My, how far gaming has come!

[Sid2]

I remember stuffing quarters into an arcade gaming machine to play PONG, and thinking that was pretty slick.

. . . or when a friend of mine had me over to check out his Odyssey game.

Then came the march of Atari's, Nintendo's, GameBoys, XBox's and PS's.

Having two teenage boys, a steady succession of Flight Simulators, Grand Theft Auto and other assorted racing games, MMORPG's like Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Assassins Creed, Battle Field and Special Forces/Black Ops and all the assorted updates and subscriptions was enough to keep me borderline poor.

BUT, my youngest is into a MMORPG military strategy game that is truly amazing. The action reads like the developers boned up on Small Unit Tactics and Communication.

Now I understand why he had to have the upgraded DSL and computer, and why the big dogs all play on PC's.

I don't know which game he is playing, and the best battles are late at night here in Texas [lots of gamers in the People's Republic of California] but I am flat amazed at how far the state of the art has progressed.

[USAFA82]

It truly is amazing. I had played some of the early games you mentioned. Early in the PC world, I played Kings Quest, Wing Commander, Zork and others. Today's games, however, blow them all away. I reluctantly bought Guild Wars years ago because people in my gaming clan wanted to play it. I imagined a slightly better version of Runescape, but got hooked right away with the storyline and graphics.

The folks in my gaming clan went inactive so I searched for Christian guilds playing Guild Wars. That led me to the Tribe of Judah, which is part of the Christian Gamers Alliance. CGA/ToJ members play a variety of games. There's a large Guild Wars 2 faction as well as WoW and other games. They have a section of the forums devoted to men's issues as well as women's issues. Those areas are private of course. It's a good group of people.

I eventually stopped playing Guild Wars, after getting all the expansions, and moved to Aion. I played trial versions of World of Warcraft and Rift but couldn't get into them. Over the past year, I've been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. I love the graphics, storyline and seemingly endless content. They've made a great deal of improvements to the game since it launched in December of 2011.

What really makes the games even more enjoyable is playing them with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I've been in secular clans and guilds where every other word is some type of profanity. It's even worse when you're using voice communications software such as Ventrilo, TeamSpeak or Mumble. There's a lot of complaining, negativity, etc. You can get some of that with believers too, but it's very rare.

I've always been a PC gamer. I've never owned any of the console devices. I bought games like Battlefield, but didn't enjoy them as much. I've pretty much stuck to the MMORPG genre for the past few years. For folks that want to play a high-end game, a PC is currently the only way to go!

[JAN649]

hmmmm
when sons were little (under 6) we would go to the arcade in the mall (mid 80's) and they would stand there "playing " games - never put a quarter in the slot then they got smart and started costing me more money.... just help pay for OS new PC because WOW was starting to act up a bit .... I get the old one and will turn it into a cruncher

[Col323]

This topic makes me think of one of my favorite youtube videos: The Evolution of PC gaming. It's a ton of quick edits, so you have to look fast if you want to spot games you remember, but all the sounds and music come straight from the games shown. Nostalgia overload for me. View the description for the full rundown.

I'm with you on the topic. I grew up having to modify the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the family PC just to be able to play games like Commander Keen. Today, you can play a fluid game with graphics like this on a device less than a half inch thick and weighing less than a pound. No tweaks necessary. It really boggles my mind.

[JAN649]

retail store I work for has a "RETRO ATARI 2600"
96 games included -built into the console ---was on sale day after thanksgiving for $40. (and then employee discount)
bought 1 to give to my sister so all the grand kids can see what their parents grew up with

[pecosriverm]

I'm back playing my game of "Earth and Beyond". It was designed by Westwood ~14 yrs ago (I got to do some beta on it). EA bought Westwood and shut the game down about 12 yrs ago. Some in the community talked EA into letting them run a emulator of the game (Net-7).

It's almost the same as the original and it's still lots of Fun for me.