Videogames and You

Half Of 26-Year-Old's Memories Nintendo-Related

BROOKLYN, NY—According to an fMRI of Philip Jenkins' brain during memory recall, his parietal lobe is activated equally for the words "mother" and "Banjo Kazooie."

Frighteningly, I can almost relate to this. Man I played some cool videogames when I was young. They seemed less high tech back then but somehow more engaging. Could of course have something to do with the fact that I'm older but I'm not sure that that's all there is to it. It's almost like filmmakers that make really crap movies that have amazing special effects. The F/X don't make them any less crap. I played some great games that were nothing but text, e.g., the famous Infocom games.

I should point out that most of my great memories of gaming were when I was with some buddy where we were either playing cooperatively or trying the beat the crap out of each other. Either way it was a very social experience and not really isolating at all. The great memory comes from that shared experience.