Kids today review games of yesterday.

October 16, 2003 2:04 PM

Modern day children-- they don't make 'em like they used to-- review classic gaming. Hilarity ensues.
posted by xmutex (40 comments total)

Their parents played Pong? I played Pong! Am I really old enough to be the mother of an 10-year-old? *cries*
posted by Zosia Blue at 2:06 PM on October 16, 2003

er, not that there's anything wrong with being old enough to have a 10-year-old. It just makes me wonder where my freakin' childhood went.
posted by Zosia Blue at 2:07 PM on October 16, 2003

Shoulda made them play Zork.
posted by Trik at 2:13 PM on October 16, 2003

Yup, we had a Pong too.

Has it really been that long since I played Space Invaders?
posted by konolia at 2:15 PM on October 16, 2003

"Kirk: I'm sure everyone who made this game is dead by now."
posted by Saddo at 2:15 PM on October 16, 2003

please, for the love of god, can we stop "Hilarity Ensues" here and now. I used to like Fark, now it seems like some sort of Bizzaro world version of Rush Limbaugh's 'Dittoheads'. Everyone wants to be the first to post "Hilarity Ensues" or "It's a trap!". Good gravy people, things are funny because they're novel, not because you hear it 35 times a day.
posted by efalk at 2:15 PM on October 16, 2003

My line is so beating the heck out of your stupid line.

Great stuff. I only wish they would've done Q*bert.
posted by soyjoy at 2:16 PM on October 16, 2003

efalk: You cannot discuss what is funny and/or novel and in the same sentence utter "good gravy."
posted by xmutex at 2:19 PM on October 16, 2003

Kirk: He's only an inch tall. He's a little short fat guy who eats way too much pizza.

EGM: Who's that chick Mario is rescuing up there?

Brian: It's Princess Peach.

Kirk: It's a hooker.

-- Other than tired catch phrase in post, this is a great link
posted by efalk at 2:21 PM on October 16, 2003

Hey my grandma laughs when I say "good gravy" ! Laughing with me I tell you.. ;)
posted by efalk at 2:23 PM on October 16, 2003

Shoulda made them play Zork

Or try to get that goddamned Babel fish.
posted by ao4047 at 2:27 PM on October 16, 2003

play pong? hell, when it first came out i didn't have the social status with the neighbors to play it.

had to just watch....amazed.

I still think the best 2600 game was Warlords...with 4 players.
posted by th3ph17 at 2:30 PM on October 16, 2003

DALEKS! (or Lawyers, depending on your machine).

I'm just happy and pround to find that 12 year old gamers talk the same brand of trash as their older counterparts, though with fewer expletives. Great link.

"Tim: They could've just as easily called this game anything—Baseball, Bowling, Escape From the Monsters."
posted by synapse at 2:45 PM on October 16, 2003

Does anyone think that these kids seem a little unrealistically precocious?

Oh, grab the umbrella. Those are cool. Unfashionable, gay, but cool.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 2:48 PM on October 16, 2003

LittleMissCranky, I've hung out with kids this age and no: these kids aren't especially precocious.
posted by arielmeadow at 3:05 PM on October 16, 2003

i agree with littlemisscranky here, how many ten year olds talk like that?

any one else sense a bit of artistic license?

and forget zork! give them good old adventure or colossal cave!!!
posted by knapah at 3:09 PM on October 16, 2003

I'm still waiting for the hilarity to ensue.

Any day now.

Maybe not.
posted by fenriq at 3:14 PM on October 16, 2003

Did anybody here play Oregon Trail in the text-only BASIC version?
posted by JanetLand at 3:29 PM on October 16, 2003

Rotten kids.
posted by majcher at 3:35 PM on October 16, 2003

Text-based Oregon Trail was the only reason I kept a 386 as long as I did -- had no install disk, couldn't put it on anything else. Finally moved up to Oregon Trail 2 or 3 a year ago.

That handheld football game was a present to my husband one Christmas, I'm pretty sure.
posted by sageleaf at 3:35 PM on October 16, 2003

As long as we're getting nostalgic for old video games (quicktime).
posted by adamrice at 3:37 PM on October 16, 2003

I have got to stop getting cholera.
posted by sageleaf at 3:37 PM on October 16, 2003

knapah -- I think it's less of a case of artistic license than it is kids hamming it up for the magazine. I can still (sort of) remember trash-talking like that at that age, and with the advent of videogaming forums on places like IGN and (of course) Phuck-IGN, the average gamer is exposed to more novel and sophisticated applications of the word 'gay' at an earlier age.

The Internet: Raising the Standard of Public Discourse for Thirty Years and running.

EGM: How long could you play (Space Invaders) before you got bored?
Sheldon: About 15 minutes.
Andrew: If you take it on the road and play it on your cell phone, then you might play it pretty long.
Nico: There's nothing else to do.
Andrew: Except look at nature.

posted by bl1nk at 3:51 PM on October 16, 2003

I don't think there's artistic license. These kids said these things. However, this is no doubt the distilled version. I have trouble believing nine kids sat around silently watching one of them try to get ET out of a hole for ten minutes, for example. I was a mouthy little shit when I was that age, too, and if you cut it down to just the best one-liners I was probably funny too.
posted by cortex at 4:09 PM on October 16, 2003

They couldn't understand Tetris.

It's not that they're young, it's that they're stupid.
posted by Blue Stone at 4:51 PM on October 16, 2003

Same thing, Blue Stone.
posted by dg at 5:12 PM on October 16, 2003

Mister, all our cream is fresh!
posted by HTuttle at 6:37 PM on October 16, 2003

On Oregon Trail: Never played the game myself, but the kids at Achewood did, and devoted a few days of nostalgia to it.

Dang what in the heck Ray
How did you get syphilis
posted by soyjoy at 7:02 PM on October 16, 2003

Great link, AdamRice. By the time I got to the Matrix parody I almost didn't mind that the screen was one inch by one inch.

John: "Why haven't I won yet? I've paired up so many of the same color."
EGM: "Don't worry about colors."
John: "I just lined up six of the same color. Why didn't they blow up?"
EGM: "Nothing blows up."

"It's not a tumor." Whether it's 100% authentic or sanitized for your protection, this is hilarious. The bits about Pong with power ups and Donkey Kong brainwashing them into learning math: this is grade A comedy. Jay Leno's staff can't write this funny.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:44 PM on October 16, 2003

Is Leno still devoting half his monologue to OJ jokes? Or has he finally moved on up to 1996?

Having said that, I always felt the pinnacle of 8-bit gaming was the Commodore 64. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I owned one, of course.
posted by arto at 9:58 PM on October 16, 2003

Damn kids. I was flipping channels the other day and one of the shopping channels was selling the hand-held football games for $10. And Tetris? Damn, I thought it was kinda cool that my new cell phone had Tetris built in. So it's not cool anymore? Sigh.
posted by AstroGuy at 10:02 PM on October 16, 2003

I went looking for an onion article that went something like "9 year old unimpressed by Northern Lights after a day of Tekken 3." It seems relevant.
posted by namespan at 11:06 PM on October 16, 2003

geezer perspective: hilarious. and yes, they do talk that way. it only seems weird because you're young enough to have to believe you are much farther advanced from them than you actually are. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
posted by quonsar at 11:58 PM on October 16, 2003

"i agree with littlemisscranky here, how many ten year olds talk like that?"

I have one that's eleven, one that's twelve, and one that's fifteen, and I can't recall when they didn't talk like that.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:04 AM on October 17, 2003

As a parent and ex-teacher, I gotta agree with Mr_crash_davis. Mouthy little bastards, the lot of them. I only had kids cos I thought they'd all be lovely and stage-school precocious like the ones on Barney the Dinosaur. I want my money back - to buy Asteroids and Defender.
posted by Pericles at 3:03 AM on October 17, 2003

Fear my pink line.
posted by me3dia at 8:34 AM on October 17, 2003

they should have reviewed Wizard of Wor. those kids would have totally gotten how great it feels to kill off your partner even though it eventually hastens your own demise.

also, oregon trail goodness.
posted by dorian at 12:04 PM on October 17, 2003

ZachsMind--There's a "broadband" link on that site that gives you the same thing in glorious 3" panavision.
posted by adamrice at 4:40 PM on October 17, 2003

"John: Watch out, Tim—fire. It's smarter than you think."

Fucking brilliant.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:03 PM on October 18, 2003

Waxing poetic about Tetris:

Which button do I press to make the blocks explode?

*bangs head on desk* This (& Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt) was the game of my childhood, and it wasn't that long ago that this was the coolest thing to hit the cement.
posted by somethingotherthan at 7:16 PM on October 18, 2003