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Things have certainly come a long way since the period I remember best - the early 1980’s. Back then owning a console such as the Atari 2600 was almost akin to having an Amusement arcade in the home. There was a real sense of occasion about the whole thing, and ‘groupies’ were known to form around one individual who was lucky enough to own a machine!
The 1980’s were certainly the golden age of consoles. Private individuals were able to create great games too: the founders of ‘Codemasters’ - from which most of the good games emanated - was started by two teenagers while still in school!
Those days are of course long gone: now it costs millions to develop a game of standing, and games are not the scarce commodity ( financially ) that they were back then. The big question I keep asking is this: are kids any happier with what they have today? - I’d wager not. I know I’m going to sound like a cynical old man saying this, but it seems to me that often kids are often just trance - like playing the modern stuff. We actually laughed every now and then whilst playing in the early ‘80’s!
How did we ever have so much fun back in the “old days” with relatively ‘kill - free’ games and graphics on the jagged - bitmap side of dreadful? The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is simple. Good and engaging gameplay - even in a simple form - beats all the killing and high - end graphics in the World, every time! Consoles are now probably largely consigned to history: at least the ones that don’t do other things as well ( like the Playstation 3 ).
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