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Game Nostalgia I: Belonging to the 80s Gaming Generation


Prince of Persia

After taking a bath (gamers do take baths you know :p ) I realized how blessed I am to have been born in 1982 (the early years of Generation Y). Why? When I was growing up, I was there when electronic gaming – PC in particular – was in its childhood years.

I was there when Scorched Earth became a very popular shoot-em-up scrolling strategy tank game. I was there when the early first-person shooter games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom II, and Quake were storming LAN gaming centres. I was there when Sim and Tycoon games were born – Sim City and Transport Tycoon, being the fathers of these two genres respectively.

Would gamers who grew up in the 3rd millennium (ie Year 2000 and up) enjoy these games?


Maniac Mansion

Follow up:

Nah, I highly doubt. Maybe 2 out of 10 and I am being overly optimistic already. Will today’s generation of gamers play these games?


OpenTTD (a clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe)


UFO: Alien Invasion (inspired by X-COM game series)


Doom II: Hell on Earth


Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Majority of the millennium gamer generation are the eye-candy type. If it doesn’t look “modern” (and you have to ask them to define “modern”), they will ignore it. Do you think they will play this MMOG?


Ultima Online (isometric view made popular by Ultima VI: The False Prophet)

So yeah, I am blessed to have been born in the early 80s because I have far less of the biases of many gamers today. I am so glad, I am so overjoyed of realizing that. I can proudly say that I am part of the history of electronic gaming.

They laughed, they ridiculed the games of our time when I showed them our games. But I am glad to report that not one of those *cough* “modern” *cough* generation were able to beat a single nostalgia game. (I hope to meet one soon :p )

And didn’t I mention I was able to play many table-top arcade games before these disappeared from circulation? Now those are from the 70s gaming generation if you are not aware.

How about you? What makes you proud of your gaming generation? What makes your generation unique? What are the aspects that the newer and younger and next generation of gamers will never be able to experience? What are the things that they will never like from your gaming generation?

Or what were the reaction of your kids or students or younger gaming friends when you showed them the games of your time?

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