I suppose this is what getting older feels like.
One of my University students asked me the other day if I was doing anything special for the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith.
I told him he needs to remember I control his grade.
The first time I played Super Mario on the N64 I can still recall how it made me slightly dizzy, which delighted me. That effect only lasted a short while, but it was a lot of fun to feel that disoriented by a video game, if but briefly.
Here’s Mario at nearly 30 years ago (29 years):
Mario 64
I remember everyone gathering around the TV to see this because it was so unbelievable.
This was Mario 40 years ago:
That’s what’s mind blowing to me. The difference between games used to be staggering. The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge. And jumping up to Mario 64 in less than a decade was even bigger still.
Obviously games have continued to improve since then, but we’ll never have such rapid massive leaps again.
The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge.
And that was on the same system.
Honestly, I believe technical progress has grinded to a halt. Moore’s law was broken with regards to hardware. I cannot think of novel tech after smartphones. Now, it feels like everything new is a wealth hoarding scheme by corporate greed.
We’ll know there’s been a new tech revolution when HL3 comes out
