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Jnorman

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New Baby On the Way, What Games to Show Him First?

So my wife is due in about a week and a half. I've spend the last three months gathering as many old games from my childhood as I could. My goal that I have in mind is to gently easy my new offspring into the world of video games. I am almost deathly afraid of him coming in to the world on the cusp of a new console generation with him not knowing the past of it. I'd like to think of my generation as the best generation for video games. Born in the 80s, childhood experienced in the 90s, young adulthood in the 2000s, and transitioning into my late 20s and early 30s during this wonderful 2010-2020 decade. I've witnessed the rise and fall of sega, the late PS2 vs. XBOX vs. Gamecube wars of the last generation, and the emergence of xbox live. I know for sure that it is quite impossible to replicate that experience. I doubt that we will see the leaps in technology or range of creativity that we saw going from the 16bit era to 3D. Nor do I believe that we will ever see something as overtly against the status quo as the Wii was when it first launched. But I want to believe that I can at least give my kid some kind of perspecitve on it before we inevitably go out and buy him (and me) the newest gaming whatever. I want him to discover Super Mario world for the first time. I want him to make his own judgement about which console mascot he likes better. I want him to play his first 3D game and have his brain blown to bits. I want him to love his new games while understanding the novelty of the old ones. I want him to understand where we came from and what game design decisions that have been made in the past have influenced the way it is done today. Then I came to a pretty dissapointing conclusion. I sounded just like my parents. Not about games, but about life. My mom and dad wanted me to know all about the civil rights movement. They wanted me to know where I came from, what we had been through and to know not to take anything for granted because of where we are now. That is definitely the exact same line of thinking that I was tapping in to. Which pretty much bummed me all the way out. I've come to realize that it is not so much that I want him to experience those things, as I want to experience them all over again. But oh well. All is not lost. Since I have amassed this small collection of gaming stuff from my childhood I'll just sit back and play them when I feel like it. If he likes them he likes them, if he doesn't he doesn't. Pretty simple I think.

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Jnorman

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Edited By Jnorman

So my wife is due in about a week and a half. I've spend the last three months gathering as many old games from my childhood as I could. My goal that I have in mind is to gently easy my new offspring into the world of video games. I am almost deathly afraid of him coming in to the world on the cusp of a new console generation with him not knowing the past of it. I'd like to think of my generation as the best generation for video games. Born in the 80s, childhood experienced in the 90s, young adulthood in the 2000s, and transitioning into my late 20s and early 30s during this wonderful 2010-2020 decade. I've witnessed the rise and fall of sega, the late PS2 vs. XBOX vs. Gamecube wars of the last generation, and the emergence of xbox live. I know for sure that it is quite impossible to replicate that experience. I doubt that we will see the leaps in technology or range of creativity that we saw going from the 16bit era to 3D. Nor do I believe that we will ever see something as overtly against the status quo as the Wii was when it first launched. But I want to believe that I can at least give my kid some kind of perspecitve on it before we inevitably go out and buy him (and me) the newest gaming whatever. I want him to discover Super Mario world for the first time. I want him to make his own judgement about which console mascot he likes better. I want him to play his first 3D game and have his brain blown to bits. I want him to love his new games while understanding the novelty of the old ones. I want him to understand where we came from and what game design decisions that have been made in the past have influenced the way it is done today. Then I came to a pretty dissapointing conclusion. I sounded just like my parents. Not about games, but about life. My mom and dad wanted me to know all about the civil rights movement. They wanted me to know where I came from, what we had been through and to know not to take anything for granted because of where we are now. That is definitely the exact same line of thinking that I was tapping in to. Which pretty much bummed me all the way out. I've come to realize that it is not so much that I want him to experience those things, as I want to experience them all over again. But oh well. All is not lost. Since I have amassed this small collection of gaming stuff from my childhood I'll just sit back and play them when I feel like it. If he likes them he likes them, if he doesn't he doesn't. Pretty simple I think.