Video Game Consoles

Video game consoles have come a long way since the very first system I received as a holiday gift from my mother in 1982.

I can still vividly remember the ridiculously awful hiding spot my mother decided to use to keep it hidden from me. It was in a supermarket bag behind a love seat at the corner of the living room. Back then it was difficult to keep things hidden from me; an intelligent 8 year old boy with a quiet and sinister darkness. I would carefully unwrap gifts from under the tree, play with them, then carefully wrap them again. Unfortunately my mother didn’t know enough about electronics to get me an old school UHF connector for the television, and I had to wait until I received the gift before informing her of the omission.

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But I enjoyed playing with my Atari 2600 for years when it became mine, and had dozens of games including Asteroids, Berzerk, Missile Command, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Centipede, Combat, Defender, Pac Man, and a whole bunch more. Games were so simple yet so much fun back then, and systems lasted for several years before strong competition set in claiming the shelf lives and rendering video game consoles obsolete.

And who doesn’t remember the Nintendo Entertainment System? Okay, but WHO remembers R.O.B. the Robotic Operating System robot?? In 1986 I got the NES with both R.O.B. that worked with the game Gyromite and the Zapper light gun and accompanying game Duck Hunt. That system lasted me for years; I can still remember blowing into the cartridges to get the games to play. One of my favorite games ever was Rygar along with other titles including the Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers and Kung Fu Master.

In the early 1990's I bought my younger brother a Super Nintendo Entertainment System which even our mother loved. Almost ten years later it landed back in our house, and my wife and I used to go crazy for hours playing Total Carnage!

After a long break from video game consoles I ended up with a Playstation when it first came out as an adult, and during an even longer break I purchased not one but two Playstation 3 consoles during my married life. I had to convince my wife that getting the PS3s would be a smarter purchase than buying a Blu-Ray system, which were around the same price at the time. I still get slack over it, but I love them and they do come in useful as a DVD player and Blu-Ray player. But best of all I get to stream Netflix through it and have added Playon, an independent source of television content. Plus my brother down south communicates with me through the video conference system.

Now the kids are starting to get into it. Our oldest had been playing with a Super Nintendo system that my brother gave her when she was real young, and at around six she was playing with her Gameboy Advance for some time. Now, she’s been playing with her Nindendo DS that she absolutely loves, and had to have one in pink for her birthday. She’s had that system for over two years and it still manages to entertain her. She even wrote this great report on it for this web site.

The LeapFrog Leapster2 Learning Game system is an excellent little handheld portable gaming console for kids 4 to 8 who may have older siblings that play other portable systems, this way they don't get jealous of the big kids and actually LEARN something with video games!

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The future of video game consoles is an exciting one. I’m lucky enough that I have a brother who has been nuts over these things for the entirety of his life, and has graduated recently with a bachelors in video game design. Not only am I really proud of him for his accomplishment, but I also get the inside scoop on all the games that are not only good for our kids, but for me as well!!

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