PEARLS FROM THE THE PLUMB

1st February 2011

EDITION ONE: MODERN GAMING DESTROYS SOCIETY

Hi, welcome to this new fangled page, a spinoff, if you will, from the hugely indifferent insert articles added to the 21st Mega Drive Championship... You know, the one with the snow? Anyway, those of you who know me probably know I only really enjoy sports games, and play like a complete retard on just about anything else. Those of you who don’t know me, should also know this, as it will be a reference point for articles to come. Anyway, on to my first article...

Today I want to rant about the way gaming is today, as opposed to when ‘we were kids’. The first thing that distresses me is the lack of imagination required by gamers. Today the 360, PS3 and even the Wii strive to use every trick possible to put the gamer right there in the middle of the action, as if it were actual real life. Back in the ‘good old days’ we had upto 16-bits of glorious colour, and our imagination. The pixels on the screen merely represented the character we portrayed, allowing the mind to take us on a fantastic adventure or plonk us into the penalty area at Wembley.

To further this study, let’s take two football game staples from then and now, starting with my personal favourite game of all time, Sensible Soccer. Well, actually it was Sensible World of Soccer which captivated my attention so completely during the mid 1990’s, but that was on the Amiga, however, it is essentially the same game, so I digress, this game was pure brilliance, and still is yet to be matched. The game play was fast, passing crisp, goals were sublime and ridiculous, and then there was the immersive manager mode, which somehow included players and teams from every single football club in the world, any of which could be managed. You could start at club level in El Salvador and end up managing Real Madrid, if you were good enough, and even England, if you were the cream of the crop. There were player transfers, differing skill values, injuries and pretty much anything you need from a quick manager game.

Then we move onto FIFA 11 on the Wii. This I choose only because my current console of choice is the Wii, mainly because I don’t have time for anything else. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a laugh to play, the streets to stadiums mode tries to put you in the hot seat, but it lacks the captivation. I don’t find myself wanting to spend every waking hour dribbling over the polished pointlessness like I did with the wee coloured blobs as the frantically rushed around the screen.

So, it is for this reason I blame for kids today having no imagination whatsoever.

Secondly, the advent of online gaming is damaging to the very fabric of society. Nowadays, a kid can hole up in his sweaty bedroom surrounded by stale yoghurt, and have a list of friends whom he has never even met. If he is losing a game, he can simply quit from the game and start a new one. Back in ‘our day’ if you didn’t want to take on the CPU you had to get some mates round (on a rainy day, otherwise you weren’t allowed to ‘play in’) and go for it in two player mode. The stale yoghurt was still there, but so were real live people.

And this is why kids today have no social skills with living breathing organisms.

Finally, and this is just a side note really, but have you noticed how there are no fit women in video games any more? Way back when we had the likes of Chun Li, the birds on Tekken who fight in Lingerie, and even the chick on Streets of Rage [Blaze Fielding]. Every fighting game had some hot chick in it in some way. What now? Soap McTavish. That’s what.

So, take a bow Microsoft, Sony and, to a lesser extent, Nintendo, as you have destroyed life as we know it.

If you want any Mega Drive related lifestyle advice or guidance, please e-mail us at admin@megadrivechamps.org, with the subject ‘Trust The Plumb’