Kids of Today Struggling with Super Metroid

[wildbil52]

The author of this article suggests that it might just be kids trolling but I don't think it is. 

*puts on gramdpa glasses and pulls up pants way too high

When we were growing up, we didn't have the internet to rely on when we got stuck in a video game so that we could avoid using our brains or problem solving skills.  We had to FIGURE IT OUT and that was part of what made the game great.

http://kotaku.com/the-kid...with-super-metr-507848662

[singlebanana]

Time to call the Nintendo Power hotline....oh....wait.

[SirPsycho]

A similar phenomenon with Ultima IV: http://www.brainygamer.co...r/2010/09/unplayable.html

The cause? The kids don't read the manual. They're used to games holding their hands and having arrows point exactly where they need to go.

[Raidou]

A similar phenomenon with Ultima IV: http://www.brainygamer.co...r/2010/09/unplayable.html

OK, this is begging for a community play-through (after Disney month) now.
 

[Crabmaster2000]

A similar phenomenon with Ultima IV: http://www.brainygamer.co...r/2010/09/unplayable.html

OK, this is begging for a community play-through (after Disney month) now.
 

That would be a cool one to playthrough, but I'm not sure we'd get much participation.

[Fleach]

I like "y can't metroid crawl?" Its time to educate the young whipper snappers.

[Crabmaster2000]

I'm willing to bet that they are just struggling with the game because its not that much fun

[Fleach]

I'm willing to bet that they are just struggling with the game because its not that much fun

Good point.

[Crabmaster2000]

Someone posted this in the comment section of that link and I think it sums it up nicely:

"I'm a 80's / 90's kid, and yet I never played this game, so it's pretty likely I will have a pretty hard time with it, as well.

I don't believe for a second that kids nowadays are worse gamers than we were back in the day. I see videos of 9 year old kids playing Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flame" on Guitar Hero on expert difficulty, and that alone tells me that present-day kids are quite capable.

If we had something like Miiverse back in the day, we would also have been spamming it with pleas for help for Super Metroid, or Contra, or all the Mega Man games.

But we didn't, instead relying on trying and trying again until we got shit done; it's not that we were better gamers, it's just that that was the way games were, and we accepted it, and we played it because we had no other choice. It was the culture back then, where we were super patient and didn't rest until we could beat that damn underwater level in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Put a modern-day kid in a similar scenario - say, put him in a deserted island with only a CRT TV, a NES and Battletoads, and I warantee you that the kid will play it endlessly until he's capable of beating the game on a single life.

If we were the "super hardcore gamers" as so many people seem to think, tell me: why was the Konami Code so popular? How many people actually beat Contra without using it (and Contra wasn't even THAT hard, mind you)? How many people actually finished Battletoads, Marble Madness, Punch Out!!, Ninja Gaiden I & II, etc?"

[SirPsycho]

Ah, the old playground discussions. You'd get stuck in a game and hope that somebody else had it so you could discuss it.

It wasn't always the case back then though. I remember trying to get some help in Tomba! when I was a wee tot and everybody looked at me and somebody said, "What's Tomba?"

[techwizard]

ya i don't think the ability for kids to mentally figure out these puzzles is any lower now than 20 years ago, it's just that they have the option now to give up and find a walkthrough. i'm sure if we had that option back then it would have been used just as much.

[singlebanana]

Crabby, you only picked quote because it mentioned TMNT....

[blcklblskt]

I'm willing to bet that they are just struggling with the game because it is too much fun

Fixed.

A similar phenomenon with Ultima IV: http://www.brainygamer.co...r/2010/09/unplayable.html

OK, this is begging for a community play-through (after Disney month) now.
 

That would be a cool one to playthrough, but I'm not sure we'd get much participation.

I think we should do a Persona 4 playthrough.   

[Crabmaster2000]

Crabby, you only picked quote because it mentioned TMNT....

Its the same reason I picked this quote too

I'm willing to bet that they are just struggling with the game because it is too much fun

Fixed.

A similar phenomenon with Ultima IV: http://www.brainygamer.co...r/2010/09/unplayable.html

OK, this is begging for a community play-through (after Disney month) now.
 

That would be a cool one to playthrough, but I'm not sure we'd get much participation.

I think we should do a Persona 4 playthrough.   

I'd be so in for that!!!

[Leynos]

A lot of the newer games are easier. Back then we had Arcade ports which were meant to be hard to suck quarters. We also had games costing 2x what we do now so kids got about 2-3  games a year at most if lucky. Games were mostly shorter in the 80's early 90's so they made them much harder to get more replay value. Not a knock on the newer generation of gamers but your skills can only be tested as much as they practiced.

If the kids were tested more they would be more used to tougher games and figure it out pretty easy.