developing “avoidance maneuvers” in Slot Racers. As I grew up, my collection ran the gamut of home gaming systems, from ColecoVision, Intellivsion, Odyssey II to eventually the Holy Grail of Technology -- the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES brought me my first gaming addiction and subsequent carpel tunnel issues via Super Mario Brothers and Track & Field’s gamepad. As new gaming systems came and went, I would cycle through each one then discard it for the next best thing, and I'd sell the last system in a garage sale or let it collect dust in the closet.
In high school I discovered computer gaming via the Apple II-c and was enthralled with the text-based adventures found in games like Zork and the Kings Quest series. I spent most Saturdays in my friend’s basement playing Dungeons & Dragons and “grinding” through level after level in the Wizardry Series.
When I went away to college, I dropped the home consoles of my childhood for the world of PC-gaming, starting with Castle Wolfenstein and Doom and following the evolution of the FPS via Quake. My first foray into online gaming came with Heretic II, Raven’s third-person mix of fighting and magic. As the speed of computer technology development began to escalate, I found myself working to keep up with the Gateses in terms of hardware upgrades. Each new must-play game on the shelves of Electronics Boutique (pre-EB Games era) would require a commensurate investment in new components just to be able to run it. I learned how to build my own computers and upgrade them on a six-month cycle in an effort just to keep up.
I was fortunate to own the ill-fated and all-too-short lived Dreamcast. Somehow, I had pretty much missed out on the introduction of the Sony Playstation I & II consoles, so entranced was I with my constant quest for a faster computer. Then the original Xbox launched and I found my way back to the world of home video game consoles. The first time I played Halo, I was hooked by the fast-paced nature of four-player Deathmatch. Little did I know what would be coming with the next generation of consoles.
All along this journey I saw video games creeping into society's collective consciousness and pop-culture. Early on, through titles such as Journey’s Escape and ET, the lines between video games and mainstream entertainment such as music and movies were merging. MTV broke onto the scene in 1981, and brought with it a style so heavily influenced by the burgeoning video game culture that we were soon watching the “virtual” VJ Max Headroom giving his staccato analysis of all things hip and trendy. Now hardly a video game is released that is not accompanied by a major motion picture (in many cases a regrettable trend no doubt) or a new television pilot. Video games are the fastest growing sector of the entertainment industry, and already have dedicated cable channels, award shows and multi-media promotional tours that travel the country at trade shows like E3 and the GDC. What was once the sole purview of teenage boys packed in dark basements is now an industry enjoyed by everyone from movie stars to families. Video games have come a long way, and hopefully so have I.
I have been bitten by the “retro-gaming” bug. I own a large collection of classic video game consoles (a topic for a future issue of Digital Memories). Each of the consoles I own holds a special place in my personal history and my ongoing love of video gaming. I invite you to join me in the coming weeks and months as I look back to discover what gems I might have missed, to reminisce about old favorites and to learn what other gamers have to say about our collective past as gamers and what it might mean for our collective future.
I would like to thank So Cal Mike from the video game auction site Chase the Chuckwagon for sponsoring this article. ChaseTheChuckwagon.com, named after a rare Atari 2600 game considered by most video game collectors to be the first “holy grail” of video game collecting, was launched on March 24, 2008 as a less-expensive auction alternative to Ebay and has quickly grown into the most successful video gaming auction site ever. Since its inception, the Chuckwagon has grown to more than 2,000 members, hosted more than 60,000 auctions and sold more than $75,000 in merchandise.
As the sole sponsor of Digital Memories, Mike and Chase the Chuckwagon will kindly be offering up classic gaming goodies for me to give away to my readers. For this inaugural Issue of Digital Memories Mike has graciously donated a complete Atari 7800 Video Game System plus 14 classic game titles. Check out these pictures to see what is up for grabs. To be entered in the drawing, simply post a comment in the reply section for this article. One winner will be randomly selected from all entries collected between now and the next installment of Digital Memories. To be eligible for each drawing, you must have been a registered member of 2old2play at least 48 hours prior to the posting of the article. One entry per person and each 2old2play member can only win once in any given six month period.
So post away and good luck!
Please be sure to visit www.chasethechuckwagon.com for any of your classic gaming need and also subscribe to Mike’s classic gaming podcast, The Retro Gaming Roundup, via I-tunes or directly at www.retrogamingroundup.com.
