It is ironic that I would choose arcade games to be the final chapter of my recent video game themed saga, seeing as how they were the first games that were popular with massive amounts of people. I had many ideas for which game I wanted to talk about, but it seemed like all of those early arcade games had horrible environmental messages, so it was just too darn hard to narrow it down. Without further ado, Green Tip #68 is don't attempt to use the logic with which the developers of these arcade games used so many years ago. Here are several examples:
Frogger
There is something seriously wrong about the city that this Frog lives in. I was confused why there were so many cars on the road (take the subway people! Or ride the bus!). I mean, less cars are not only better for the environment, but they would save a frog's life! I thought a little harder about the residents of this city and realized that they hate the environment. Why else would they be living downstream of a logging area? All these logs floating downstream clearly show a blatant disregard for sustainable forestry.
Space Invaders, Galaga, Galaxian, Phoenix, etc.
One of the hottest trends of arcade games was to have these types of games where you play as a single spaceship and you have to take down vast armies of aliens or alien bugs or alien spaceships or other alien things. Well, anyone who's played one of these games knows that throughout the course of the game, you end up shooting hundreds, if not thousands, of enemy space ships. Aliens, I have to question your tactics here. STOP BUILDING REALLY WEAK DISPOSABLE SPACESHIPS!!! If you had half of a brain cell, you'd stop wasting your planet's precious resources on ships that blow up after one hit and you'd apply yourself better to make a smaller fleet of indestructible spaceships. I can only imagine how much damage your alien mines are doing to the planets you live on.
Dig Dug
This game is a thinly veiled attempt to make strip mining seem glamorous and fun. I'm not buying it.
Centipede
I get that you hate bugs. So do I. But I've never taken a laser gun to shoot all these helpless lifeforms. I use shoes or tissues (used tissues in accordance with Green Tip #8) or fly swatters or my roommate's homework. Notice that none of them waste all the energy that laser guns do. And really? What did the mushrooms ever do to you but get in the way? Leave them out of it.
Pac-Man
Finally, Pac-Man. I don't even know what amounts of pot he has to have smoked to have munchies this bad, but sober up, man. You can't just go tearing through those little glowy pellet things like that. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reduce is first for a reason, buddy.
I think I've pretty clearly demonstrated how bad of a message video games are sending to our children. Check out the IGR again Friday when I'll be going back to my normal routine with a very much run-of-the-mill (windmill) Green Tip.
It involves goats. :)
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