Today’s kids have it so easy when it comes to gaming as the average household now has about two to three TV’s and a few computers, tablets and various devices. I doubt there is ever a time that a kid is denied the ability to play a video game, they can pull out their Xbox or they can hop on the computer… or both! They will probably never understand the disappointment of wanting to play their favourite game but being told “Sorry, we are watching the news” by their parents. And yes I remember those days well, so believe me when I say it sucks.
That is what got me thinking about how I used to lay on the floor in our family room with my console plugged in to the TV and playing as many games as possible before getting kicked out. I did however have the fortune to also play on the Commodore 64 wherever we decided to keep it at the time. For some reason we never had a dedicated spot for the C64, It always seem to move around. When we first bought the C64 it went into my older brothers room, after a while the C64 went downstairs into the basement where I had my own little Man Cave that I spent most of my summer in. Much later the Commodore ended up in my own bedroom which was fine too, it just was not the same as having it in my own Cave.
The consoles that I had hooked up to the TV always remained there as we only had one big TV in the house (and by big I don’t mean 50″ I mean 27 to 30″ at most). It began as just the intellivision, but when I eventually got my Nintendo that was when I ended up practically living in the basement. Perhaps its the nature of the NES games that required much more time investment, I still remember when I got Super Mario Bros 3… holy crap did I live down there. But that was not a bad thing, I really enjoyed the space and it had plenty of room for my friends to hang out. Sometimes I miss the place as those are some of my greatest memories , like playing intellivision Boxing with my best friends next door). Those were the days! …Sigh.
Today it feels like a much different environment, I find myself typically in the office upstairs playing on the computer. The area is brighter and I can play any old system I want by using an emulator. I do have my classic gaming area in the basement (my new Man Cave) but its kind of dark and the sitting area is not the greatest. I think once I get some better lighting and perhaps some proper shelving I could probably see myself being down there more often, but for now I think I will just stick to the PC. I have tried hooking up my old systems to my large flat screen we have on the main floor (and it worked fine), but the way we have the room set up you need to sit far back from the TV. Anyone who knows about the old systems will know that you need to sit pretty close to the system and that the system needs to be quite close to the TV. I can do that but It means I have to sit on the floor, and frankly I am not the young chap I used to be… Sigh!
Brian Pudden