Gaming as a kid.

[Ando85]

I've been playing games since before I remember. I began with Super Mario Bros. on the good ole NES back in the 80s. I look back at how long I would play games and never finish them. I can't recall many games I actually got to the end and having the credits roll as a kid.

I realized this a few years back when I decided to replay The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I had this game as a kid and I probably spent months playing it and never finished it. However, when I replayed it as an adult I finished it in the span of a weekend.

So compare your gaming now to your gaming as a kid.

 

[Scrustle]

I was the same. As a kid even though I loved games and played them all the time I was pretty crap at them. I think the earliest example I can remember is Majora's Mask. That was the first Zelda game I ever got. As a kid I found the dungeons really hard and never managed to finish the Water Temple. But later in my life I got the game on GC and got through it with much more ease. I still think the game can't really be called easy, but I did a lot better with it than when I was a kid. When I was younger I also used cheat discs with stuff a lot. It was rarely because I found the games too hard, I just kind of got addicted to them. You could do some pretty cool stuff. But I realised I was kind of ruining the experience with them, and they're impossible to use now without getting banned off everything anyway.

 

[Zhukov]

Well, the big difference would be that as a kid I had incredibly low standards. In fact, I had absolutely no standards at all.

See, I didn't really have regular access to a console or computer until I was 13 (2000-ish). Before that the only games I got to play were at friend's houses or whenever I could use my dad's computer (which was an ancient Mac). So I regarded playing video games as a rare treat. If it involved pressing buttons and a screen, I was all but guaranteed to love it.

Once I finally got a PC of my own I could afford to be a bit more picky. And from there I evolved into the grumpy, old, cynical snob you see before you.

It went something like this:
1993 - "Oh my god, I pressed the button and the picture moved! This is so awesome!"
1996 - "Blood! Explosions! Whoo!"
2002 - "Wait, is this thing trying to tell me a story...? Shut the fuck up and make with the explosions. Also, boobs if you have any."
2007 - "Whoa, that story (Bioshock) was actually comparable in quality to some books I've read."
2009 - "Meh, this game is a generic CoD-clone. When are game developers going to learn to write dialogue that isn't embarrassingly bad?"

Perhaps I was better off revelling in explosions and pixelated blood, but there's simply no going back now...

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

The games are just as hard, just with much better graphics and an actual storyline. I tried playing super mario brothers a few years ago. I thought since I spent the last decade in 3d environments a simple side scroller would be a cakewalk. Nope, still just as difficult as it used to be.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Oddly enough A Link to the Past was my wake up call as well. I remember having files on all three slots. When I got a working SNES for my birthday last year I went back and played it, started on one of my old saves (score, they were both there!) and proceeded to cut through the game like a hot knife through butter. Some bosses I remember dreading as a kid were now just plain fun to fight, meanwhile I found myself talking to every NPC and wanting to find out more about people like Sahasrahla and the Flute Boy.