By Micheal Foster-Sanders/campus editor

I remember when I received my Nintendo Entertainment System as a birthday gift. I was familiar with video games and played them because my older cousins had systems like the Atari 2600, ColecoVision and Mattel’s Intellivision. But when I first saw Super Mario Bros. flash across my TV screen and watched Mario hit that first block, I knew immediately this was something different from the typical bleeps and graphics I was familiar with.

Fast forward 32 years later, and I haven’t felt that experience in quite some time now.

Each leap in the new generation of gaming brought new experiences along with new visuals. Sonic the Hedgehog zipped through levels, Samus waged war against the Metroids, and the Streets of Rage squad fought against a legion of henchmen to reach Mr. X during the 16-bit era. Sony unseated Nintendo during the 32/64-bit wars with games like Parappa the Rapper, Intelligent Cube and Resident Evil 2.

Then came Sega’s swan song with the Dreamcast, firing the first shot in that era of gaming and giving gamers a version of a game that was better than its arcade counterpart, Soul Calibur.

Games today lack the soul and passion of those from yesteryear. Mindless rehashes of games that lack innovation show that companies are just playing it safe just to get a check. 

Almost every game has a forced multiplayer edition when it’s not needed, and single-player games are suffering from it.

Companies like Capcom, once considered one of the gods of video game content, dumbed down Street Fighter V for casual fans and created a game that relies on luck instead of skill.

I can’t blame the developers. Gamers don’t support them when they take risks. Instead, gamers usually complain.

Thank God for the developers out there who are not afraid of taking risks and bringing out games like Nier: Automata, A Way Out, Max Payne 3, and the God of War series, which Sony reinvented for its fourth installment.

I still have hope for games wowing and giving me the special feeling that I had growing up.

But as long as the gamers refuse to demand innovation and refuse to support developers when they innovate, we’re looking at dark days ahead.