Does anyone remember Pong?

Posted on February 27, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness |

I spent about an hour this afternoon trying to play Super Mario Brothers 64 on my son’s DS light. I say “trying” because you really couldn’t call what I was doing “playing.”
His Nintendo DS light (a Christmas present) seemed pretty straight forward in theory. It’s virtually the same as a Gameboy but you have a touch screen with which you use a stylo.
It wasn’t the mechanics of the game that stumped me but the game itself! It seemed so complex and hard to follow right from the very beginning!
When I was 10 my father bought us a Commodore 64. I could play Pong, Space Invaders, King’s Quest and many others, whoohooo! Incidentally, KQ took FOUR floppy disks - you know, the big ones that really were floppy? They were great and I was amused.Then, I progressed to my very own mini arcade game - Pac Man! I remember jamming it into the pillows to try a muffle the sounds it made when I was supposed to be sleeping. No mute buttons back then.Then came the ‘Piece de Resistance’ NINTENDO!! Remember the original Super Mario Bros? I loved the side scrolling, beat the pattern action. I used to be able to beat the game 5 times over (more, I’m sure) and keep playing over and over as the screen scrolling got faster and faster and more bad guys appeared. From there, Castlvania and Faxanadu followed and then finally…Ta-Dahhh The Legend of Zelda! WOW! No side scroll and the graphics were awesome.Today’s games leave me feeling seasick and more than a little uncoordinated with their first person perspectives and 360 degree movement. I say let’s go back to the side-scroll!

Or at least re-release Commodore 64’s?

Comments

2 Responses to “Does anyone remember Pong?”

  1. Stephen on February 27th, 2007 11:09 pm

    My first computer was a Commodore 64 although I was a lot older than ten when I got it. It was my first proper foray into the computer world that had pretty much passed me by until then. That was 1992 and I had already entered my third decade at that point. I was only able to load software via cassette tapes (disc drives were way too expensive) and it took forever! I soon migrated to an Amiga and had two of those before getting my first PC in 1997. I discovered ICQ in 1999 and look what trouble that got me into. But that’s another story :)

    I’ll tell you what you should check out. Deluxe Pacman. I used to really hammer this on my Amiga and it was a real joystick breaker. There’s a PC version that is just as good but I never really found a joystick for the PC that felt as good.

    Download the game from:

    http://home.cogeco.ca/~nroy15/games_index.html

    Oh wow. I feel like a real game nerd at the moment!

  2. Nicola on February 28th, 2007 9:21 am

    “…look what trouble that got me into”? Oi! Cheeky guy.
    Nici site, Christina. The ads look great!

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