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Nick F. ponders your loss of gaming innocence, and proposes a cure for those jaded-gamer blues...
OK, so there’s something particularly post-modern about feeling nostalgic for your youth when you’re still in your early twenties - but if you recognize the massive developments in technology during our lives as counting several generations, it’s not so lame. After all, when are we ever going to get to play games like the simple NES classics Super Mario Bros, Metroid or Zelda again? We’ve all grown up and graduated to more serious gaming fare: Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate, X-Wing Alliance and Alpha Centauri are all far more sophisticated than anything we played five, ten, fifteen years ago. Even console games are becoming more complex – look to the evolution of the D-pad into the ergonomic monstrosities of today if you want evidence. There is a shining beacon on the horizon, though. If you have recently found yourself feeling deflated because Quake 3 Test didn’t live up to your (massively over-inflated) expectations, or you can’t think of a single PlayStation game you’re looking forward to after Dino Crisis, why not turn to the Gameboy Color for solace? At this point, I suspect half of you are nodding sagely, but the other half are shaking their heads thinking "This guys has written some bad shit before, but this…" Well, guess what – you’re wrong! The Gameboy Color is the best thing to happen to console gaming since, well, the PlayStation and N64 (to be truthful), but it feels like a return to the glory days of the NES. More to the point, the Gameboy Color isn’t just the original Gameboy "in color", but a much more powerful and sophisticated machine. Granted, the first batch of titles (including Zelda DX and Tetris DX) were not massively improved over the originals, but new Color-only games like Super Mario DX mean that you have, essentially, a portable NES in your hands!
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Credits: Pad Happy logo illustrated and is © 1999 Dan Zalkus. Pad Happy is © 1999 Nick Ferguson. All other content is © 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so don't try it, or you'll get some real force feedback. |