When Video Games Were Fun

After watching Scott Pilgrim over the weekend I came to an interesting conclusion: video games used to be more fun. As I was watching Pilgrim, I listened to those beautiful 8-bit sound effects that filled my childhood. They brilliantly spliced these sounds into the movie to help set a mood circa the 1980’s. To be truthful, they really won me over right from the start when they had the 8-bit midi intro of the Universal logo. Watching the movie I realized that video games had been part of my life for over 25+ years, and it seems like they used to be a lot more fun.

Watching Pilgrim, I experienced a sort of nostalgia for the days of playing games for the first time. Whether it a puzzle game, RPG (role playing game) or an action adventure, I truly enjoyed the experience. Although the limited graphics and sounds left something to be desired, it was more than anything fun. We have now had a generation of people playing video games and over 5 generations of video game consoles. For some reason I feel less connected to video games than ever in my life.  This on the heels of renewing a Starcraft addiction, Starcraft 2 to be specific. As an aside I almost didn’t make it through first year university because of that game.

One might simply dismiss this by saying that I am getting older, I have other priorities in my life or that the thrill of accomplishing something in a game pales to completing something in real life. While those are all contributing factors, I think part of the reason is that simple games are just more fun. As much as I like belting out my favorite songs on Rock Band, it still lacks something.

Many game designers have put a lot of their focus on making games more realistic, but realism doesn’t necessarily make the games better. This has been reflected by the wave of games from Wii and on the iPhone trying to bring gaming to the masses. While there have been attempts to reach out to the masses with console games, the Wii fad appears to be waning. In that time, Apple has quietly emerged as a serious contender in the gaming space. That said, as much as Angry Birds strives to fill my this void it doesn’t quite cut it.

Facebook is another emerging platform for games. However, it feels more like a casino, as very clever gamers try and extract far more than a traditional game via micro transactions. I fell victim to a certain game where I ended up spending 40 dollars on power ups. Again, this game seemed to lack some of the “fun” of the games of my youth. I felt like I had been to the casino and put 40 dollars on red and it came up black. Both unsatisfying and unduly expensive.

Last night, however, everything changed. I was introduced to a game called Katamari that my brother has been talking about for weeks. The primary purpose of this game is to roll over things as a ball. The more items you roll over, the bigger you get. At one point my ball grew from 1 meter to over 4 kilometers in size. By the time the game was over I was consuming entire cities. For a moment it felt like gaming of old. A fun concept and a fun game. This may be the game to rekindle my love of gaming.

Summary:

The days of 1-Ups and growing larger by consuming mushrooms will always remain in the back of my head. The thrill of finding that extra heart container or completing the TriForce will always be there. The gaming industry has grown significantly and created amazing adventures,  but at the end of the day I am always on the lookout for something that is just plain fun.