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There are some technological advances that, once you've experienced them, you can never do without again. In the video gaming world this is also true.
Saving function - so I don't have to write down that 24-character password to pick up where I left off? Is that a zero or the letter "O"? Crap, I accidentally pushed Start before I wrote it all down! NEVER AGAIN
And, as an extension of that, Memory Cards. Because I have nightmares of my copy of Chrono Trigger erasing my save. And it will happen one day, and that will be the same day I die. Battery saves will erase: an inconvenient truth.
Sure, the PS1 memory cards didn't hold a whole lot (I have like.. 5 now, or something) but they've never erased on me, plus you can copy the saves to other cards and back them up. And now with SD cards and hard drive storage you can have 999999999999 different saves for each game, which is my secret fetish.
It was also surreal the first time I rented a Playstation game and realized I could keep the save data from it and pick up where I left off when I bought the game myself. Although, it was always fun renting SNES games and seeing the data of "JEFF" who couldn't get past the first dungeon during the rental period on some random RPG.
Portables: we've come a long way, baby. Like Rechargable Battery Packs. You mean I don't have to spend my allowance on Duracells so I can play my Gameboy? HALLELUJAH.
And as an extension of that, Backlit Screens. I can play past dusk! And no longer will I have to seek refuge next to lamps at family get-togethers to escape into gameland. No, now I hide in the shadows, where it is safe.
Perhaps less important but still pretty cool is Portable Wireless Communication, aka "I don't need to buy a 7-dollar cord to trade Pokemon anymore". Plus being able to play online against other people is good too, I suppose.
Then there's the innovation which prompted all this: Wireless Controllers. Yes, my newfound Wiimote is inspirational. I can turn on the console from the couch! Assuming I don't need to change game discs, I could go days without touching the console itself, which is strangely satisfying.
Yes, there have been wireless controllers around since the NES days, but they sucked and didn't work well at all. Even recently with things like the Gamecube's Wavebird (which I've never used), you have to spend extra cash for them because they weren't included normally with the console.
Now, we are in the enlightened age where one does not need to worry about having their mom trip over their controller cord and mess up their game right before they got to a save point. It's not like that ever happened to me or anything. (It was my dad)
Who can say what the future of gaming holds? Actually we already know, since we've had things like Virtual Reality goggles and the like years ago. Now, if we can just develop a non-sucktastic version~
Saving function - so I don't have to write down that 24-character password to pick up where I left off? Is that a zero or the letter "O"? Crap, I accidentally pushed Start before I wrote it all down! NEVER AGAIN
And, as an extension of that, Memory Cards. Because I have nightmares of my copy of Chrono Trigger erasing my save. And it will happen one day, and that will be the same day I die. Battery saves will erase: an inconvenient truth.
Sure, the PS1 memory cards didn't hold a whole lot (I have like.. 5 now, or something) but they've never erased on me, plus you can copy the saves to other cards and back them up. And now with SD cards and hard drive storage you can have 999999999999 different saves for each game, which is my secret fetish.
It was also surreal the first time I rented a Playstation game and realized I could keep the save data from it and pick up where I left off when I bought the game myself. Although, it was always fun renting SNES games and seeing the data of "JEFF" who couldn't get past the first dungeon during the rental period on some random RPG.
Portables: we've come a long way, baby. Like Rechargable Battery Packs. You mean I don't have to spend my allowance on Duracells so I can play my Gameboy? HALLELUJAH.
And as an extension of that, Backlit Screens. I can play past dusk! And no longer will I have to seek refuge next to lamps at family get-togethers to escape into gameland. No, now I hide in the shadows, where it is safe.
Perhaps less important but still pretty cool is Portable Wireless Communication, aka "I don't need to buy a 7-dollar cord to trade Pokemon anymore". Plus being able to play online against other people is good too, I suppose.
Then there's the innovation which prompted all this: Wireless Controllers. Yes, my newfound Wiimote is inspirational. I can turn on the console from the couch! Assuming I don't need to change game discs, I could go days without touching the console itself, which is strangely satisfying.
Yes, there have been wireless controllers around since the NES days, but they sucked and didn't work well at all. Even recently with things like the Gamecube's Wavebird (which I've never used), you have to spend extra cash for them because they weren't included normally with the console.
Now, we are in the enlightened age where one does not need to worry about having their mom trip over their controller cord and mess up their game right before they got to a save point. It's not like that ever happened to me or anything. (It was my dad)
Who can say what the future of gaming holds? Actually we already know, since we've had things like Virtual Reality goggles and the like years ago. Now, if we can just develop a non-sucktastic version~
