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I like to think I gave my nephew some perspective. About 10 years ago, I gave him one of those combo consoles that played NES, SNES, and Genesis games, and bought him several classic games from each. So for a couple years, he grew up playing the originals of Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, etc. And every time I visited, I whooped his little butt at Mortal Kombat too. I think it made him appreciate it all the more when he eventually got a PS4 and beyond. Someone who starts with a Xbox 360 has no understanding of just how far games have come and no context for what made some of these classic IPs great from the get go, and what it was like to sit next to your friend, sibling, or cousin and play couch co-op together.
P.S. I didnt let him win in Mortal Kombat because he was a complete shit talker. He’d be on a 12 fight lose streak, and manage one KO by the skin of his teeth, and then look me straight in the face, puff up his chest and grunt out “Uh! Yea! Winners never lose!” He simply had to be punished for that arrogance.
He’d be on a 12 fight lose streak, and manage one KO by the skin of his teeth, and then look me straight in the face, puff up his chest and grunt out “Uh! Yea! Winners never lose!”
That’s awesome lol good for him.
Honestly this is exactly the sort of attitude you want if you want to play fighting games. Being able to get dumpstered 19 times in a row and not lose your will is a necessary skill.
I’m caught between wanting my daughter to play a bunch of my old favorites but I’m also recognizing that some of them I only really like because of nostalgia. Like I bought the sonic collection for GCN and played it recently and didn’t really have fun with it tbh. Like the original one, while a great game for its time, is really about memorizing the levels so you don’t run into spikes or enemies at full speed which just doesn’t seem fun.
Or Super Metroid is another favorite that does stand up to the test of time, but I’m playing Hollow Knight and Super Metroid just feels awkward compares to the newer one, even though Hollow Knight only has a melee weapon as the main attack.
GoldenEye is another one. I spent countless hours playing that back in the day, both single player and multiplayer, but even when Perfect Dark came out, I had trouble going back to it, let alone all the other games that advanced console FPS (Halo where they finally figured out a decent control scheme, or CoD with loadouts instead of the scramble to find guns lying on the ground, though I suspect neither of those games invented those mechanics). While I do treasure the GoldenEye time of my life, I don’t think my daughter would gain anything from having to do that herself.
She’s making her own memories on games like Minecraft, Pokemon (as much as adult gamers complained about the lack of depth, she loves Arcerus or whatever it’s called), or Smash Bros.
I do still plan on introducing her to some amazing games, but I’m not sure that list should be essentially my own video game path. Figuring out that list is kinda tricky.
Not saying your approach was wrong btw, just that I’m not sure how to approach it myself.
My thought process wasn’t really even so much about the games themselves as much as the approachability of someone who has never held a controller before. As much as I prefer a dual joystick, shoulder button, and 4 face button controller now. It is a lot less daunting for a new player to have a simpler input schema. NES had a d-pad, 2 face buttons and the the start button and that was it. For a 5/6 year old who never played a video game before, that seems like a good place to start. The modern controlled is much more complicated and also not sized well for little hands. The few times my wife has tried to play a game with me, just controlling the camera while moving is too much for her. I have a 2 year old daughter who is just starting to figure out what a video game is. I’m wanting to start having her play with me, but I don’t think she will be able to use the controller correctly anytime soon.
Yeah, that also makes sense. My line of thought was more about how returning to old great games might not seem as great after experiencing all the QoL and gameplay improvements that came since, so starting with those ones means they can enjoy them. My daughter is already handling the dual stick controllers well, so I guess is beyond that stage already (though when she was younger I remember her not even understanding that Mario Kart was something she could control and she thought we were picking characters for a movie, especially since the auto-steer and auto-accelerate still give a fighting chance even if you don’t otherwise touch the controller).
Can you recommend any games? I mine are about the same ages and the oldest one as already learned to play Minecraft on a computer, is learning Switch now. I never played those original classics since my parents didn’t get us a console until PS2.
On the NES, the original Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3 (skip 2), Legends of Zelda, and Metroid.
On the SNES, Super Mario World, Legends of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Paint, Super Mario RPG.
On Genesis, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (basically the same as 1, but has multi-player) and 3/Sonic & Knuckles (you could combine both cartridges and play as Knuckles, it was awesome), Mega Bomberman, Toe Jam and Earl, Earthworm Jim 2, Aladdin, The Lion King.
On PS1, Spyro The Dragon, Tomb Raider, PaRappa the Rapper, Crash Bandicoot (all of them), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid.
On N64, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Legends of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Super Smash Bros, Starfox 64, Pokémon Snap, Pokémon Stadium, Banjo Kazooie, Bomberman 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Goldeneye 007.
I’ve got a collection of games that are either:
- Games I liked but wouldn’t want my kids to play
- Games I liked and my kids will likely like
- Games I liked and my kids likely won’t like
- Games I liked and my kids initially don’t, but dammit they’re going to give it a try anyways despite the dated graphics or sometimes cheesy plot-points
This one dad started his son on Atari and introduced him to subsequent generations of console every month or so, then wrote an article about it. It’s from 2014 so most of the image links aren’t working anymore though
Good on you! It’ll also let them feel what gaming is like without bullshit DLC and microtransactions so they have a baseline for a good experience.
It will be weird in 20 odd years. “Dad has given me his old PS6, it’s a great bookend/paperweight”
It’s too bad Sony revoked everyone’s game licenses in 2030
In 2030 we game through a gamespeaker, that’s a person who learned the layout of game maps and attack patterns of monsters in the before time. You game by asking them questions and describing your actions.
So… DND?
Don’t say that out loud, you’ll be sent to a work camp by the hasbro wizards.
“pa-per”?
I think a paperweight is an old term for a heavy thing. Like it has the weight of a pape. Pape is probably one of those left over partial words like “shevled” and “hap” not existing without “dis” and “less”.
“I like retro games, like Halo 2 and that”
Temp worker at my old job, 2022, verbatim. I will forever be haunted by that phrase.
“Now listen here, you little shit”
Half my University students weren’t alive for Halo 3.
Was talking to a young adult relative the other day, and he was telling me about one of the new Call of Duty games.
I haven’t played one lately, so I mentioned something I thought was neat in World at War or Black Ops 1. And he’s like, “Wow, that’s an old one. I don’t think I was even born yet.”
💀
I teach at University and half of my students weren’t alive for Halo 3’s release.
Xbox 360 had Call of Duty 2, we are on CoD 36 or something right now, of course Xbox 360 is retro
Tbf CoD 2 was actually CoD 4 lol.
A working Xbox 360 in 2026?
I’ve still got one. Two actually. A white and the black updated one. The white one already had the red ring of death and was sent in for repair and returned when that all went down.
My knees crack when I stand up and lately I’m getting weird joint pains in my right elbow and left thumb.
Checks out.
Vintage gaming in now a thing you need to say about 90s video games.
I started a new playthrough of Final Fantasy Legend 2 this weekend, a childhood favorite and an original Game Boy game from 1991. I can feel my bones dissolving reading this post.
21 years old what the fuck. So at the end of it’s life it’s like 2012. I’m going to be honest emulation is going to dictate the legacy of the 360. At that point I’d already moved to pc but it would be good to know the must play exclusives.
More than anything consoles deliver a couch co op experience that pc just can’t match. Like I recently played obscure for xbox with a friend and it was a blast. 2 player resident evil in a high school.
I mean…its closer in power to the nintendo 64 than you would think
i play my ps2, ps1, n64, snes, gba, gb, gc, genesis and arcade games on my pc. soon as i can take time to learn the xbox side of things, those will join the party
On xemu I’ve played amped 2 and the 007 games they run pretty well don’t know about the whole library compatibility.
cool. may have to try that. have xenia here atm but documentation is a little wonky
Oh, you want to feel old?
Today I was looking at eink readers, when I remembered I had various old PDAs, like a psion 5, palm m100 and palm 1000 sitting in the cupboard. Same same, right? Throw some epubs on there, all good? Bit of spit an polish, install some legacy apps, few rounds of Dope Wars…boom.
Well, no. Horrible viewing angles, back light not worth a shit, digitiser not calibrating…and the default calendar year?
01.01.1996.
beyond good and evil is a classic and i have a copy on there somewhere
What’s the matter? The passage of time wearing you thin?
Man, I totally forgot about that scene.
