As 2022 nears its final quarter, gamers can reflect on the exciting video game releases that the year has brought. Titles like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Elden Ring, and Horizon Forbidden West have all performed well, impressing audiences with their exciting gameplay and impressive graphics. It seems that every year, the pick for great new games is just getting better and better.Of course, the gaming world looks very different from what it once did. Today players now expect picture-perfect titles, but there was a time that a couple of bars and a pixilated dot were all kids needed to have some digital fun. These were the days that many of today's adult gamers first started to experience video games, which makes the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s an important and nostalgic time for many. From the way that game physics worked back in the day to the unofficial way that everyone wrapped their Nintendo 64 cord, there are certain aspects of retro gaming that all adult gamers can relate to, and a few memes can perfectly sum them up.
Things Sure Have Changed
Today, many games are filled with flashy moves and attacks. Gamers press a couple of buttons when a prompt flashes across the screen and they can watch the character go into a flurry of impressive forays or leap through the air for a quick finish.
This always makes for a visually appealing game, but it can often bring to mind the simplicity of attacks in past games. Titles like Super Mario Bros only had a couple of buttons for players to use. However, Mario could still fly through the air in a satisfying leap just from sliding from B to A.
Calling All Gamers Over 30
Since society often views video games as an activity for children, it is easy to forget that the kids that first experienced games in their earliest forms are now all grown up.
When the best arcade game cabinets first graced bowling alleys and pizza joints, their main focus was on kids and teenagers. Now, those same kids are in their 30s, but their love for gaming hasn't changed.
Who Needed Realistic Physics?
In modern gaming, designers have the goal of making their titles as realistic as possible. Players will quickly become excited in games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when they see that their environment behaves similarly to the real world, meaning that they can explore without the typical limits of a digital world.
Of course, it took decades of learning for modern developers to get this right. For example, back in the early days of fighter titles like Mortal Kombat, several glitches and limits could even be used to players' advantages (or disadvantages). Today's meticulous details might be exciting, but it's still easy to miss a simpler time.
Missing Corded Controllers
Between the various systems within different companies, there have been a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors that have been popular in game controllers over the years. Controllers have gotten sleeker, more comfortable, and of course, cordless, but it took a lot of trial and error to get the industry to that point.
Looking back on early Atari, Sega, and Nintendo controllers, a young gamer might not even be able to recognize what the devices are for. The Nintendo 64 controller, which is still one of the best of all time, has especially baffled those who are too young to remember how to hold them correctly, let alone how to wrap them up (though siblings of any age can surely work out how to get revenge with a cord).
Grandpa NES
As game systems have evolved, saving data storage has evolved right along with it. So while young gamers might take for granted the ability to save their game around every corner and maintain the security that they won't lose all their hard work, "elder" gamers know that there was once a time that a single mistake could wipe out an entire evening worth of effort.
While this was undoubtedly an issue in "grandpa" systems like the NES, it was even worse in classic arcade games, where the information saved was entirely reduced to a player's initials and their high score.
Playing With Lines And Dots
Very little about video games is left to the imagination in the modern age. Graphics in games like Red Dead Redemption 2 look so real that gamers can sometimes feel more like they are watching a movie than playing a video game. Of course, there are typically no complaints here.
However, in old gaming systems like the Atari, actual gameplay would look more like a ton of moving lines and dots instead of the characters and scenarios that were depicted on the game case. This meant that for players to follow along, they needed to have a great imagination.
An Old Classic
Many gamers will be familiar with the Konami Code, even if they never knew it by name. The code was first included in the NES version of the game Contra (originally Gradius) by developers as a way to quickly gain perks and make the game easier during testing. However, it ended up getting left in, and slowly, players began to discover the secret.
From there, the Konami Code has become a "secret that everyone knows" in the video game world. In the 90s, a lot of games would at least give a tip of the hat to a payer that entered the sequence of buttons. Today, games like Rocket League, and Grand Theft Auto, will still reward players for their use.
A Night In The 90s
Video games aren't the only thing that's changed since the good old days. Several popular businesses from the 80s and 90s have since fallen from popularity or closed entirely. This means that a night with friends eating pizza, renting a Blockbuster movie, and playing GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 is completely in the past.
Of course, adult gamers can still recreate this by renting from Prime Video, ordering a pizza through DoorDash, and purchasing a vintage title digitally on their Nintendo Switch. Still, the nostalgia factor just isn't there.
Showing Kids The Oldies But Goodies
When arcade games introduced light guns, gamers were beyond excited to be able to hold and aim a gun as if they were fighting bad guys in real life. Then, once this technology was brought to home systems like with Duck Hunt on the NES, it was clear that gaming would never be the same again.
Of course, this technology seems crude today. It's difficult to purchase a game in the 21st century without it having some kind of motion capabilities, and many gamers have returned to preferring a traditional first-person shooter video game like Call of Duty over more realistic options. Still, this doesn't stop gamer parents from trying to show off this technology to largely unimpressed children.
Sadistic Gameplay
Back before everyone was connected via the internet, it was easy to go years without realizing that the weird things that a gamer did in a specific title were done by basically every other gamer out there. For example, kids at least tried to follow traffic laws while playing Grand Theft Auto or purposely made their neighbors hate them in the original Animal Crossing.
Now, the world of memes has revealed that when it comes down to it, gamers are all the same. While no one would ever dream of dropping a real-life penguin off a cliff to its death, it's completely acceptable to do so in Super Mario 64 without fear of eternal damnation.