Now I just came out of a youtube about 3rd generation consoles, which is what blew my mind eventually, but the guy that made the video is saying that is actually one of the best games he ever played. That is what surprises me. I remember the cold sweat and pounding heart when I figured out some dastardly fact and the impossible loneliness when I couldn’t figure out what to do.
It’s a weird game, in frustration you’d be ending up trying things like “operate key on corpse” or “hit bullet” or “consume glove-compartment”.
Once, I cried after having completed a game. There happened to be a girl in the room, who was mocking me. I thought how can people have suck lack of soul? But she just hand’t gone through the effort of avoiding these blasted diagonally curving evils from the sky for ten hours straight before the final battle could be approached.
It’s not that the path is the goal, but that the path substantiates the value of the goal and tells you what to find in it. If the game has a bad ending the path turns out to have been the goal. Some games ended simply stating “mission completed”. I thought that was showing a lack of respect of the game for itself.
I remember beat-em-ups used to have emotional and soulful endings. Maybe they still do, it’s been a while since I finished one.
It was halloween night in 1987 (I think… maybe 86) when my old man bought the IBM PC Jr. This was the first computer game I ever played. It was cutting edge.