Metaretrogaming?

[BassGuitari]

A thought/observation that occurred to me recently:

I was first starting to get into retro gaming and collecting starting with my Odyssey 2 in the late '90s, and it was around that same time that I first heard about Amok!, "the first new Odyssey 2 game in 15 years." In the thick of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64's salad days, I thought it was absolutely incredible that someone, somehow, made a new game for that forgotten old relic. As indescribably fun as it was to discover the old games that originally came out for the system, there was now this on top of it.

That was in 1998.

That was 19 years ago.

In other words, about four or five years past the generally agreed-upon threshold of approximately 15 requisite years (or roughly three console generations) for a system or game to officially become retro. There are "new games for dead systems" that are now retro themselves. Edtris. Amok!. Vector Vaders. Star Fire (both John Dondzila's Vectrex game and Manuel Polik's Atari 2600 game). All Good Things. Crazy Valet. Gunfight. KTAA!. Okie Dokie. Koffi: Yellow Copter. Retrogaming has quietly gone meta.

Even when I see my copy of Swoops on my 2600 shelf, my first thought usually isn't even the game itself, but of the 2004 Midwest Gaming Classic, where I first saw Cave 1K running. That was such a great time and a wonderful memory for me. It was the first time I met some people who would become very good friends I still have today. And when I feel like playing Swoops, it's fueled by (*shudder*) nostalgia for that weekend nearly a decade and a half ago. Decade and a half...that's the period of time that elapsed between the last officially released North American Odyssey 2 game and Amok!

I feel old.