CONFESSIONS OF A FIRST GENERATION GAMER - BY MR BIFFO

CONFESSIONS OF A FIRST GENERATION GAMER - by Mr Biffo

10/10/2017

As I get older, it's harder to see the world with fresh eyes. Actually, now that I think about it... as obvious and predictable as that statement might be... it's not entirely true. Having written it, it feels like something I should say, whereas in some respects, I'm actually less cynical than I used to be. A veil has lifted, in some respects, and I think I see the world more clearly nowadays.

There's a sort of knee-jerk thing that many of us do when we're younger where we just automatically pretend to hate on everything, because it's edgy and cool, and God forbid we actually like something. It's a form of armour; keep everything at arm's length, and it can't hurt you. Don't like anything, and nobody can make fun of you for the things you do like.

I don't do that anymore. I probably give stuff - and people - more benefit of the doubt than I once did, while also, hopefully, keeping my wits about me enough that I'm not surprised when I'm let down.

I see now that the world is a mix of bad and good. I believe that people are inherently decent, but that the system into which we're born is seriously, fundamentally, wrong. It devalues us as individuals, while gifting certain people with undue levels of power and significance.

I mean, I got validated on Twitter yesterday. I only applied because my attempts to get other validated Twitter users to notice Mr Biffo's Found Footage was falling on deaf ears, because, if you're validated, you can silence the tweets of the "non-entities" who don't have a Twitter tick.

Isn't that horrible?

I get that validation works as a way for people in the public eye to protect their identities, but then being able to silence the noise of "plebs", so that they only listen to their fellow elites... ugh. I had a lot of people congratulate me on getting ticked-up, but it doesn't feel like an achievement so much as something I feel I've got no choice over. Nevertheless, that damn tick is symbolic of everything that grates on me in regard to our celebrity culture.

But that isn't what I wish to discuss today. I've started off on a completely different subject. What a terrible error.

You see, something I do miss about being younger is that thrill of the new - and I wonder if today's gamers get to experience what I experienced.

BANG ON
Sorry to bang on again about the Super NES Classic Mini, but a funny thing has started to happen to me while I've been playing on it. I mean, obviously I expected to feel nostalgic, but the way in which it has made me feel nostalgic has surprised me.

What's really interesting about the selection of games on there is how they span the life of the SNES. Super Mario World is a classic, obviously, but then you get Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, and Star Fox. All four of these games blew me away at the time. All, in their own, way, felt like signposts to the future. They felt like something utterly new and different, as did the SNES itself.

Playing them again, with a proper SNES pad in my hand, has reminded me just how ruddy exciting that time was. How it really felt like we - even as gamers - were pioneers, in a way. We were on a journey together, moving ever forwards.

I know there was other stuff happening for me. I mean, I'd accidentally gotten myself a job as a games journalist, for one thing. I was getting every new game sent to me for free - often arriving in a package with t-shirts and other tat - the games companies were taking me on jollies, and I was going to launch parties full of celebrities.

Unfortunately, outside of working for Digi, pretty much the only celebrities I'd ever seen in person up until that point were Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith...

I get that I don't have all that glitz surrounding me now when I play a game. Nevertheless, there was something more in the air during that era - a feeling of home gaming at last reaching its potential. The fact that most SNES games stand up today - the first time a gaming generation can claim such a thing - is testament to this.

Now it just feels to me as if gaming is no longer moving forwards, but around in a circle.

WONDER MAN
Something I wonder is whether my attitude to modern gaming is tainted by age and experience, and whether the generation of gamers coming up now feel the same way as I once did.

I guess everything is new to them, just like it was once to me - although, when I was a kid it was new full stop, and I'm pretty sure I was aware of that. It feels damned special to know I was there, that I was part of something as massive as the birth of video gaming.

My family had a Binatone. I played Space Invaders in the arcade. We had an Atari 2600, a Donkey Kong Game & Watch, an Astro Wars, a ZX Spectrum, a Game Boy... I got to be there when every one of those things was something the world had never seen before. And then when the 16-bit era dawned I was there again, and I knew that everything that had come before had been leading towards it.

Every generation, every new development, felt like a leap forwards - and it happened fast. By comparison, the progress of gaming has slowed to a crawl. New consoles offer slightly higher definition graphics, rather than a real, noticeable, surge.

Of course, there was always going to come a time when this happened. It was sort of inevitable.

Nonetheless, it intrigues me - given that gaming now has that weight of history behind it - whether new, younger, gamers are as blown away by games, or just sort of accept them as part and parcel of life, in the way that I did film and TV. Whether they take games for granted, whether a new FIFA is appreciated because it's predictable. Whether the comfort of knowing you'll get a new instalment of your favourite franchise every Christmas has overtaken the thrill of the new.

I want to know whether my lack of excitement about the latest Call of Duty is due to my age, or because I'm sick of identikit games, sick of wandering around massive, open world, forests, shooting or hacking at things.

In short: is it me or them?

28 Comments

Scott C

10/10/2017 10:18:45 am

In the past, the imagination of game designers was tempered by technological limitations, while today this is rarely the case. Hence, innovation in games used to be closely linked to technological developments (or clever software tricks to get around the technological limitations of the time, e.g. mode 7). One might argue that the commercialisation of VR was the last frontier gaming technology to be attained. A few years before that touch screens and motion controls increased accessibility to ever younger and older gamers (e.g. my daughter loved a pop-the-balloon game on touch-screen phone when she was 5-months old!).

Biscuits

10/10/2017 10:58:04 am

Yup, new innovations are being made in gaming all the time. The industry has never been healthier, nor as wide-reaching and pioneering. VR and touchscreens are both very exciting in terms of what they offer for the future, and there's so many genres and markets now that every type of game is being addressed and growing in different ways

It may seem as though games have been stagnating for a while now, but I think this is due to the long lifespan of modern consoles. I remember the thing that impressed me most last gen was that, towards the end, locations and arenas started to get really huge. I remember being a bit blown away but the first 'dungeon' thing in Skyrim, because the arch outside was so big. If visual representation offering a previously unexperienced sense of scale and location in games is by the by, then I would also argue the 'leap' from 8 to 16 bit is also a tawdry one.

MENTALIST

10/10/2017 11:18:12 am

Nowadays, the imagination of designers is tempered by production values. Unless you're prepared to accept a massive amount degree of stylising (Hello, a million and one pixel-art indie games), its takes a lot of time, people and money to make a game with massive scope.

And, of course with massive budgets, comes The Man (no, not that one) with a stern eye on how it's spent.

Ter G

10/10/2017 10:46:19 am

I've felt this way for a couple of generations to be honest. I've always been a fan of the technological advances and hardware as much as the games. Snes was the first console I've bought on launch day - and I've got most since.
They've all had their moments - but the jaw dropping feeling of a technological leap - as opposed to smaller incremental improvements is inevitable. Wii is the last one that surprised - and that had little to do with the technology. At the same time I'm playing more games that don't need to be run on a massively powerful machine.
And ... I'm going to stop before my comment is longer than the article

Tim

10/10/2017 11:04:17 am

Nothing has ever made me as in awe as that first game of Elite but back then I also thought the slightest glimpse of a boob was the hottest thing ever. Like anything the new-ness just rubs off and you do get used to it, and then take it for granted. These days being able to fly a spaceship on my my TV is normal and I need some filthy ass porn to make me even slightly tumescent.

VendingMachine

12/10/2017 01:59:35 pm

The pornography analogy is actually bang on.

DEAN

10/10/2017 11:13:10 am

Interesting and funnily enough I have written a letter for you following a very similar vein... well, some crossover points at least!

But yeah, we, the bloated middle-aged, were once pioneers!
Not just video games either - personal cassette players, MP3 players and home video players and Smart Phones... game changers! Satnavs.

I was reading an interview with some pensioners at Nintendo yesterday about how they considered the NES to be a little magic box because you could plug in a different cartridge and play a different game. You know, like on the old Atari consoles that preceded it. It's funny how....

I think as gen X'ers we have several things in common and relevant in this case would be spending lots of time with grey Nanny Nintendo.

Every milestone that games gush past makes me happy - like a mummy bird watching her fledglings fall out of the nest - aw bless, look at them trying! But they have found their wings and gone on to become mighty eagles and in some cases little garden birds that live in hedges and peck at the ground for worms.

When I get a new game now my ex-peck-tations and demands have changed. I no longer give any game the benefit of the doubt and stick with it and I will not forgive shoddy workmanship (camera, crashing, too difficult...)

Games need to slot nicely in to any allowed time I have deigned to allot them and they need to be slick about it. They need to be as close to more traditional media as possible and if they're not then I rarely have the patience to 'work with them' or 'show willing'.

I suppose, once all is said and done, we now live in a world where gaming is as near ubiquitous as books and films and as such it's only fitting that we take them for granted. They have moved out and found productive work at The Big Smoke. Stay away from drugs, kids... and Harvey Wankstain!

10/10/2017 11:49:08 am

Hey man, if you approach any medium with a ruthless eye for flawless production values, you'll miss all the new exciting ideas being put forward by scrappy upstarts that may not yet have traditional skills! The most exciting stuff is on the fringes, man! Yeah Frankie and Bennys will knock up a perfectly functional calzone with a little salad and fast service, but the new and upcoming Manky Gino's will make you a brown shrimp and feta hand-folded 'tasca per il pranzo' that will change your life! And only £45.99!

You might find a sort-of torpor sets in when only playing the frou frou business because you are essentially only consuming the continually filtered, money-wise corporate excess of any particular trend or genre! Man!!!

10/10/2017 12:03:53 pm

Biscuits! Love you, man!!

Sure, you're right and we both know it but that's not really my point. I'm not going to stick with a book when half the words are written upside down or watch a film that only require me to keep adjusting the remote settings in order to see what's going on.... it's like trying to listen to a song that keeps needing to buffer... you just give up, right?!

Point in case - I played a game the other day called Snake Pass. Awesome, in so many ways but the camera.... it felt like my brain went all wrong and my inner ear was all buggered up.

I feel you, bro, really I do, but games can't get away with being broken like that. Not at £50 and not even at 99p.

And time.... I have windows where I can play games but not jump through hoops and over hurdles.

This isn't Crufts, Biscuits!

Biscuit lover

10/10/2017 12:41:39 pm

I'm with Biscuits on this. Sure, the mainstream is great, slick, huge productions, flawless, breathtaking visuals and incredible sound. However, I try to stick to the edges; the lower budget productions with great ideas but not enough budget to fully realise them. So you get slightly wonky sets, the odd glitch and a character made out of clipart.

If you want to go full-on amateur you're in really experimental territory and the likelihood is that it's unplayable, unwatchable, unlistenable but probably free or really cheap.

Biscuits' food example doesn't really work for movies, music and games. The less polished stuff tends to be cheaper, but with food you're going to the local gourmet restaurant and it'll be more expensive.

10/10/2017 01:05:07 pm

I do getcha, I had to quit Absolver (despite enjoying it and its ideas) due to technical performance. On PC the game runs the way it is supposed to, and it looks like the slinky, fluid, mystical martial arts business it sets out to be. On PS4 it chugs around like crazy, and even freezes for a second or two when loading a glut of new players into the area...I can handle this in other games, but this is meant to be all sleek and smooth! Split seconds count, Devolver Digital!

I general I think when it's a constant wresting with your senses it can be annoying, like I would rather a game just stuck at a constant 20 FPS than flit between 20 and 40 FPS. But bugs and glitches are ok (they are frequently even funny, and in general I like seeing the workings of things).

Koozebane

10/10/2017 11:18:42 am

Just this weekend I was round my brother-in-laws playing the Star Wars Beta with him and my 6 year old nephew.
"Wow look at the graphics" my bro-in-law said. Nothing from my nephew.
"You have to stop and appreciate the graphics" he pleaded. All he got was a shrug.

Col. Asdasd

10/10/2017 02:59:49 pm

I really do agree with a lot of this. It's not that there aren't games coming out that give the sensation of pushing the medium forward - I strongly feel we have to resist the narrative that we're irredeemably doomed to walk in circles forever - but for the last couple of generations they've seemed so few and far between.

When I was younger, back at the turn of the century, it seemed that gaming and the possibility it represented was being redefined every couple of months. The industry was moving at lightspeed even if news reached us at a glacial pace.. I still remember the agonising wait for games mags to bring me a few 2cm square screenshots of Ocarina of Time. It looked like nothing I could have imagined just a couple of years prior.

Nowadays the innovations developers are bringing to the table seem strictly limited to ever-new ways to seperate the player from their hard-earned. The most depressing trend for me at the moment is the the industry (media et al) waving through a spate of full price releases that are now cynically loot boxes - which basically amount to gambling. At best it's a siren song in the ear of the developer, whispering to them to eschew the principles of good design in favour of grindy filler gameplay that can be paid to make go away. At worst it's downright predatory.

The editorial lead on every games website? 'You don't NEED to buy them, so it's fine!'

My advice as ever is to look to the margins, because the AAA space is giving us very little to work with. Indie games continue to be a font of innovation. Virtual reality is in an awkward, fumbling infancy, but surely, slowly, . The Switch is an promising new console and Nintendo refuses to play by the rules of the other industry giants (not entirely, anyway).

10/10/2017 03:05:15 pm

*cynically stuffed with
** surely, slowly, progressing

Could you not crowbar an edit function into this here website Herr B.?

Mr Biffo

10/10/2017 04:09:12 pm

Stupid web hosting thing doesn't allow one. Just as frustrating to me as it is to you...

11/10/2017 08:46:12 am

No worries Biffster. Thanks as ever for your words.

Spiney O’Sullivan

10/10/2017 03:48:32 pm

If yoYoung people seem to quite like the games being made today.

10/10/2017 03:56:29 pm

My middle finger hovered too near the submit button as I type on my phone there.

Let’s try again:

If you look at Reddit etc, young people seem to be just as hyped over the big games coming out now as we were when Sonic 3 came out.

Okay, as I was. Some people weren’t... *cough*

I guess when they grow up (insofar as we have...), they’ll be complaining that the new hologames don’t compared to Overwatch, Undertale, and The Witcher 3 like we complain that nobody makes the games that were formative to us anymore. The way I see it, you long for the games of a certain age that were most formative to you. It’s why I’m not that worried about a SNES mini, but I have bought the old 2D Sonic games on pretty much every platform, rebought a bunch of PSone games on Vita, and will trample anyone in my way to get my hands on a theoretical N64 mini.

Jareth Smith

11/10/2017 08:58:09 am

I think that's debatable, Mr. Biffo is hardly a right wing "back in my day" sort; AAA games have changed and kids of today don't know any better, many will be too obstinate to try the old games with rubbish graphics as I've seen mentioned many times on gaming forums. I've met plenty who refuse to play Super Metroid but will play the latest CoD as it's the "future". That is the behaviour of philistines, not a new generation leaving behind clueless old timers approaching senility.

In this respect, they may sit about complaining about new games in a decade, but we're approaching this subject with an impartial appraisal free from nescience, belligerence, or vacuity. I'm 32 and perfectly capable of viewing the generations of consoles, and PC, I grew up playing, such as how the majority of PSOne and N64 games are no virtually unplayable as the early 3D graphics have aged so badly.

Conversely, the SNES remains the greatest games console of them all due to the sheer range of masterpieces, something which big AAA games with an infatuation for HD graphics and godawful scripts certainly can't replicate. 99% of modern releases on the PS4 and Xbox in particular and here today, gone tomorrow, so it's a different era of developer excess meets consumer greed, short attention spans, and general belligerence (by the latter I refer to the pathetic whimpering of fanboys online about which console has the best graphics). The same belligerence may have been around in the early 1990s on playgrounds, but we discussed what the best games were - Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger. Go figure.

11/10/2017 09:06:58 am

Just to add to this, an addendum as it were, I recently saw the FIFA '18 game and some of its cutscenes. The apprentice at my last job, aged 17, said to me he found Nintendo's games repetitive. Yet all he plays, as with the other young guy in the office who called the Wii U "crap" despite not having played on one, is FIFA. Literally, nothing else, but this isn't repetitive, apparently.

Now, I saw the FIFA '18 cutscenes on the trailer recently and laughed at how atrocious it looked. If you go back a bit further, to the PS3 era, and the endless cutscenes in the games of that generation, and they're even worse. Then you look at all the tedious prattling from fatuous sorts onlinem genuine flame wars raging on for months or years, about which console has the best graphics, and what I think today's young gamers will be discussing in a decade is how much better the cutscenes with terrible dialogue look in 2027 compared to 2017, whereas the '80s and '90s gamers discuss what games have the best gameplay.

It's substance over style, putting it simply.

11/10/2017 09:26:17 am

Your posts always do strike me as the work of someone impartial and non-belligerent.

I was going to stop reading at “philistines”, but couldn’t stop myself going further. So two things:

Annoying console fanboys are not a modern phenomenon. The Digi letters page was a testament to this. They have the internet so it’s amplified now, but if you’re 32, you must remember the 90s well enough to remember Sega vs Nintendo and the frequently facile arguments in those. Kids will always need to justify owning which console their parents bought them, and also there’s a certain tribal nature to humanity which means we put way too much of our identity into the stuff we consume. As with every single post, I ask you again, are you really sure you’re free of rose-coloured glasses?

As for the PSone and N64, many games are indeed now unplayable. But there’s a few absolute classics on both that stand the test of time. You could argue that they were to the PS2 generation what the Atari 2600 and Spectrum were to the 16-Bit consoles: a brave venture into a new world that was bound to be full of messy mistakes.

11/10/2017 09:40:11 am

Actually, I see you did address that kids in the 90s argued over consoles. That said, do you really think they were having genuine debates about the merits of games, or simply asserting why their choice was right?

(Also I guess I did sort of stop reading after “philistines” after all...)

11/10/2017 09:52:02 am

Spiney O’Sullivan - Well it's nice to see you're so committed to your narcissism, dear. If you can't be bothered reading my messages, you don't deserve a proper response. Have a good one! xx

11/10/2017 10:21:32 am

Belligerent as always, but genuinely, thank you for agreeing to stop.

Saedust

10/10/2017 06:10:01 pm

Movies are my first and major love. I saw most of my all time favourite films for the first time on a 14 inch tv. Throughout the years I have bought those films over and over again on ever better formats and viewed them on ever larger screens. Sometimes I'll see a new detail on a rewatch and feel a little of that first swoosh of love I felt the first time but the reality is that I've been looking down the wrong end of the telescope; it's not the picture quality or surround sound I fell in love with, it was the surprise of the new and unknown, and the way my body and mind reacted to it. The only way to experience that sensation is to find something new, not to revisit the same well time and again expecting to be surprised by a taste that in truth lost its flavour long ago.

There is wonder out there, lots of it, but it's in discovering new things, not spending time on old ones. I don't think growing up has anything to do with it. When your'e young everything is new. If all people do is revisit and the same hobbies as they grow older, no wonder they get bored. I will always love my favourite movies and games, but if I want to rediscover the thrill they once gave me it will be in other forms of entertainment.

11/10/2017 08:21:15 am

The main issue with modern gaming is the major AAA developers churning out generic nonsense for the PS4 and Xbox One and the conservative nature of gaming those two companies have. It's just ramp the specs up to 11 and presume that's best. It isn't, as we can see from two disappointing consoles with few classics to offer.

The SNES era was the best for gaming and it's being replicated by the fantastic indie scene.On Steam, and the Switch, we're seeing incredible innovation and the Metroidvania genre is creating classic after classic, so I'm viewing this (along with how fantastic the Switch is, it's really got me excited about console gaming again) as another golden era for gaming. It just has nothing to do with the PS4 and Xbox One, sadly, which is what most modern gamers plump for as it's trendy and all that, but then they suffer sub-par gaming experiences but remain clueless about it.

11/10/2017 10:22:50 am

Jareth!

First of all, I'd just like to express how much II enjoy your posts and the banter between you and Spiney: a lot!

Anyway, much as I may agree with the spirit of where you're coming from, I don't often agree with the nitty gritty.

So yeah, the indie scene. Absolutely 100% brilliant. To my mind it's like enjoying listening to actual bands instead of Taylor Swift, X-Factor... And also like enjoying the funnies by Paul Rose, Stewart Lee... instead of Micael Macintyre, John Bishop....

So far so good, we're definitely in the same book, if not on the same page!

But here's the rub - I have enjoy the PS4 very much! There's a wealth of great indie games on it, old and new, and coupled with the family friendly stuff like Knack and Crash Bandicoot, it's been a blast.
I had a Switch at launch, got bored with Zelda (sacrilegious but meh) and thought I'd turn a profit by flipping it and wait for the games to come at me bro!
So I preordered an Odyssey pack recently and then, after watching the latest trailer for Mario O, cancelled it!!!
See, I didn't really like Mario's last outing very much either (the 3D one with catsuits) and this looked like all of that again but prettier. I can wait and, for me at least, the PS4 continues to keep me sated.

My son is really looking forward to Star Wars Battlefront II and thinks the new Need For Speed game looks awesome (he's 9 so he hasn't played the last 50 or whatever). My point is that if we were a Switch family, and it would seem that the Switch is a great fit there... except that it's really not. Yet.

Hamptonoid

15/10/2017 12:56:53 pm

I totally agree. ..this is all down to taste and preference. If you like Taylor Swift, then who am I to say that you're wrong. There's definitely a place for AAA games, the beautiful thing now is the amount of choice means there's something for everyone. Which is overall a good thing, I think.

Does your lad play battlefront now? I've always steered clear of it as I thought it would be too complicated for my 8 year old (he loves all things star wars).

CONFESSIONS OF A FIRST GENERATION GAMER - by Mr Biffo

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