In a dark room, there is a child playing video games. The glow from the screen reflects from his face as he moves his character across the screen. His eyes beam like giant orbs of light when his character achieves the goal. The game's music echoes through his ears, carving its way into his memory.
The child was me, but it very well could have been anyone.
When I was growing up, I played my fair share of video games. My dad had a Commodore 64 with a plethora of games that were on big 5 and 1/4 floppy disks.
On the Commodore I played games like "Space Taxi" and "Lode Runner," and would watch as my dad and brother played a version of battle chess called "Archon."
I was fortunate to have video games and computers in my childhood. In elementary school, we would go to the computer lab every so often and play "Oregon Trail" on old Apple computers. I still love me some "Oregon Trail" (if you want to play "Oregon Trail," you can find it online on the DOS Archive website).
"Oregon Trail" was an epic test, not only because of the gameplay of trying to get your party to Oregon but trying to win the game before the computer class ended. It seemed like the times I successfully won the game in class were few and far between.
In the mid to late ‘80s, the Nintendo Entertainment System was gaining popularity and it seemed like everyone had one.
I spent many a day playing "Ninja Gaiden," "RBI Baseball," "Super Mario Bros.," and countless other titles. Staying at a friend's house usually involved staying up late and playing games you weren't familiar with.
This was also a time in history when video rental stores reigned supreme and renting video games was a good way to try out games to see if it was worth purchasing.
As time went by, the Super Nintendo and Gameboy became the rave. My dad got really into "Tetris" when we had a Gameboy. Once, on vacation, I had become tired of waiting for my dad to finish his game before we could leave the hotel to go somewhere. I told him to, "hurry up and die." It's still kind of a funny inside joke amongst my family.
Then Nintendo 64 was a big deal in my teenage years and my friends, and I would play "GoldenEye" and "FIFA" for hours on end. My friend John's parents owned a computer store and we would plug the system into a projector and be able to play games with a massive screen.
John and his dad also introduced me to "Command and Conquer," which we would play on different computers on a local area network or LAN. The competition was fierce.
Eventually, Sony got into the market with the PlayStation and became a dominant force in the video game market. Games like "Resident Evil," "Tekken," "NCAA College Football," and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour"
The PlayStation 2 and XBox emerged and along came a similar slew of games with much better graphics. Games like "Grand Theft Auto III," "Shadows of the Colossus," and "God of War" joined my repertoire.
Now we have systems like the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One as well as our phones and tablets that are used for gaming. I'm willing to bet most of us have some type of game on our phones to help us pass the time.
Each new system raises the bar that much higher and nowadays we're getting closer and closer to graphics that are almost intangible to reality. Virtual reality systems are starting to come along and before we know it, we might be living our lives in "The Matrix" or "The OASIS."
While all these console makers are working hard on the next big thing, retro gaming has made a big comeback because these same platform makers are now selling classic game consoles. These systems come loaded with a number of games already installed.
You can go to a store and buy a Classic NES or Classic Super Nintendo and play a number of your favorites. As much as I would like something like this, I would rather have a small computer like a Raspberry Pi so that I can upload any video game ROM (read-only memory file) that I desire and not be confined to their platform. That's a bunch of words that make sense, I promise.
Video games are ingrained in pop culture and keep evolving. With the amount of money in the industry the sky is the limit with how far video games will go, but I still love to play the classics.
I am still that child playing Nintendo in the dark.
Jamie Massengale is an 80's baby who grew up playing video games and loves Anthony Michael Hall movies.
