I'm an Old-Ass Gamer
I can still remember my bugging my parents for quarters for the arcade at 9 years old wanting to play Galaxian and Asteroids. And I could play those games for hours if I had enough money. But we were the first generation of gamers that grew up on vector line games with minimal graphics and having to rely on mostly our imagination as far as getting any sort of fun out of a game that looked like a collection of squiggly lines.
Then along came a coin-operated Star Wars game in 1983 - which was my first foray into playing anything related to Star Wars.
This was my first chance to pilot an X-wing and even though those graphics were just squiggly lines and filling it in with my imagination, "I was Luke Skywalker" going after the Death Star".
Now we have games like the Sims 3...
...with mods...they look almost "human". This kind of game I couldn't picture back in 1983 as a 13yr old hanging out at the arcade in between algebra class and homework - that I would be able to play with characters that I've grown attached to and my literary creative side keeps seeking to write stories about.
The Star Wars game I play now is vastly different from the arcade game I played back in 1983.
Even though this game (Star Wars the Old Republic) is set in an era long before the Galactic Empire and Palpatine even were a thing - it is Star Wars, with lightsabers, Jedi, Sith and all sort of other characters and retain the feel of Lucas's Star Wars that we love and miss (at least I do. I don't find Disney's offerings worth watching). There's even space combat which I still find difficult. So I stay away from the "Starfighter" portion of SWTOR and play with my Jedi, Sith, Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent and Smuggler.
The Flight Simulator II that I remember flying in my youth on the Apco (Apple IIe clone) computer,
...has turned into...
or
These are games that I couldn't even conceive of in my youth playing vector line graphic games and it shows just how much computer graphics has changed in 45 years.
I don't have the ability to be able run inZoi on my current computer. But I'm eager to see how far the boundaries of computer gaming graphics gets pushed over the next twenty-five or hopefully thirty to to forty years I have left to walk on this earth. You kids are gonna have it so lucky.
