Playing Old GamesOn A New Computer
A lot of people still like playing the crappy old gamesof 20-30 years ago. The reason has to be nostalgia becausethe gamesof today are superior in graphics, speed, playability and sound. Just the content may be worse.
Twenty to thirty years ago, there were cannon gamesfor shooting down warplanes and blowing up tanks and naturally they were being driven by people who got killed, but you never saw them. Nowadays, these same shoot-em ups have blood, gore and body parts strewn everywhere.
Perhaps it is more realistic, but does it teach anything? I don't think it makes kids more mindful of the horrors of war, it just numbs them to it a bit more. In the past, those old cannon gameswere roughly all about raising the cannon and allowing for windage, movement and distance. But what is Kitten Cannon about?
There is no skill to the game. You only blast a kitten out of a cannon to its death and the one who fires it the furthest is the winner. Why a kitten? Only to become gruesome, I imagine. Children like gruesome and the game is addictive and so it is popular, but older players are the ones who are thinking back to their Super Mario and The Hobbit adventure games.
However, most of these old gamescame on 5.25" disk, cartridge or cassette tape. A few were on 2.5" diskettes. However, hardly anyone has the ability to play these formats anymore. Some have been converted to run on modern PC's, but then you have to buy the same old 20-30 year old game again and the graphics and sound are no better.
You used to be able to play the old games, say, 10-15 years ago by downloading or buying an emulator, becausecomputers back then were (or could) still loading from the old storage devices mentioned previously. So, if you would like to play a boxful of old Commodore 64 or Atari 250 gamesthat you recently found in the attic, you will have to strive to purchase a 10-15 year old AT or something like that.
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The only other option is to scour the Net for compilation disks that enthusiasts have put together after copying and converting them for use on contemporary PC's. The newer versions will probably run faster and smoother than what you remember, although the music will still be just as repetitive.
It is up to you what you think about copyright law. I am pretty sure that most of the companies that made most of those gamesno longer exist, but it is likely that someone still owns the copyright although they may no longer care whether it is infringed as long as you do not attempt to sell hundreds of CD's of the gameson eBay.
Perhaps the old gamesof 20-30 years ago were far happier than the contemporary variety. Computers were still new and exciting in the Eighties and Nineties and I don't remember any blood and guts being shown in any of the gamesand I don't think anyone considered firing a kitten out of a cannon.
Owen Jones,the author of this article writes on many subjects but is currently involved with Cat Cannon Games. If you would like to read more, pleasego over to our web site entitled Kitten Cannon 3.