If you ask anyone walking down the streets if they've ever heard of Pac-Man, chances are the response will be "yes" (unless, of course, they're some small child born after 2010; then the chances are reduced). Games like Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, and others are memorable because of the sheer volume and impact that they had at the time. They were revolutionary. Arcade games were just a blip on the pop culture map prior to the start of this so-called golden age. Sure, people knew what Pong was, and Pinball was pretty dope, but the introduction of arcade games with their shiny new graphics and bright colors really knew how to draw people in.
I think these games were particularly unforgettable because of the time they came about and the impact that they had following it. They were almost annoyingly immersed into every facet of life outside of the home, popping up in even the weirdest places like funeral homes (thanks Wikipedia, for that fun fact!). You would have had to never gone to a diner or driven around your town to not see one of the 400,000 arcades littered across America. Because of this, it comes as no surprise that everyone remembers these fun little games. I think part of its lasting impression comes from nostalgia, but there are also elements to these early arcade games that have had effects on the video games we see today. When we think about games like Frogger, I immediately think about its similarity to the very popular “Crossy Roads”, which was, in essence, an endless game of Frogger with just one life and one “frog”. Even Disney made a spin-off of the game (Disney Crossy Roads), and to be quite honest, I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing that game. I just wanted to collect all of the characters! Nintendo even saw huge success when it released its “Super Nintendo Entertainment System” for the second time just last year, and, okay, so the games weren’t exactly from the golden age of video games, but come on. The system sold out pretty much immediately, and it was because people were super excited to see the video games they played as kids revived in this day and age of Call of Duty 100 (I don’t even know how many of them there are). But even shooting games like Halo and COD are basically super cool, modern spins on the games that came from this age. And actually, just learned this from googling, but apparently COD: World War II (the revamp of the game that rolled out last year) lets you play some retro mini-games within the game kind of like Animal Crossing let you play Balloon Fighter in its games. Honestly, that’s pretty funny, but obviously someone back at HQ thought that was a cool enough feature to implement into their game, so obviously there’s some very real and lingering effects of the golden age still alive and well today. As far as how these classic games stand up to modern games, I just don’t think you can really compare it. These classic games were built with different software at a different time. Gameplay was (typically) super simple and easy to pick up. Some of the video games of today are so difficult I have no idea what to do with them. Just this past fall break, I was in Seattle at the MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture), and they had an exhibit on Indie video games. Inside this exhibit were iPads, computers, monitors, and different video game consoles with some beta games that were released. I’m just gonna say this now, but some of them were just weird. I’m all for the advancement of technology, but if we’re going to use it to make some whack games like this, I don’t really want any part of it. Anyway, that being said, I’m certainly guilty of becoming addicted to my phone games like Candy Crush, and that’s stuck around for a surprisingly long time, but will we remember it 20 years from now? Will the next generation? Probably not. With this current age of total information overload, I think it’s going to be difficult to have a lasting impression like these golden aged video games.
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AuthorJulianna Yee. ArchivesCategories |