A Sonic Kid

Last night, finding myself bored by the seemingly incessant violence of modern video games, I decided to delve into a collection of old Mega Drive games I have rather conveniently on one disc.

Ah, such happy memories.  Or so I thought.  I was always a Sonic kid, and used to spend hours navigating him through intricately designed levels, never once questioning why a hedgehog was blue.  However, last night I thought I'd try a few games I never owned as a child, namely Alex Kidd.  What surprised me was just how hard games used to be, even something as simple as Master Kidd and his apparently Enchanted Castle.  If anything touches you, you lose a life.  And you only have three lives.  Oh, and when you get to the final level and lose all your lives, you have to start from the beginning of the game again.  This would be unheard of in modern games, where you get infinite lives and can save your game anywhere you fancy it.  Don't get me wrong, I still adore video games, and probably spend far too many hours bathed in flashing images and white noise from an over worked fan (thanks XBox).  But playing old games makes you realise that you are not quite the gamer you thought you were.  If you disagree, head on over to a fantastic website, mastersystem8.com, where you can play hundreds of retro games on your browser (don't be perturbed by the layout, which is not so pleasing to the eye).  Before long you modern gamers will realise just how easy you have it...