As I start to get a little older—well, not that old, I'm 23—I start to wonder about some of those big questions in life. You know, death, marriage, career. But, there's been something else that's been bouncing around in my head lately. And that something else is kids—my eventual spawn—and video games. No, I'm not debating whether I'll let them play them, or even how much. I'm concerned about them and the classics. I want my kids to get the same thrill out of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Ocarina of Time that I did. Those were magical gaming moments in my life. Remember getting the master sword and waking up as adult Link? Pure joy. Or how about when you fought that first colossus in Shadows of the Colossus? That was a breathtaking moment. Or what about controlling Mario in 3d for the first time on N64. I want my children to have those experiences.
What I'm worried about is showing them these games after they've already experienced newer generation games, especially ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now when I do have kids and they are old enough to game. Going back to old games, as we all know, can often be disappointing. They can be clunky, ugly, and seem, well, bad. Have you tried playing any of the Resident Evil games on PS1 lately? It's not a very fun experience, to say the least. But it didn't seem that way at the time. At the time it was a shit-my-pants scary experience. That first zombie! Holy crap. Or the crimson heads? Those things were evil. But these days, they're just stupid blobs of clumsily rendered pixels. I know most games hold up much better than RE1, but still...
Maybe I'm just being nostalgic about my love for these games. But they, often times, seem to have a certain heart that video games today often lack. They seem, to me, earnest and honest in a way that today's video games often aren’t. Maybe it's the shift to pushing out these huge AAA titles that's caused this shift, I don't know. In any case I'm seriously considering making my kids play the classics before they start to play new releases. I think it will not only give them an appreciation of today's games, but also allow them to play these classics without experiencing any cynicism.
So what do you think, should I make my kids start with 8-bit and move them forward through gaming history? Or is my age and nostalgia getting the best of me already?
