Pop Trends: Gaming Wednesdays: Gaming in the 80s

8 bit wut?

Young kids on the internets these days run around putting their X Box Ones and Playstations Fours on a pedestal screaming at the top of their lungs the glories of their favorite system and calling those who like other consoles "Noob". They think they're so entrenched in their "console wars" talking about which version of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is slightly better than the other. Ah, these kids. They don't know what a REAL console war is about. All them fancy gizamadoos and multiplat games... they're pretty much the same console with a different logo on the front. That's not a console war. The REAL console wars happened back in the day, during the 80s and the 90s, when gaming, like a GLORIOUS phoenix, rose from the ashes of the Great Crash of 1983 to become the large blob of sameness that it is today. Join me, now. Let me tell you a story. A story of a great industry that fell, and then rose, and that at war with itself grew exponentially, until it forgot what it had originally been, to become what it is today.

E.T., the worst videogame ever, and cause of the Great Crash.

It was 1982 and gaming had been on a rise in American popular culture. Space Invader and Pong were all the rage. In 1993 the Twin Galaxies Arcade put together a team of kids that every other kid in the US hated, because they got to travel around and play videogames and be cool. THEY were cool gamers. The rest of us? Well, back then playing videogames was a nerd thing. If you owned an Atari you were a nerd. Then the game industry collapsed. A horrible thing called E.T. The Videogame was released, and that was the last straw. People lost interest in an industry oversaturated with crappy products (yes, back then most games were made of fail and suck), and between E.T., the Atari port of Pac Man, and that most horrid of things Custer's Revenge, the Trinity of Sucktitude descended unto the videogame landscape. Those were sucky years to be a gamer. Most gamers had all the same games - Yar's Revenge, Jungle Hunt, Pitfall, and by and large they lost interest in most of them.

What people thought of gamers.

Suddenly, the Sacred Console N.E.S. (Nintendo Entertainment System) lunged forth to revitalize the videogame industry. With games like Super Mario Bros, Tetris, and Bubble Bobble, it single handedly lifted the spirits of those who loved videogames. Kids at school grew confident about games, and even traded games with each other! I recall as a youth how much I wanted Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, for example. Mom wouldn't buy it for me until Christmas. I was sad. So I traded my copy of Wizards and Warriors for it! Yes! Back then we traded and shared! Not like today where you whine like "no, it's my game", or worse, "I just have a license that I can't give you". Bah. It all make me sick. Just lend me the stupid game already. Like we did back then. Ah, yes, it was better back then. But not all was good.

A free game!

For you see, children, Nintendo was not to be the only competitor in the videogame market. In 1987, SEGA released its Sega Master System, and with it came a most terrible secret: The Snail Game. On the menu screen, if no game cartridge was inserted (yes we used cartridges back then - they were more reliable than those blue rays thinggies you use), you could press Down and the buttons and you would get a free game! Oh, how glorious! The first console to come with a pre-installed game, and back in 1987! Not like that stuff YOU have today "oh I have free games on PSN" YEA WELL that costs you 85$ My snail game was free, you hear me, free!

Anyway, the Sega Master System led to schools being divided. You had the cool Nintendo kids, which I was one of, and those dirty Sega havers. You people with your PC Master Race stuff have nothing on us. WE the Cool Nintendo Kids were the true masters! WE had all the good games! But I really missed playing with my best friend Melvin. He had a Sega and Sega games. He wouldn't trade with me.

After a while, we all got together, really. If we wanted to play Punch Out, we'd go to the house of a kid with a NES, and if we wanted to play "Big Fist" (Alex Kidd), we'd go to the house of a Sega kid. Oh, how many hours I spent passing the controller around as we each unsuccessfully attempted to fully map out the world of The Legend of Zelda, or to find all the hidden items in Phantasy Star. They were glorious days, and while the consoles themselves were at odds - there were, after all, very few games (if any) that were multi console, the gaming community after a while grew together.