Video Game Systems and Their Games

Video games and their respective systems today are overwhelming via graphics and technology in comparison to old-school systems like Coleco Vision and Atari from almost twenty-five years ago. Whatever happened to keeping it simple with fun games original in their design and goal? Now it seems video games are cluttered with the typical sex and violence accompanying the need to win at any price. Wow, sounds like life a little too much. Maybe it is just me, but a person cannot really enjoy the video game if obsessed over its outcome.

Another trait of today's video games that bother me is most games are built on such a grand scale, that it makes it hard to enjoy and focus on any one aspect like setting or character. It is harder to simply enjoy the game if multitasking over many simultaneous missions. Instead of building burgers for Hamburger Time via the Coleco Vision game system, the video game enthusiast is worrying over how to run a town, kill the bad guy, save the princess, and then monetize from it all. Yet this begs the question of who is really profiting from these grand-scale games. The young adult is left feeling incompetent when he is already struggling with building confidence and a self-image.

I watch my son play another mmorpg online, and I worry the game is setting him up with unrealistic standards. In other words I don't know many teenagers that can save the town, the princess, and themselves, and then still do their homework afterwards. In addition new video games and role-playing games forge children into little adults before they are ready by giving their video game characters too much to handle too soon. And since children and teens idolize the heroes and heroines within the strategic mmorpgs, it brainwashes young adults into thinking they have to live up to the same standards. There goes childhood.

However game systems like Coleco Vision keep the focus in the video game clear and simple. This allows characters like Pac Man and Donkey Kong to reach their goal without too many distractions. In short old school systems like Coleco Vision and Atari keep the graphics and the goal simple so the player focuses more on the game of the game. Consequently, it is more challenging for video game producers to come up with an actual game that doesn't depend on graphics or micromanagement.