Old School Videogames

I love having the Atari 2600 hooked up… to a dedicated tv, no less. The 1970’s behemoth of a tv was a $20 steal at the thrift store. That giant wood-paneled floor unit sits in the corner of the family room with the Atari plugged straight into it. Combat, Pac-Man, Asteroids, and all the other classics are piled on top of the tv. It’s awesome. Silver Queen and I have been dabbling in the old games and I’ve been flooded with childhood memories.

How much of an impact did those old games have on me? I believe Atari molded my random fatalistic view on life, existence, and the universe. Peep this, yo:

New games have structures and goals. Story lines and plots, be they realistic or absurd, provide logical coherency to new games. A tangible final goal, like a princess on level 20 that must be saved or a malevolent entity that must be annihilated, imbues purpose into new games. Every time the player picks up the controller for a ps2 game s/he has a concrete objective that must be attained in order to conquer the game. A player can “beat” Super Mario Brothers by sidestepping Bowser and rescuing the princess. A player can “beat” Tomb Raider by navigating a gauntlet of traps to defeat Natla. In these games, players are enticed by the reward of inevitable triumph as they hone their skills to achieve a fixed-point of ambition.

Old school games do not have plots or goals, like the new ones. What’s the story with Pac-Man? There is none. Plots are superfluous for a game with two tanks and two controllers; the concept writes itself. None of thee classic games have concrete endings. A player cannot “beat” an Atari game, because with each advancing level the game becomes faster and harder until it is impossible for human reflexes to keep up. Asteroid fields start small and sparse, but with each level comes a higher density of faster space debris until the chaos is humanly unmanageable. Each game adheres to the same philosophy of faster ghost monsters, more incoming missiles, faster millipedes, more killer robots, faster invading spacecrafts, faster more, fastermore, fastermorefastermore, Splat! The best Atari games are exercises in futility. There is no point, and --eventually-- everybody loses.

…And that, my friends, summarizes the most significant childhood influence on my perception of the world.
...and so it was written, shenry at 2/25/2003 06:00:00 PM.
...and so it was appended with .