@LordBowserKoopa: good catch in the bottom pic though, I never new any girls that liked that game very strange to see them actually playing it.

lilaliendog

@Blue_Six:

ROFL I just said the same thing to my girlfriend, AVGN ftw.. =P

rljohn

@Blue_Six: I thought it was Birry...

aNiMeMaN14

@LordBowserKoopa: spot on, man. one life only for each character was really lame!

tkshredder

Wow. Well, at least there playing some kind of game down there now. I always found it cool how South Korea finally got the DS/Wii and now North Korea will sloooowly move closer to them... in the form of some weird NES ripoff.

SanjiX

It's "BIMMY AND JIMMY".

So much for "journalistic integrity" Kotaku.

Blue_Six

The kids on the bottom pic know where its at. DD2 is way better than DD3.

LordBowserKoopa

that's so sad. because of state-censored media, most of these kids have probably never heard of a wii or 360. They think this is the pinnacle of gaming technology. And just to the immeadiate south is a country that worships video gaming as a second god. A damn waste.

BelgianBadger

This would be kinda cool if it also weren't for this twinge of sadness I feel whilst looking at these pictures.

eclipsegryph

At least they're not being subjected to James Yukich's swan song, Double Dragon the movie. Or is Kim Jong-il showing his citizens this movie ala Clockwork Orange delivery? Inquiring minds need to know!

PhiCancri

communist arcades look kind of different also look at the clothing. Something about the picture says staged.

minus_273

DRAGON DOUBLE!!!

Glass_bomb

I'm just happy that this new generation has exposure to old-school gaming, even if 8-bit gaming is the only exposure they'll get in a while. The fact that my younger relatives started out with a Nintendo 64 makes me feel old as hell.

MarcusDeshaun

@rljohn: Aww, I wanted to make that joke :-/ lol

Bedlam

DD3 in the first pic, DD2 in the second. It's some hot Dragon on Dragon action.

KaneRobot

Shit, I can't even begin to imagine how awe-struck this nation would be if they got their hands on a Wii.

bostano

Good for them, ideology should never interfere with any persons right to enjoy a video game.

surft

So sad - videogames or not. There is profound emptiness to all NK photographs that is hard to shake.
One thing they have a plenty of apparently, are large empty rooms with 6-meter tall ceilings.

DarkFalzX

Anyone else feel an estranged sense of hope when they look at these pictures? As if some small flame is flickering up in the cold North?

phinehas

@lilaliendog: I found it hilarious that apparently they were enjoying it so much, the two kids in the middle don't seem to care that they don't have a whole chair of their own.

Sorwah

As good as the Double Dragon games were/are, it must suck to live in North Korea.

Seinosuke

Sadly, the kids probably think it's a brand new game and the best graphics ever. Sad that they have to live under the regime of that wack job Kim Jong Il

y2julio

@BelgianBadger:

I think Video Games is low on the list of priority for what would make NK a better country...

Vecha

"And this is how Westerners claim their women cruelly - through bloody, mortal combat, on crime-ridden streets that are the potent result of Capitalism."

AlienRopeBurn

@minus_273: Everything is staged in North Korea

McPaper

Bimmy and Jimmy.

race

I wonder how long it takes those tvs to warm up.

Final

I want to know how the North Koreans keep their Micro Geniuses in good working order. Now that's some technical expertise for ya!

greyhoundbus

@race: Damnit, I was just going to post in this thread the exact same thing. HIVEMIND.

Zyzex_Remix

Yay oppressive government?

Quicksilver4648

The problem here is that the North Korean people believe that this is new, cutting edge technology. They don't realize, due to the foreign communication lockout, that these games are 20 years old.

Also, every thing that North Korea does is for show. They escorted the photographer here, had kids brought in and staged the whole thing for the visitor. They do this type of thing every time some foreigner visits.

I am saying this because I lived and worked in Korea for over 2 years while in the military. My job was such that I had to have some pretty intimate knowledge of North Korea. I spent a lot of time researching and reading.

KillerBee

reminds when I was in russia in 1992. They had this arcade with really tiny analog joysticks. It was 1992 and the graphics were slightly better than atari 2600

betterthansome

@zophiel: The whole system is a knock-off. The games are knock-offs. They have no copyright date on them at all.

@greyhoundbus: The entire country is technilogically stuck in the late 70s to early 80s. Their infrustructure sucks and they have very little going for them from a technology standpoint. They even have a total blackout every night to keep their elctical infrustructure up and running. Here is a little visible satellite image of North and South Korea at night. Look at the stark contrast between the two:

[www.singeo.com.sg]

KillerBee

So, are these games modified to not have a Copyright date on them or am I missing something?

zophiel

@McPaper:

Sad but true. Anything that gets out of North Korea is probably a best case scenario too. If not it's illegal (in N. Korea.)

Trygle12

The first taste of joyful gaming for this kids is hard-as-nails DD3?

Monsters. They don't know what they're making out of them.

BigBooBuddy

Im sorry if my opinion offends any of you fellow commenters, but looking at the current gen HD games... I wish I had just a NES to play with.

Shiryu

@KillerBee: They have artillery in the mountains and now DOUBLE DRAGON.

In North Korea, GIRLFRIEND KIDNAPS YOU!

race

@Trygle12: I was a kid in Poland. During some of the worst years starting in '80 or '81 it was nearly impossible to get new children's clothing in the tri cities area without Deutsche Marks or US Dollars. People made livings buying items that were relatively plentiful in one area and selling them in regions where they were scarce for hard currency or traded for items in that region. Most children wore their older sibling's clothing or used clothing from the west shipped form relatives abroad and thus they tended to look like they were dressed out of the '70s. The styles were almost a decade behind and it looks like something similar must be happening in North Korea.

mzs

Those 4 girls are sitting on 2 rusty old metal chairs in some kind of interdependent half-hanging weave... HOW POOR ARE THEY?! (rhetorical)

I spent so many hours in Double Dragon as a kid...

fuchikoma

@Blue_Six: Right on! You tell 'em! Billy my ass... Everyone knows the guy's name is Bimmy. Geez...

L_K_M

@Vecha: Umm...no shit? the article was about the kids playing video games, so thats what I commented on?

BelgianBadger

@random_dude:
oh damn, posted it somewhere else >_> sry Shiryu.
But yeah, i miss my nes times too, such good and simple times : D

random_dude

href="#c7987204">KillerBee:
Waw, just...waw..... that image is... waw.... poor guys :(

random_dude

@fuchikoma: I guess I'm not sure what you mean. The kids themselves are fairly well dressed. (Of course, this is a staged shot, so of course they are.) The chairs are not any worse than you'd see in say, and old church in the US.

What weirds me out about this shot is the layout. Who uses that much room in to hold a bunch of kids playing video games? I TV per desk with 10' aisles?

jrleek

@KillerBee: So, I'm willing to believe that the children are not allowed to play DD whenever they like, and this is indeed staged for the visitor. (Although I'm pretty sure the kids like it when the visitor comes and they have to play DD. :) And I'm willing to believe that the kids probably think the NES is state of the art, but heck, when I was a kid I thought the Atari 2600 was a modern system in 1988 when my brother bought one because my Mom wouldn't let us get an NES.

However, aside from these specific cases, I have a hard time believing that the average rational adult in NK genuinely believes that the NES is state of the art and Kim Jung Il is really looking out for them. They may not know specifically what the alternatives are, but given the large numbers of NK refugees in SK, despite how difficult it is to get out of NK via China, shows that a lot (most?) of the people don't buy the party line.

jrleek

Could you imagine how shocked they will be to see PS1 graphics?

PS3 or 360 graphics? Their hearts will stop seeing how real it is!

I wonder what kind of reactions they will give playing Mercenaries (first one).

neo177117

@jrleek: they do buy the party line because they have no choice. Kim Jong Il controls all media, both print and televised. He broadcasts whatever he wants and, since they have no frame of reference to doubt it, they believe it to be true. There is a foreign communication blackout in North Korea. They have no internet, no outside print or television other than old reruns of South Korean shows from the 70s, and no telephones outside the country.

They have a Hollywood type movie production studio, but it is run and controlled by Kim Jong Il. He even kidnapped a famous Japanese director to help make his movie empire. Kim Jong Il is an avid movie buff, some reports say he owns over 25,000 DVDs.

I saw a video recently of a news crew in North Korea at the main library. The librarian pulled out their most prized and advanced technology manuals (this is how the librarian referred to them). They were programming manuals from the early 80s (BASIC and FORTRAN) as well as hardware manuals for dot-matrix printers and tape drives. The video was made last year. I am serious about this. North Koreans have no clue how advanced their brothers to the South are because if they did, it would destroy the entire government, society and way of life of all people in the country.

KillerBee

Dude don't tell them their names are Billy and Jimmy now they gonna not let them play.

Beta @ Random

Bash, you do realize that this camp is going to be closed, the owners executed, and the kids brainwashed because of this article, don't you?

Ok, just kidding.

Or am I?

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

@Shiryu: Nostalgic much?

But yeah, I'm on the same boat.

The last game I played 'till the end was Cave Story... and I'm pretty shure one of the things that convinced me to play it was the 8/16-bit like graphics.

Here: [xspblog.com]

Just in case you don't know it.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

@KillerBee: Ok, you win. [www.flickr.com]

jrleek

Hm, I'm pretty sure thats not a arcade but a International Children's Camp which is actually a lot like a summer camp.

HalRabulous

I gotta admit in some sort of way these kids are kinda lucky. Any games they get will be appreciated and I'm sure played till their fingers are cramping just like when I was a kid. Whereas some of my friends little brothers and sisters won't dare touch a genesis or snes controller because those are "stupid old games".

PalmerBabality

I feel sorry for these kids. If the government want them to believe things like these is the cutting edge tech, how the hell would their country grow?

Yam

@mzs:

You are 100% correct!!!

Apu

@AlienRopeBurn:

LOL!

XD

*Applause*

Darth_Kupi

Double dragons!? They should each get one, I thought that was how communism worked, hurm..

KenogaBrave

More of Eric Lafforgue's photos of North Korea. (From the excellent picture blog The Big Picture at boston.com.)

ZombieAlmeida

@phinehas: Or a small flickering screen, in this case. ;)

EloquentZen