Damn punk kids

Electronic Gaming Monthly rounded up a bunch of kids, and had them play classic video games. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.


Niko: Hey-Pong. My parents played this game.
Brian: It takes this whole console just to do Pong?
Kirk: What is this? [Picks up and twists the paddle controller] Am I controlling the volume?
John: I’m just going to do this [twists the paddle controller as rapidly as possible].
Tim: John, don’t do that. You’ll die.
Andrew: This is a lot like that game. Um, whatchamacallit-air hockey.
Sheldon: Except worse.
Andrew: Blip. Blip. Blip. Blip.

More incredible insight here.

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54 thoughts on “Damn punk kids”

  1. It’s probably a good thing they didn’t play on the old Vectrex system. Sad thing is, I still have one of those… and it still works!

  5. When I was in Maine a few months back, my friends and I went to a lake for a swim. There were kids jumping off a huge boulder into the water, doing acrobatics in the air. It looked fun…but dangerous. One of my friends said, “That’s what you get when you have a generation that grows up with a reset button.”
    Anyway, damn, those kids have no appreciation for the classics. I had that handheld football game. My uncle got it for his 11th birthday back in the 70s. Then he gave it to me in the early 80s. I kept that thing alive until 1994. I miss my little handheld football. Sure, it didn’t have all the frills that my Joe Montana Football for Genesis had or the John Madden games that are available now. But, damn, it was fun.
    Tomorrow, I think I’ll wear my Space Invaders t-shirt, visit my little cousins, & play some Pac Man with them. Oooh, and maybe Space Harrier if I can get my Sega to work. I wonder if I can still remember the code that turns him into a spaceship?

  6. Cripes, this makes me feel old. I remember playing Pong when it first came out, and how surprised we were when prolonged playing caused the pong image to burn into the TV picture tube…

  7. I feel so old now.
    If some movie magazine solicits kids’ opinions on the special FX in The Last Starfighter and Kull, I’ll have to kill myself.

  8. I don’t have anything quite as old as Pong, but I do have a Sears branded Atari 2600 that I’m pretty sure still works. I havn’t hooked it up to the TV in a while, but I worked last time I did.

  9. 10 PRINT “DAMN PUNK KIDS”
    20 GOTO 10
    RUN
    ERROR: THIS IS NOT AN ATARI, STUPID.
    Now, doesn’t THAT make you feel old! :)-

  10. it’s true… that E.T. game totally sucks balls. I used to play Atari and my friends (who all owned Nindendo 64’s) would come over simply to laugh at it’s shittyness. I played it far about 3 minutes until I finally realized I could be doing something far more productive. Like playing Frogger! I love Frogger!

  12. “What game is this?”
    “Football. It’s one of the first great portable games.”
    “I thought it was Run Away From the Dots.”
    Hahahahahaha!!! That was hilarious! I loved my Atari… but I love my PS2 more!

  14. I remember playing Space Invaders on my Commodore Vic20. It was a computer, kinda. You had to hook it up to your TV. And instead of disks, there were cartridges. But man, were we cool.

  15. Spoiled rotten little ingrates. @!#%@
    *shakes fist*
    Funny thing is my kids love those old games, even when they have the option of the latest PS@ game.
    *shrug*

  16. I wasn’t going to look at the “more incredible insight here” originally – but am I ever glad I did. Best laugh I have had in days.
    We had a VIC20, and later on a Commodore 64 (everyone sing the jingle: “I adore my 64…”) and I remember when I thought that was the pinnacle of technology. Now they seem almost antiquated.

  17. Man, this makes me sad. I am only 22 and I remember those games. We were the first on my block to get the Atari and the nintendo. Everyone would come over to play them. I feel so old after reading this

  18. Oh, them were the good ol days! Trying to hit the square gray ball back and forth with your adjustable length line, listening to the blip, blip, blip.
    The one I had was one unit, the paddles were onbord the console on the left and righ of it. One for each player, no buttond, just a dial.
    Oh I feel old now.

  19. When I was a kid, we had to walk barefoot, in the snow, to the arcade to play Pong. And it was five miles, uphill. In the snow. And we had to play our Pong by candlelight! And, we didn’t have paddle controllers, we used real oars.

  20. YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES!!!!
    YANKEES 6 REDSOX 5 GAME 7 FINAL
    YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES

  21. Candlelight? You had candlelight? We had nothing of the sort! When I was a kid, we played it in the dark until our eyes got sore! And we didn’t have electricity so poor little Jimmy had to get on a bicycle and generate it for us! Jimmy has nightmares to this day about it, poor sod!
    I’m off to eat my daily dose of prunes….

  22. Macbros said: “The one I had was one unit, the paddles were onboard the console on the left and right of it. One for each player, no buttons, just a dial.”
    You feel old? I still have mine. I wonder if it still works? Hey, is this a collectible now?

  23. You know what made me REALLY feel old? Doing a research paper on Internet English and realizing, in getting info from my mother, that she’s been active online for TWENTY WHOLE YEARS.
    My family has had computers since 1983. I don’t remember a household without one. Mom taught me to go online and play games when I was six. We had the VIC-20 with Pong, and Space Invaders, and Tooth Invaders … just the other day I told someone they might be eaten by a grue and they just looked at me.
    Stone knives and bearskins, I’m tellin’ ya.

  24. That was HILARIOUS!
    Those kids need their mouths washed out though. Unless that causes…soap poisoning…OH Ralphie!!
    Ahem, sorry about that.
    My son is 7 and we have PS, Super-Nintendo, NES and Gameboy Advance. If he gets to pick, he goes with the original NES. We haven’t gotten out the ATARI for him, but I’m sure he’ll love it.
    Megamania FOREVER!!
    –Jessie–
    P.S. Have you all played Pac-Man for PS2? It’s just wrong. Wrong I tell you.

  25. Good lord could those kids be any more sarcastic?? Hell like I should say anything I was that bad at their age… worse now.. sigh
    Useless info Wil, saw you on the TNG episode tonight where Worf shifs universe to universe.. One of my favs…
    Carry on… God I’ve got to cut down on my uncles wine…
    M

  27. That’s hilarious. I love the comment in Donkey Kong: “Why can’t we get past the first screen?”. And the comment that the graphics in SMB would’ve been really good “back in my Mom and Dad’s days”.

  28. I remember playing on an Atari when I was really little, I must’ve been 4. My family was at a friends house. When I got home, I’d wanted an Atari so bad that I took my markers and drew a controller on the side of my dresser so I could have one. Woops!

  29. When I got my first atari on a christmas morning I had no idea what it really was. I was about 6 or 7. I didn’t get to play with it for a week because my dad hogged it all to himself and was playing pac-man for hours.

  32. “Megamania FOREVER!!”
    Jessie we’re kindred! I have an Atari at home and I have a working copy of Megamania. I LOVED LOVED LOVED that game. Nothing was as exciting as dodging those rolling dice or shooting at floating hamburgers.
    I haven’t played it in a while, but I think I’ll hook it up this weekend and kill me some bowties.

  33. M
    My fiance has Megamania on PC, but it just isn’t the same if you can’t get a blister on your thumb smashing that red button!
    That was the only game that we had that even my mom would play.
    I have to find the ATARI and play that game!

  34. Now I’m wondering… what would these kids think of the old Timex Sinclair “computer” with the tiny membrane keyboard and *no* memory or hard drive… But for $40, you could buy a 1mb Ram cube that weighed more than the entire computer itself…

  36. Ah the 80’s…when games never ended, they just kept on getting harder and harder…pushing you to your limits…
    I remember the day I “flipped” Asteroids on my Atari.
    Now, every game has an ending…kids these days don’t know what they’re missing!

  38. I still have my sears brand Atari 2600 and about thirty games as well as my original Nintendo with 4 games (hey, we were poor and I was addicted to Mario). I still play the Atari from time to time. My skills at Kaboom have not waned. I LOVED that game. I believe I may have burned out the neon green receptors in my eyes from playing it.
    ~girlie

  39. I thought it was funny how those 13-year old kids kept refering to Grand Theft Auto and one particular boy was a little sad that he wasn’t going to be playing any mature games that day.
    Someone should send this article to all those censorship folks and let them know how well their labels are working. Personally, I don’t want my 10 year old playing violent games (he doesn’t).
    I don’t remember ever having a conversation about strippers and pole dancers when I was 11. I always thought the princess was a little hot, though …
    Am I old and a prude? I guess having kids their age has made me a little “parenty”….
    ~TonyZ

  40. Oh my. It’s a wonder what kids get exposed to these days. Cussing from them too! I would get slapped by my parents if I cussed when I was that age.
    Yes, it’s true that kids these days just don’t appreciate the classics. Doesn’t it happen with every coming generation anyhow?
    The whole article just made me laugh.
    Super Mario Bros still owns

  41. I still have my Sears Telegames console. It’s back in NY in my parent’s attic and I still love it. I should have them send it out to me. 😛
    Anyways, I remember saving my tip money from my paper route and going to Nichols (That was the Wal*Mart of the day) and buying Pac-Man. I kept asking myself, why can’t they get it to look like the arcade? Oh well. But I also remember playing Space Invaders in the Nichols store as well. It was up front, next to the doors against the wall next to a big shelf of luggage. That’s where I also started buying my C=64 games too, till they went out of buisness. 🙁

  42. Still got a 2600 (with plenty of games) as well as a numbmer of C64s (with plenty of mostly cracked games). Still break both out at parties occasionally.
    Had to share some comments from my friend, ED, who summed up the generational disconnect:
    These kids sound like spoiled punks… All new games show kids how to get
    ahead by upgrading rather than getting better — “where’s my rapid fire”; “where is my power-up”, “why doesn’t it blow up”; “I need an AK47″… None of these punks could play asteroids for more than 5 minutes — they gots no
    skill… All the new games (except the Clancy games) don’t have the two elements that we all grew up with, which mimic real life — 1) as you
    progress it gets harder and faster, and 2) in the end you will lose…
    I think that sums it up rather well!

  43. That was pretty darned funny…I have played all of those games. How about Combat on the Atari? Or Adventure, where you were a little box that could pick up one item at a time and if you were really cool, you knew how to find the magic dot that let you get to the secret place with the “Created by” graphic. 🙂
    Good times.

  44. Thanks for the link Wil, the Donkey Kong comments were so funny I couldn’t stop laughing.
    The the guy looking for the atari should check out the emulator (steem). Emulators are so cool. I can finally play my favorite Atari ST game with my Dad just like we did when I was 12: “battle for the throne” (no it does not involve any bathrooms). He plays it till 2 or 3 in the morning, by himself, ever since I set him up.

  45. I still own an atari that works and I play the games all the time. I’m 22. Anyways…I still think those are great games even with all the new stuff that I play. But…something in that article disturbed me a lot…why are 10 year old kids playing Grand Theft Auto 3? I don’t have kids but I don’t think I’d let my kid play that game at 10! Maybe I’m wrong? Anyways Good Article Wil Thanks for sharing!

  46. Forgot where this quote was originally from or who said it but sooo.. damned.. fitting. ;D
    “The rumour that computer games have an adverse affect on children is just plain nuts. If Pacman ever affected us as kids, we’d all be running around darkened rooms, munching strange pills and listening to repetitive music.”
    *grin* And gee.. thanks Wil! =P I feel older than I already feel as it is. *snicker*

  49. That article is too funny, the last line is the best…
    (about space invaders)
    Kirk: I’m sure everyone who made this game is dead by now.

  50. man; i don’t feel old. i just feel stupid. those kids are so much smarter than i was at their age. well… i don’t know if smarter is the word. socialized? i dunno. lol scary; anyway.

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