I seem to remember crying at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. You know, heroic sacrifice, character finally finds meaning, etc. That, combined with "Live and Learn"... Actually, "Live and Learn" can make me cry on its own. I'm a sap.

I almost started bawling at a game last night. I finally got the magic hammer in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (I was too young to nab the game on its first run, so sue me) and I got to the guy in t he dark world with flute, and if I hadn't been dehyrated I would have cried. It was so sad... All he did was seek the Golden Power! He wasn't a bad guy! And yet he got turned into a tree... It was just so heart wrenching. I mean, forget the princess, let's save this guy from the dark world!

Then again, I cry at the drop of a hat, so perhaps I'm not a good example.

Actually, within the community of serious players, 16 is quite young. Most of the younger ones are 18-25 years old (an age group I belong too), and were people who picked up the game before the commercialization happened. Others picked it up for their little brother/nephew/children, and checked it out for themselves, and found that it was pretty good - much more indepth that for example the anime is.

I know of a number of people among them who are around the age of 40 who also enjoy it, and who have contributed to the enormous amount of research that has been done - and believe me, it is a lot. Check out places like Hexagonal Research and the afore-mentioned Azure Heights for examples of that. I know most of you will now say Get a life, but then again, what's the difference between this and say, checking whether there's a new post on a newsgroup, or Slashdot, or whatever, every fifteen minutes, and making unfounded flaming insults to whoever you don't agree with.

I won't disagree that most of the fad is indeed lame - I'm not a fan of the anime series myself, and never bought any of the merchandise myself, but the games are certainly not only meant for kids - I doubt most of them would even get the fullest out of it.