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My son paused the game, looked at me and said: “Dad… did you really play games like this when you were a kid?” On the TV I had pulled up an old 2D platformer. Chunky pixels. Simple music. No battle pass. No 27-minute cutscene before you actually play. Just jump, run, have fun. I laughed and told him, “Yeah, this is what gaming used to feel like.” He’s 9. He’s used to updates, loot boxes, constant online chats and kids screaming into headsets. Honestly, I hate it. Every time he plays modern games I have this low-level anxiety: Who’s talking to him online? What ads is he seeing? Why does every game push him to buy something? I started to realise something: The games I grew up with were simpler… …but also way more fun. No battle passes. No random strangers. No “you need Wi-Fi to play”. Just you, a controller and a couple of buttons. A few weeks ago I went down a rabbit hole trying to bring that back for him. I tried: Old consoles on eBay (either broken or insanely expensive) Mini “classic” consoles (fun, but only a handful of games) Emulators (too techy, I don’t want to become IT support every time we play) Then I found something that honestly felt like cheating. A tiny HDMI game stick that plugs straight into the TV and comes pre-loaded with over 30,000 retro games from 40+ classic consoles. No disc. No cartridges. No downloads. Just plug it into the HDMI port, turn it on and you’re staring at a menu of basically every game we grew up with in the 90s and 2000s. I set it up in 3 minutes. My son walked into the living room right as the intro music from an old racing game started playing. He froze. “What is that?” Ten minutes later we were playing together, side by side on the sofa. No Wi-Fi. No chat. No pop-up offers. Just two controllers, pixel graphics and the kind of trash talk that only happens between a dad and his kid when they’re both mashing the same two buttons. Here’s what surprised me most: He loved it. This kid who’s used to 4K graphics and open worlds was laughing his head off at games that are older than he is. We’ve made it a thing now: Friday nights are “retro nights” Phones on the table Snacks out TV on Game stick plugged in He keeps saying, “I get why you liked games back then, they’re not stressful.” And he’s right. Those old games are hard… but they’re not overwhelming. You don’t need a tutorial that’s longer than the game itself. You just pick a game and play. If you grew up in the 90s/2000s and you’ve ever wished you could show your kids what gaming used to feel like, this little device is kind of perfect. ⚡ No Wi-Fi required – they can play safely offline 🎮 30,000+ retro games from 40+ consoles in one stick 📺 Works with any TV that has an HDMI port 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Perfect for family nights, not just for kids I’m not saying it’ll replace every modern game in your house. But if you want a way to: Unplug them from the online chaos Share your childhood favourites And actually have fun together instead of just watching them play… This did that for us. 👉 I’ll leave the link to the one we use here: https://theretropsarcade.com/products/retrops-arcade If it’s still on 50% off, grab it. Once you start playing, you’ll forget modern games even exist.