Eight Bit of Foolishness

Music of the day:

Being part of the first console generation, I grew up playing games that were paintings on a cave wall compared to today. With so little byte/bit space to work with, developers worked tireless hours to bring us the most basic, repetitive storylines, with graphics that in many cases, were little more than dots, and music that was a random set of sounds done in rhythm. We loved it though.

Apparently we still do.

As technology progressed, each element grew. Gameplay expanded, graphics got better, and the music had actual composers! Hell even Nine Inch Nails made a cameo as a weapon in Quake. Now that my peers and I are older, from our mid 30’s-40’s (some of us passing through another year today!), we look back on those times fondly; the games were no less violent, but blowing up tanks and planes of ‘enemies’ who were undefinable pixels/polygons lends a certain amount of guiltlessness, and fun!

Now, songs are remixed and comments about adolescent moments (more like hours, every day) rushing back are all about how great those games were. I’ve made friends with people based on our agreement that Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders was the single greatest game ever. (Then again, I have also tapped steins with people based on Simpsons quotes and dive bars.

I’ve mentioned this before; in fact, when I looked at the new Windows tablet, I wondered how the hell I would load up the original Quake on that. With Windows 8, I see only a version that is even less likely to be able to load up all my old DOS games.

As quickly as we move forward, still we bring a few things with us along the way.