Slashdot Log In
Don't Go Down Memory Lane?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 04, 2006 01:08 PM
from the rose-colored-hindsight dept.
from the rose-colored-hindsight dept.
fieldsofclover writes "Gamers With Jobs is running a piece today about the darker side of gaming nostalgia. From the article: 'Here's an example. Konami's Castlevania had interesting monsters, catchy music, and a great gimmick: a guy with a whip. But if you went back and played it today, chances are you wouldn't bother playing past the second level. Why are the newest games in the series so drastically different from the original? The answer is because gamers demand more from their hobby now, and there's just not a lot of meat on those old bones. But when the fully 3D, story-driven sequel fails, they point at the original on its lofty pedestal and demand an experience that lives up to their memories. It's a double standard that's next to impossible to satisfy.' Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by staying obsessed with the old classics?"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
It just goes to show (Score:4, Funny)
Darker? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing beats today's games (Score:5, Funny)
Oregon Trail (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, I would not want interactive 3D dysentary.
Parent
Re:Oregon Trail (Score:5, Funny)
And, along the way, you pick up enough shoot 'n' strafe kills to be able to kill the giant bug boss you find at the end in the Portland level.
Parent
Re:Oregon Trail (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Oregon Trail (Score:5, Funny)
Bison: rofl noob
Parent
Re:Oregon Trail (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Oregon Trail (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:5, Funny)
Okay, so their ultimate weakness is that they are stupid.
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to the 70's where everything was a dime-a-dozen maze game? Or maybe the 80's where everything was a dime-a-dozen platformer? Or the early 90's with their dime-a-dozen beat-em-ups? Or the late 90's with their and dime-a-dozen arcadey first person shooters?
Gaming...gaming never changes. You have the games that define the genre and you have a couple of other worthwhile titles and then you hve the vast amount of crap. Tell me, have you ever tried looking through a complete Atari, NES or SNES ROM collection and picking a game at random to see how it played. Trust me, it's just as much of a crapshoot back then as it is now.
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you have put your finger on the problem. We remember the great games of the past when we get nostalgic, for the very reason that they have enduring value. Of course a merely average modern game doesn't stack up, even if that game is superior to an average older game.
I play a lot of games via MAME and enjoy them a great deal -- but I don't play every game I can find. I don't want to. Most of them weren't that good. Still, I think TFA overstated the case.
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:5, Interesting)
to make a long story short, the fastest way to make any form of entertainment get stale and derivitive is to make the cost of failure catastrophic.
A year ago I would have agreed with you. But with Steam finally getting some momentum under its belt, suddenly, it's been a lot easier for indie developers to find an outlet. It was a rocky start, and there were problems, but we owe a great deal to valve for taking such a big risk and fuck-starting steam's role as a content distribution system by putting their crown jewel, Half Life 2, on the line. The gamble worked, and the result is that millions of Half Life fans now also are exposed to the work of these indie developers. Think about it from a developers point of view. When millions of HL players from around the globe log in, they see their game, smack dab in the center of the Steam Storefront's main window. It's an IV directly into the pulse of their target market, and I guarentee you that getting such exposure through conventional means would be several orders of magnitude more expensive.
What happened as a result of this? The developers of Darwinia sold more copies of their game in a couple days than their run of Darwinia or Uplink in a box by itself. Now, Introvision is on solid financial ground and also has the leeway to keep creating new games such as DEFCON. This basically opened the door to other indie developers who now market and promote their games online. And because you dont have to go out to a store and buy the game itself, it's a lot easier to make impulse purchases, which is good for developers at least. Of course, some of the indie games are sucessful, some of them not, but the point stands that it is a LOT easier for indie developers to get exposure now than it was a couple years ago.
This is to say nothing of the strides that free software, with its vast array of mature and free compilers and libraries making serious programming accessable without having to fork over hundreds of dollars for Visual Studio
Digital content distribution is the way of the future. There will always be titles of all shapes and sizies being at the whims of the publishers, but now with digital content distribution, the indie developer is no longer relegated to living on the margins, scraping out a living on a small fanatical fanbase...if that.
Parent
Re:Nothing beats today's games (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Super Mario Bros (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Super Mario Bros (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Super Mario Bros (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo! Think of the business opportunity this presents! A new game sells, and its players often spend months playing said game. Nintendo WEEEE and PS3 and XBox 360 (dunno about Xbox for sure) will allow you to download old, nostalgic games for a small fee. For $5, $10, you download Mario 1. Then another $10 for 2, 3, Mario Kart, etc. You play these games (as is the point of the post) for a short period of time, and then download more.
fuck, no! (Score:3, Interesting)
fuck, no!
I own the original cartridges, they are mine!! My SNES still works, but it's much more convenient to store backups of said games in my HD and play them in an emulator. I don't give a fuck to the legalese Nintendo will sprout once they are profiting from the old gems again: they are still mine!
I won't pay for them aga
Developers not Consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
This message should be for video game developers, not video game consumers. Developers definitely need to get their heads out of their @sses and start dreaming up new, creative ideas instead of just taking the easy way out with throwbacks. Consumers on the other hand have little impact on what games are being developed, and therefore consumers can do whatever they want. If they want throwbacks or if they want brand new fresh ideas, no biggy. But the writer of this article needs to direct his ranting towards the appropriate people.
Re:Developers not Consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, your comment is awfully naive. It's really, really easy to sit outside the industry (or pretty much any creative-based industry) and complain about the lack of originality. Big-picture creative ideas for games are cheap; practically worthless. Just about every single person I've worked with, every kid I meet that finds out I make games, my friends, etc. has ideas for some weird, creative, potentially fun game. But the vast, vast majority of those ideas would collapse under the crushing weight of the reality of game development. Got an idea for a game? Great. Now, is it going to make money? (The large majority of games don't justify their existence, financially speaking). Is it technically feasible? Is it appealing to a wide audience? Will it sell overseas? Can you get capital to finance its development? If so, can you get it without giving up the rights to your idea? Not likely. Can you find money and people to actually build the game? How are you going to market it? Who pays for marketing? Who's competing with you? Is your idea fun to play for 10 minutes? 10 hours?
It's not as simple as pulling your head out of your ass, and presto, crazy new creative games start showing up on shelves. Like everything, money speaks loudest.
Parent
Publishers not Developers (Score:3, Insightful)
But the publishers see only one thing: the bottom line. They are firmly convinced that making a guaranteed mediocre profit is better than taking a risk and possibly hitting the big time with a new, creative, fun idea.
Re:Developers not Consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't even get me started on the watering-down of "puzzles" in modern games. The modern idea of a difficult puzzle is one that requires you to find eight levers (hidden beyond reflex-based "jumping puzzlre" obstacles) and push them all up (changing a red light to green) to open a door somewhere. You punks would WET YOUR PANTS if you saw the kind of monstrously devious crap we had to solve in our day. Plover's egg emeralds hidden beyond a crack your lamp doesn't fit through? Try THAT on for size!
Parent
Re:Developers not Consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
A decent RTS isn't a clickfest, but rather a strategic conflict over resources. Let the units do the work, and make the high-level decisions.
Parent
Re:Developers not Consumers (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, just do some research (Score:3, Informative)
E.g., "real time strategy" doesn't only include C&C clones. It also includes Paradox's games which span continents or even the globe, and are thus truly at strategic level. You don't have to select companies or order aim artillery strikes in real time, because such things are abstracted by
Re:Developers not Consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
"google plover's egg emeralds"
Within 4 clicks I had a walkthru that told me exactly how to do it.
The internet ruined those kind of puzzle games, because almost nobody is going to spend weeks trying to figure something out when they KNOW the answer is sitting within arms reach.
At least jumping obstacle reflex puzzles require some semblance of dexterity to solve.
The internet fundamentally changed the dynamics of these games. Many (most?) players find it difficult to ignore that the answers to all their questions are within arms reach.
Parent
1999 (Score:3, Insightful)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Light at the end of my Tunnel Vision (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, some of us still play these games (Score:4, Insightful)
While it's true some people do just look back on it and remember things as better than they were, and that's their issue, it's not the case for everyone.
Some of us still play those games you know.
"Old Bones" (Score:5, Insightful)
Those "old bones" have a tendency to still have similarly excellent gameplay as the newer generation (and are usually far more challenging to boot!). When will we realize that gameplay isn't all bells and whistles?
EA Strikes again (Score:5, Insightful)
From a business standpoint, it makes sense -- why take a risk when you don't have to?
From a consumer standpoint, it sucks. Eventually enough consumers will quit buying SUPER-COOL-GAME-2,3,4....x and force a shift in the market. Until that happens, enjoy Madden 2007, 2008, 2009, etc and FinalFantasy-WHATEVER because its not going to change.
Shooting ourselves in the foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Truth is, newer installments of classic games can be as good as ever, but they will never live up to the memories that gamers have developped for their classic, personal favorites.
Some games withstand the test of time. (Score:4, Interesting)
Except... (Score:3, Insightful)
On top of it all, New Super Mario Bros. just got released and is doing quite well. This is a perfect example of classic gameplay in a successful contemporary game. Maybe developers just shouldn't waste so much time on production values, but should just concentrate on gameplay and level variety.
Don't ever try to go back. (Score:5, Interesting)
We would sit around the supper table, each trading stories about our experience in this expansive and immersive alternate reality. I would inform everyone about the secret passage I found, where I found a secret spell called Temporal Fugue; my brother would update us as to how much money he had stolen from the bank that day; my father would describe his run-in with "The Devourer".
This game held a special place in all of our hearts and often we would fondly discuss how great the game was... until last year... when I found an emulator and ROM and decided to relive all my old memories. The lush and vibrant full-color dungeon memories that I had in my mind was immediately shattered by a crude 4 color, blocky rendition of what vaguely looked like walls and doors. My memories of thrilling game-play in a true-to-life virtual world were replaced by agonizing and seemingly endless boring hall-walking.
I showed my father. All he did was scream "NO! THERE IS NO WAY THAT THAT'S HOW BAD IT LOOKED! CHRIS YOU MUST HAVE MADE A MISTAKE. THIS CAN'T BE DUNGEON!!"
While my father is STILL in denial, I have accepted the truth. My fond memories of that game are gone forever.
Re:Don't ever try to go back. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was addicted to Legend of the Red Dragon in high school. A friend of a friend got a copy of LoGreenD running on his server last year, and I had a blast on it until Katrina took his computer away. It looked just as good as ever!
Parent
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not hard to involve the themes, maybe part of the storyline, and the major gameplay elements from the original game into an entirely new engine. But it does make a convenient scapegoat if you're a developer whose games are failing or a pundit firing off the first story idea that came to his mind.
Nostalga (Score:3, Insightful)
Then there were games we played because they were fucking awesome.
I play Asteroids, Puzzle Bobble, and Galaga regularly. I will fire up an NES for Punch-Out, Duck Hunt, or Mario. I doubt anyone in their right mind would slight Street Fighter II or Metal Slug.
Games like Castlevania, Resident Evil, and even Zelda were more promise than game in their first iteration. They were landmark games for their time, but if you were honest with yourself when you first played them, you knew that those games needed more power. The developers were making do with what they had, but they were coding for future systems. Those type of games don't age well.
Atari Anniversary Advance... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're nostalgic, then *go back and play it* (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I find out that I just had low expectations when I was young. (e.g. Dragon Warrior 1, Final Fantasy 1, Paperboy)
Sometimes I find out that games which were good have nevertheless been surpassed by better alternatives or sequels. (e.g. Zelda 1, Mario Kart 1, Duke Nukem 3D).
And sometimes, the old games are fondly remembered because they were really, really good. Star Control 2, Deus Ex 1, and the Baldur's Gate series are each 5 or 10 years old, but (despite playing Starcon 3, Deus Ex 2, Neverwinter Nights, and lots of similar games from the same genres) I still haven't found any similar-but-better games to replace any of them. Judging by sales, there are a lot of people that feel the same way about Starcraft and Half Life 1. We don't all have some retro-gaming fetish, we just know what we like and know how rare it can be.
This Can Be True (Score:3, Interesting)
This can be true. I'm a big music game fan and I've recently gotten my hands on a copy of PaRappa the Rapper (one of my favorites). Now lately I've been playing tons of Guitar Hero (awesome game). So then I go back to PaRappa for a little bit. Now the graphics look really blocky (it was PS1 after all), but that's not a problem. However, compared to Frequency/Amplitude/Guitar Hero/Donkey Konga it is REALLY HARD to get the timings right. I don't know what the issue is, but it seems to be much less forgiving (either that, or the indicator at the top of the screen is inaccurate). It's still fun, but that was a surprise to me when I started playing again. If the game came out today, I think it would have a hard time because of that.
Then there is also just the fun factor. I got a copy of Donkey Konga 2 a few months ago. After playing Guitar Hero it just wasn't very fun. The music in it was terrible (worse the the first by far) and it just wasn't as fun. You didn't get the connection to the music like you do with GH. Then just for comparison I put in my copy of Donkey Konga, and it was the same. I really liked that game, but now it just wasn't as fun.
Guitar Hero has REALLY raised the bar, it seems. Some games hold up very well (Frequency and Amplitude are still fun to play), others don't.
This happens in all genres. If a game is good enough (Super Mario World, Mario 64) then it will stand above it's peers for years to come. But if a game was just good when it came out, it may not stand the test of time. That's what we're seeing in some of these things.
I played through Kid Icarus about two months ago for the first time ever. I've got to say, that game was HARD. If I didn't know better I'd think it was an arcade (that you'd have to pump full of quarters). You can really see how games have changed. Most games that hard would never survive today. There is nothing wrong with a strong challenge, but that game just beats you over the head with it. I know tons of people think that is one of the best games ever, but I just can't see it from my (obviously quite different) perspective.
Some nostalgia is good. Some games really deserve it (Super Mario World, Mario 64, Yoshi's Island). But many games are remembered fondly and while they were important, they don't stand up to recent games.
aka "The Episode One Effect" (Score:4, Insightful)
Because developers believe Graphics Story (Score:3, Insightful)
The original Wizardry made it feel like you were playing a bit of DnD on your computer, right down to the dungeon crawl. The story wasn't that great, but the gameplay was different from a lot of other games.
Ultima gave us a fantastic story, coupled with 2D first person (and later, 4 person group) graphics to give you a sense of size to the world. You felt like you were going somewhere as the story plot carried you along.
The Bard's Tale was just flat out brilliant. The graphics were cheesy, but the story was strong, and you felt yourself moving around the city advancing the story.
And Might & Magic truly had a lengthy story line, filled with interesting puzzles that kept you going for months.
All of these games went beyond graphics to make you feel immersed. They had original thoughts and ideas, and were successful because of it. Then, the sequels started, and many of them stunk. But the name recogniztion alone made sales happen, and the bottom line is always the almight dollar.
Nowadays, with as much time as people have to put into the graphics, for a one time shot type game with limited extra revenue potential, they skimp on the story, and try to wow you with graphics. Even some MMOs are falling into this model, and don't last long.
I couldn't disagree more. (Score:4, Interesting)
To this day I have never played a game as fun and well designed as the original Legend of Zelda, and I have played it many times on emulators, on original hardware, and on the gamecube release. It is still great. Sure it has no story, and no dialogue, but I find I play games for the play not for the story line anyway. I can always watch a movie for the story. Which brings up the problem with this piece, how can you hope to ever have games be considered art if you constantly rant about how dispossable they are? I'd like to see a film reviewer rant about given up on watching old movies because modern film techniques and special effects are so much better.
Nostalgia-free vintage gaming (Score:3, Interesting)
8 bit games are like a Monet painting..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all games get their fun from graphics though. Why is it that every system and cellphone has an Arkanoid type game? Because Arkanoid is fun to play and requires no time commitment. Play and put it down, no logging out or spending hours leveling your chracter.
Castlevania 1, 2, and 3 on the NES were all excellent games because the gameplay was both challenging and rewarding. You kept playing to see what would happen next, what would the next boss look like? And in their own way, the graphics and sound contributed to it.
Sometimes less is more. One of the charming aspects of the old 8 bit games is that the rasterized rendering engines relied on simple block like textures repeated and varied to form the game world. This was cruder than bitmapped graphics but it forced you to use your imagination more. The box art and the user manuals for the game is where the art was. Those told you what the game was supposed to look like.
Any 10 year old can loose themselves in the world of Legend of Zelda with it's water falls and dangerous ascent to mount doom with it's falling boulders, and explore an entire world. And the map that came with the game showed you what that world was really like. So when you played the game you didn't see raster blocks stacked end on end, you saw woods and rivers. And since your mind was filling in so much, the real world, and hence real world realism, could never possibly be as fantastic as the one in your head.
There is no better example of this than reading a good book. You have nothing to go on but your imagination and the words of the author. Any bookworm here can tell you that the movie never lives up to the book. As fantastic as Peter Jacksons movies were, they can never capture the raw fantasy of reading the books themselves.
So rather than be disappointed by playing older games, they remind me of the shortcomings of newer games. As the graphics become more and more realistic, the imagination and fantasy elements took a back burner to the eye candy.
I can't look at a full moon in a clear sky to this day, without remembering the opening cinematics for Ninja Gaiden. And I absolutely lost myself in the world of Castlevania. In particular, Simons Quest was especially fulfilling to play over and over to get the different endings. I wanted to live in that world, and playing the game was the closest I could come to it.
Some people like nice rendering and graphics, they prefer photo realism to impressionism. Some people like Monet and some people just see little paint daubs.
The old games that are worth saving, are still completly viable games that continue to hold my attention and I only wish there were more games that sucked you in so bad that you dreamed about them.
Re:I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, they're still fun for me. Maybe Conker just sucks as a game? Haven't played it myself, but I don't see many people pining over the days of Conker... On the other hand, Zelda, FF series... those always have replay value.
Re:Old games have advantages (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:yeah, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, there were terrible games 15 years ago, but the shear number of bad games today is the difference.
I disagree - I think it's all perspective. 90% of everything is crap, consistently. It was then, and it is now. But with older games, you're comparing the 10% of non-crap over a long period of time - because that's all you really remember - to the entire volume of current crap/noncrap that you notice on a daily basis. So it seems like there were more good games back then.
Parent