Or, probably more retro gaming. I think I’ve written about this before.

Every now and then I regress back to my youth, and sometimes the youth I didn’t have. Most of the time this is in the form of retro gaming. Times were different then. There were fewer screens in the house than there are now. You’d have to pull the aerial out of the TV and plug the games console in. This meant that the games would have your full attention. It might not have been the best way to spend time, but what else was there to do in the 80’s? I couldn’t ride my BMX all day, even if I did give that a good try.

Pole Position II

When I was young, I could only dream about having Pole Position, with it’s one track. When I visited the seaside I’d see it in arcades, but I never had the luxury of playing it at home – until now! PPII has four tracks instead of one. All of this looks great, right up to the point where I realise that I’m not very good at it. I can’t even complete the game on the one track I used to have (and go fast enough to force the bug in the system).

Freedom Fighters

After years of looking for Philips G7000 games I finally paid enough attention to get some up and running. Freedom Fighters was the Videopac version of Defender. It will come as no surprise that I’m not as good as I used to be. But give me a break. Working out which keys to use on a keyboard makes the game much more difficult. I don’t think I liked playing the only playing option the downloaded ROM gave me. It was a nice blast from the past though.

asteroids

I love this game because it’s simple and keyboard controls are simple too. When I play well, it’s a blast for a couple of minutes and then I get bored and move on. And when I return, all of the retro nostalgia starts all over again.

New technology is great. The problem is that game options can become complex and game play is time consuming. That’s not the end of it. I’m playing Zelda on the Switch and all I feel is envy when I see how much better everyone is. I know this because I need to search for hints and tricks to work myself through the game. New tech makes me feel stupid. Oh well. That’s life!