Well gang... I don't know if I should stop apologizing for this article being late or not...
One, I feel bad about missing my deadline... but two... my life is so freakin' busy I barely have time to play Deus Ex (new to me, found it on Amazon for less than 10 bucks). I remember when life was several Taco Bell Bean Burritos, a fridge full of Coke, a new game and three or four days to just spend some serious time gaming. These days, it's 20 minutes a week (if I'm lucky) and I feel bad about "wasting my time" as it is quite a commodity these days! As it is, the foundations of programming and logic make for pretty dry material, and require a bit of study, so that's what my weekend comprised of...
Anyway! On with the post!
NOSTALGIA:
Ahhh, those blissful days when I was a young, "Reebok"-shod lad with cheek of white (really, really pale white). Spending nights playing "Moon Patrol", "Missile Command" and "Pole Position" on my Atari 6800... Zork humming on my IBM 8088 and life was good.
As the years fly by, I begin to wonder what I can expect from the future.
In my lifetime (a short 30 years), I've seen graphics go from text adventures (Zork), to squares that made up a stick figure who was your character to cartoonish quality to almost lifelike looking people.
Video cards change every year it seems, more
CPU/
GPU power seem to equal new options every time you turn around, and when I get too terribly excited about the graphics, I remember the good ol' days when Link (Legend of Zelda) was a blobby-looking block with a pixelated sword that could cut out a person's eyeballs with the jaggies. I still play Zelda, and I don't hardly notice how horrible the graphics are. It's just a damn good game.
Still, as they grow more complicated, they get more fun in some ways. I wouldn't go back, that's for sure... but there remains that love of old school...
Kind of funny that people younger than me are going to remember games like "Doom 3" and "7th Guest" for their "old school graphics" stories!