Keeper of Classic Gaming

As a teacher and a parent many feel that it is my role to impart my knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation. However I got to a-thinking, apart from being older than those I teach what gives me the right to feel that what I say is correct or the choices I present are the correct ones for my wards? Rather shouldn't I help to educate the children so that they can make informed choices independently? These are profound questions which came from a very 'unprofound' place; gaming. What games should I introduce to my nephew as he gained an interest in gaming? My brother asked me to introduce his son to gaming as he had shown a keen interest in the PSP he had been playing.

Now being the Keeper of the Gateway to Classic Gaming, who am I to decide what games he should play? Of course I want him to experience stone-cold classics like Pacman, Sonic and Super Mario Bros. but maybe he should have a chance to experience gaming organically. This could include 'bad' games, like Dragons Lair on the NES or ET on the Atari.

In my formative years I played lots of 'bad' games but isn't taste objective? One only has to look online to find difference of opinion on just about anything. A prime example would be Deadly Premonition, I absolutely loved this game and in my opinion it was one of the best games of the last generation however in much of the gaming media the game was slated for being shonky and awkward. It was one of the most divisive games of the last generation garnering 10/10 on Destructoid whilst also gaining 2/10 on IGN.

Children are explorers, they like to find things out for themselves and decide what they like and don't like. I am not the Keeper of the Gateway of Classic Gaming, rather I am an observer and adviser. If the children ask me what games to play I can advise but I should not impose my tastes on them... let them explore and find their own interests organically.

Game Over Review

Growing up in the 80s there was one name that stuck out, Atari. The 2600 brought gaming to the masses and  introduced many to computing.  However after burning so brightly Atari all but vanished  by the mid- 80s. As a kid growing up in England I never heard of the computer games crash in America. In Britain the microcomputing industry was booming with the Spectrum, Amiga, Amstrad and BBC Micro doing very well, the 80s were an incredibly fruitful time for home computing.  It was only as I got older that my friends and I were told about the worst game ever which apparently had caused Atari, the gaming juggernaut to die. Legends were spread around the schoolyard about how E.T. was dropped off into  a pit in the Nevada Desert. As time went by this grew into mythical proportions and soon became legend, with people proclaiming many million E.T. carts dumped.
 


Game Over explores the E.T. game legend and looks to find the truth behind the mystery. What emerges is a fascinating social anthropological piece about the evolution of a new technology and markets that no-one understood. There was excess and demand which culminated in Howard Scott Warshaw, the programmer on E.T, assigned to complete the game within 5 weeks, in time for Christmas. Warshaw was an Atari legend, having designed Yars' Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark, both of which were instant classics which sold more than a million games each. He left the industry, disenchanted and ridiculed. It is hard not to empathise with Warshaw as he describes how he fell from grace so spectacularly.
The moment the dig starts and they find the carts is wonderful, the game designer is surrounded by hundreds of gamers and he poses happily together for this momentous occasion, it seems like a moment of redemption. 

The film is quick and well paced at just under 70 minutes and I was impressed with the way the story unfolded, like an Indiana Jones story to find the dig location then the actual digging to the conclusion where the games are found and the game designer is able to let go of a dark part of his history. Fans of documentaries will love this and as a gamer I feel happier for having watched it. That's another mystery done... Now let's find out why Bubsy was ever released!