racketboy.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKnzeXkefDo

It is the first in a series of videos where an 11 year old boy plays difficult, but great nes games for the first time. This episode is contra. Next is battletoads. Both difficult games to be sure, but both are very very fun too. He seemed to not get a lot out of it.

Long story short- Dylan didn't like the graphics or sound. He knew you could play two player, but that doesn't change his opinion. He thought it was harder than Call of duty: world at war and halo 3, and would rather play them.

I would love to see him play it again when he is older if he is still into gaming. Just to be curious if when he starts to expand his mind and appreciate more of the world as he matures, he would also start to appreciate gaming roots.

nickfil wrote:He thought it was harder than Call of duty: world at war and halo 3, and would rather play them.

and why has an 11 year old played those 2 games? Nice parenting. Yeah contra is also about guns, but in a much more cartoony way

If I ever have kids, I'm starting them out on the Sega Genesis. This is just sad.

I can actually sympathise with the kid. The games you like the most are the ones you grow up playing. Without the nostalgia, a lot of these old NES classics can't compete any more.
The only exceptions are games like Super Mario Bros or Zelda which are just so fun that they remain great to this day. They also have the added help of being familiar franchises.

I should also probably admit that my first console was the Super Nintendo and therefore have never played Contra... But if I do, it probably won't appeal to me. Run and guns aren't my thing, and I won't have any nostalgia for it either.

I didn't play Contra till 2008 and I love it to pieces. My brother played it maybe 2 years prior as an online flash port and loved it too. Sometimes nostalgia has nothing to do it.

GRANTED, Contra is hard as hell. You kind of have to sink some time into it before you can really cover any ground without getting creamed. And I got started on Contra 4, so when I played Contra 1 the graphics did seem pretty quaint to me, too...

I think the guy who made this video should have asked the kid to play Contra a little bit each day, then get back with him after a week and offer his thoughts. That would be more fair. Some classic games I hated when I first began them (eg. I started Metal Gear Solid when I was used to Splinter Cell, and I started Resident Evil 4 when I was used to Gears of War II.) but I had to get used to them and grew to love them.

Give him an easy game!

It's generally never a good idea to introduce something to a kid on difficult settings - better to ease them into it until they can't bare to give it up.

Then again, what would be an good and easy NES game to start a child off on?

I didn't like Contra at that age either -- it was just too stinkn' hard.
I suppose the same could be said for Battletoads.
I can't blame the kid there.

That's bad parenting. My son is 12 and he thinks Contra is awesome. For his birthday this year he wanted an NES instead of my offer of a 360 and Resident Evil 5.

The games should inspire imagination- Battletoads is fun even though it can be difficult for some, if only because of what you can do in the game (giant cartoony fists and boots, beating up the other player, you are GIANT ANTHROTOAD etc...) <nostalgia>Also, I actually remember seeing the cartoon show at one point...</nostalgia>

The kid's imagination is met in the "gritty" realistic settings of the newer generation. Unless he's gotten ahold of fun flash games on Newgrounds I don't think he'll warm up to simpler games that at one time were considered "too violent."

The video was too quick to throw a hard game at the kid. He should have started out with a slighty easier game with a good learning curve, then go up from there.