A father has forced his son to play through video game history in chronological order, starting with 1978 Galaxian
A six year old beat The Legend of Zelda. Can you?
In a case of very odd parenting, a man called Andy Baio has forced his son named Elliot to play through video game history in chronological order no less starting with arcade classics and the 1978 title Galaxian. The experiment only ended this week and Mr Baio has put his findings in an article on Medium called “Playing With My Son. An experiment in forced nostalgia and questionable parenting”.
Starting on his sons fourth birthday with the titles “Pac-Man plug-and-play TV game loaded with arcade classics — Galaxian (1979), Rally-X (1980), Bosconian (1981), Dig Dug (1982), and of course, Pac-Man (1980) and three sequels, Super Pac-Man (1982), Pac-Man Plus (1982), and Pac & Pal (1983)” his son then moved on to the Atarai 2600, NES, the SNES (which his father never actually played) and so on till the experiment ended with the PS2 and titles that were released the year his son was born.
No matter what your opinion on this experiment is, it sounds like Elliot was having a blast and kicking ass too as Mr Baio has stated with tweets like “Eliot got to level 5 in Pac & Pal, an obscure Japanese-only Pac-Man sequel from 1983, all by himself. Pretty badass.” and “Eliot just beat the first Zelda, entirely by himself. I only helped by showing him a map of Dungeon 9. That’s my boy!.”
Looks like the sort of thing a eight year old plays.
So now that the experiment is over Elliot now has a love for brutally difficult video games and rougelikes in particular. Mr Baio also stated that his son is “frighteningly good at them” and his favourite game is Spelunky, which he cleared via hell. He also beat the brutally difficult Nuclear Throne in less than a week and like every other child his age, his a fan of Minecraft. Something tells me that he only plays the game on Hardcore though.
The experiment lasted 4 years and covered 25 years of video game history and in the end Mr Baio stated that: “Eliot’s early exposure to games with limited graphics inoculated him from the flashy, hyper-realistic graphics found in today’s AAA games. He can appreciate retro graphics on its own terms, and focus on the gameplay. My hope is that this experiment instilled a life-long appreciation for smaller, weirder, more intimate games in him.”
So if you have time check out his story on Medium, its pretty interesting but what’s your opinion? Do you think his the best Dad ever or that he forced his hobby on his son? Either way tells us in the comment section below.
Original Source: Kotaku