I'm still playing Rastan on a Friday night

For a couple of years as a teenager, every Friday night was spent in the back of the Temuka Fish Supply, playing the Rastan video game, and rarely getting past the second stage.

The games in the back of Lester's place were coated in grease, but also full of bright lights and noise and violence, I would spend hours and any small change I had there. I never had the time or money to get really, really good at something, but I was an extremely enthusiastic amateur.

The kids that I have somehow helped bring into the world haven't really played any modern games, but they love the old, simple stuff - which is fair enough, since their dad is both old and simple - and it's easy enough to find arcade emulators online, and play the old games.

They have both gone hardcore on the early Sonic games - they're really not very good at them, but are getting visibly better - and they do spend an inordinate amount of time watching game walkthroughs on Youtube, which is a step above me. I was always impressed by how far Kerri Benson could get in Rastan in the Fish Supply days, but never felt the urge to watch him go through level after level.

So I've been inspired to find the old games I used to love, and spent so much time on. I guess I don't have to pay 20c a pop anymore, so can get some good time in and the lovely wife was out on a Friday night recently and I didn't have anything better to do, so I played Rastan nonstop for a couple of hours. I even got up to the third level.

Thirty something years on, and I'm still playing the old games, and they're still so much fun. I don't need the modern thrills when I've got a basic platform game to get through.