Because the colors are so bright and pure. Because the sprites and landscapes are endearingly blocky and indistinct. Because the sound effects evoke the future and the past at the same time. Because nothing about the goals and interactions really makes sense when you think about it. Because prizes are hidden inside boxes and catchy theme music follows your hero everywhere she/he/it goes. Because you get points for doing just about everything. Because they remind me of some beautiful afternoons in my youth. Because I should really go outside, but they're so much fun! For these reasons and more, I salute 8-bit video games, which accomplished so much within such strict limitations, which gave us whole worlds of shared cultural reference points, which boosted our hand-eye coordination to the point where we can now use iPhones without hardly thinking about it, and which made us think that jumping on the heads of our enemies was an effective tactical maneuver. Thank you, 8-bit games. And thank you, 8-bit game programmers, whose Snickers Bars-and Jolt Cola-fueled coding binges brought us brave new worlds of adventure. And Mom, who I know is reading this, I want you to know that I am not sitting in my basement playing video games tonight, but in fact at a coffee shop writing this post. I feel so mature!
The year I worked at the Info Desk there was always someone who would go into the Dana Lounge and play the piano. Every week the first song they would play would be the Mario theme song! I never knew who it was because they never came in through the front of Founders. I loved it! It always took me back to our first game system! Mario and Duck Hunt. That was what was up!
ReplyDeleteI loved duck hunt, must have been a way to get out the violence quakers repress.... I mean what?
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