Darren
08-09-2009, 11:56 AM
We received this letter from a Hyper reader, and as it's too long to print in this month's letters section, I thought I'd post it here.
You're all very lucky people on the hyper crew and I'm sure that's something you get to hear from almost every letter and email that you get to open and well, I guess it has its perks but the truth is, you're all spoiled. That's right, not just those of you that print your fine magazine but also you, the reader in the real world who goes home to your DLC on your Xboxes and Playstations and your Wiis'.
Maybe you have an extra little something that you like to play with in your pocket like your Dsi or PSPs and iPhones but I was born before all of that rubbish and I'll tell you young pups now that we knew how to have real fun in those days.
When I was born, woodstock was in full swing and the flower movement was a real rocking place to be baby, long before austin powers revived some of the intrest in the long dead fad.
I still remember a time when tanks rolled up Gladstone road in brisbane some forty or more on the way to cunungra for training before going on to vietnam but alas, I digress in my efforts to put you in the right mindset of a bygone era.
This is all about the technology that you all take for granted today, but I was there watching it happen when I was a boy. When you think of games of the past, and I've seen and read your issues that always seem to kick off from the 80s, but the arcades were around long before games like pong and space invaders and it's time you were set straight on this. Like any good story, it starts off with “When I was a boy...” and as a boy I considered myself lucky when our grandad took us to the dirty rocky beach that he liked so much and it was there that I got to play my first “true” arcade game. It was a mopey old clown in a case and when you put your two bob in, you would be able to press anything up to six buttons to make the clown dance to a funny tune that would play when the lights flashed on. Go on, laugh if you will at the stupid old goat and his stories and you'll miss the obvious fact that this was indeed the grandfather of Dance Dance Revolution. Understand that this was before not only mobile phones but digital watches were also some way off, at least to the wider commercial market so stop your scoffing before I come over there and give you a clout over the earhole. Anyway, the more you could make the clown dance in time with the music would of course give you a final score and everyone would go home happy with fond memories of a grand day out. Little did I know at the time that this was just a simple precursor of things to come and it wasn't until I was much older that I was taken on a trip to see an uncle off on the plane back in the day when large crowds would do that very thing, all standing on the viewing deck waving hankies at departing aircraft because that was just the thing to do at the time. Of course, being a young fella back then meant that there wasn't a hope in the world that I was going to sit still and sure enough after much running about with my brother, we stumbled onto an oddity. It was something akin to finding the tycho monolith on the moon in retrospect and the two of us stood for hours looking at this … thing.
It was in essence, a televison set standing upright in a wooden box with two dials that could be twisted either left or right and some of you may have spotted the surprise by now that this was indeed the fabled PONG, or a very good pong clone in any event and it must have been long after the fad had taken in the states because right next to that was something that I can't recall the title of but it was a red baron type shooter with 2 airstrips down the bottom of the screen and the graphics were surprisingly worse than that of the atari 2600, all black and white of course and it amused us to no end. Now I can't say that this is the order or the timeframe that these games came out in, I can only vouch that this is the order that they happened into my life and changed me forever. The next few years saw me grow, the wonderful space invaders came out with a bang of course and there were dedicated arcades on every corner now, the world of computers was booming with the release of the Apple IIE and its amazing green screen and magically from out of nowhere, the first home consols started to filter through.
My first system was a Hanimex TVG070C which was balls of course and not much better than the intellivision that followed but it did make me appreciate the atari 2600 (which I still own with all games and extras) and every system I had from there. I built up horny worshippers in populous on the sega master system 2 and yes, alex kidd as well. In all of this timethe world kept turning and evolving of course and they started to remove the typewritters from every office desk in the cities and replaced them with computers, star wars came and hasn't left yet although it didn't quite make the same impression as the '74 floods to me at the time and why they would make star wars a double feature with pirhana for is beyond my reasoning because it scared the pogees out of me being the first of the two films shown. Time swept and rolled along to early adolesence when I was delivering pizzas for extra cash when one fateful night I saw my first fully 3D console game on the television and I was thunderstruck but the guys that had ordered the pizza were cool if not a little up themselves. I looked at the grey box on the floor, never really having heard of such a wonder and on the screen was the most beautiful, chest heavy girl I had ever seen that spoke with the cutest english accent.
Of course, there's not much point to go on because this is where most of you have already walked the path to being a true gamer, but I still get the last laugh because I was in there and doing that before you were and I saw a lot of famous mascots being born too. Pacman, Mario before he sold out, lara and crash and spyro (RIP little purple dragon), I was working in timezone when greats like joust and laserdisc games came to pass and remember playing in the arcade after closing time at 1am with all my mates, free credits flowing and fast food going down hungry game starved throats. Everything from turkey shoot to super sprint, gauntlet and spyhunter, I was even there when the very first editions of crossbow and pole position 2 showed up.
That's what's life about lads, it's the memories that you get from the gaming goodness that matters, not the scores or the achievements or the crazy cheats and unlockables that you now have to buy as DLC because the days of free stuff are well and truly as dead as road kill, mark my words.
Yes, well, it's time for my nap now, I don't expect you to publish a long ass story like that of course but I had to say it, say that I was there and that I remember a simpler and better time.
Ciao.
Now, there's certainly a pertinent point in there about remembering the past in order to appreciate the present and anticipate the future, but still... thoughts?
You're all very lucky people on the hyper crew and I'm sure that's something you get to hear from almost every letter and email that you get to open and well, I guess it has its perks but the truth is, you're all spoiled. That's right, not just those of you that print your fine magazine but also you, the reader in the real world who goes home to your DLC on your Xboxes and Playstations and your Wiis'.
Maybe you have an extra little something that you like to play with in your pocket like your Dsi or PSPs and iPhones but I was born before all of that rubbish and I'll tell you young pups now that we knew how to have real fun in those days.
When I was born, woodstock was in full swing and the flower movement was a real rocking place to be baby, long before austin powers revived some of the intrest in the long dead fad.
I still remember a time when tanks rolled up Gladstone road in brisbane some forty or more on the way to cunungra for training before going on to vietnam but alas, I digress in my efforts to put you in the right mindset of a bygone era.
This is all about the technology that you all take for granted today, but I was there watching it happen when I was a boy. When you think of games of the past, and I've seen and read your issues that always seem to kick off from the 80s, but the arcades were around long before games like pong and space invaders and it's time you were set straight on this. Like any good story, it starts off with “When I was a boy...” and as a boy I considered myself lucky when our grandad took us to the dirty rocky beach that he liked so much and it was there that I got to play my first “true” arcade game. It was a mopey old clown in a case and when you put your two bob in, you would be able to press anything up to six buttons to make the clown dance to a funny tune that would play when the lights flashed on. Go on, laugh if you will at the stupid old goat and his stories and you'll miss the obvious fact that this was indeed the grandfather of Dance Dance Revolution. Understand that this was before not only mobile phones but digital watches were also some way off, at least to the wider commercial market so stop your scoffing before I come over there and give you a clout over the earhole. Anyway, the more you could make the clown dance in time with the music would of course give you a final score and everyone would go home happy with fond memories of a grand day out. Little did I know at the time that this was just a simple precursor of things to come and it wasn't until I was much older that I was taken on a trip to see an uncle off on the plane back in the day when large crowds would do that very thing, all standing on the viewing deck waving hankies at departing aircraft because that was just the thing to do at the time. Of course, being a young fella back then meant that there wasn't a hope in the world that I was going to sit still and sure enough after much running about with my brother, we stumbled onto an oddity. It was something akin to finding the tycho monolith on the moon in retrospect and the two of us stood for hours looking at this … thing.
It was in essence, a televison set standing upright in a wooden box with two dials that could be twisted either left or right and some of you may have spotted the surprise by now that this was indeed the fabled PONG, or a very good pong clone in any event and it must have been long after the fad had taken in the states because right next to that was something that I can't recall the title of but it was a red baron type shooter with 2 airstrips down the bottom of the screen and the graphics were surprisingly worse than that of the atari 2600, all black and white of course and it amused us to no end. Now I can't say that this is the order or the timeframe that these games came out in, I can only vouch that this is the order that they happened into my life and changed me forever. The next few years saw me grow, the wonderful space invaders came out with a bang of course and there were dedicated arcades on every corner now, the world of computers was booming with the release of the Apple IIE and its amazing green screen and magically from out of nowhere, the first home consols started to filter through.
My first system was a Hanimex TVG070C which was balls of course and not much better than the intellivision that followed but it did make me appreciate the atari 2600 (which I still own with all games and extras) and every system I had from there. I built up horny worshippers in populous on the sega master system 2 and yes, alex kidd as well. In all of this timethe world kept turning and evolving of course and they started to remove the typewritters from every office desk in the cities and replaced them with computers, star wars came and hasn't left yet although it didn't quite make the same impression as the '74 floods to me at the time and why they would make star wars a double feature with pirhana for is beyond my reasoning because it scared the pogees out of me being the first of the two films shown. Time swept and rolled along to early adolesence when I was delivering pizzas for extra cash when one fateful night I saw my first fully 3D console game on the television and I was thunderstruck but the guys that had ordered the pizza were cool if not a little up themselves. I looked at the grey box on the floor, never really having heard of such a wonder and on the screen was the most beautiful, chest heavy girl I had ever seen that spoke with the cutest english accent.
Of course, there's not much point to go on because this is where most of you have already walked the path to being a true gamer, but I still get the last laugh because I was in there and doing that before you were and I saw a lot of famous mascots being born too. Pacman, Mario before he sold out, lara and crash and spyro (RIP little purple dragon), I was working in timezone when greats like joust and laserdisc games came to pass and remember playing in the arcade after closing time at 1am with all my mates, free credits flowing and fast food going down hungry game starved throats. Everything from turkey shoot to super sprint, gauntlet and spyhunter, I was even there when the very first editions of crossbow and pole position 2 showed up.
That's what's life about lads, it's the memories that you get from the gaming goodness that matters, not the scores or the achievements or the crazy cheats and unlockables that you now have to buy as DLC because the days of free stuff are well and truly as dead as road kill, mark my words.
Yes, well, it's time for my nap now, I don't expect you to publish a long ass story like that of course but I had to say it, say that I was there and that I remember a simpler and better time.
Ciao.
Now, there's certainly a pertinent point in there about remembering the past in order to appreciate the present and anticipate the future, but still... thoughts?