Was Videogaming Better Back in the Day?

An anonymous reader writes "Sean Sands at Gamers With Jobs looks back at the dawn of videogaming, when we were all kids just typing in our games, one line of BASIC at a time. And he finds the present lacking: 'The dreamers became assets instead of leaders, and the rockstar designers became, well, Rockstar ... or Blizzard, or Valve. Publishers with cash-rich money to spend bought the creative process, and the minds of marketing professionals replaced four guys hopped up on sugar doughnuts and generic cola. So, how dare I be surprised that the price of today's gaming blitz is a little piece of last generation's soul?' Do you agree? Was simple gaming better, or are you a story in games fan?"

Re:I don't know about 'better', but it was differe

[Blakey Rat]

When you were playing on a Commodore 64, you didn't even *have* Internet multiplayer. So it seems to me that the fact that the Internet multiplayer feature exists at all makes the game much better than its C-64 equivalent.

Additionally, you don't *have* to play online now. You choose to. (Sure, there are some games that require online play, like MMORPGs and some FPS games.)

I don't even need to go back that far, the 90's had a lot of fantastic games that I still play and have a lot more fun with than running another damn WoW instance, or another round of Countersrike: OMGSNIPERFAGZ!!LAWLZ Edition.

So don't play those type of games. You act as if the entire game industry consists of Counterstrike clones and MMORPGs.

Pfft

[hcdejong]

...looks back at the dawn of videogaming, when we were all kids just typing in our games, one line of BASIC at a time

Why, back in my day, we used to have to enter our games as opcodes in binary, using toggle switches, and our 'screen' was a set of Blinkenlights, and we liked it that way. Whippersnappers.

A temporary fix

[igotmybfg]

Sometimes I like to play Doom3/Quake4 with a resolution of 800x600, or 640x480, because it gives that pixelated look that I remember so well from the games of yesteryear, when I first started playing (games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Descent).

Re:Was it better? Yes and no.

[Anonymous Coward]

max out scrolls with 3 of the characters and max out boomerangs with 1 character, I picked michelangelo for my boomerangs

use mike for the trash before shredder then nuke the hell out of shredder with the scrolls on the other 3

that was the only way I could beat him

Re:Yes, it was.

[Anonymous Coward]

The packaging was better.

You obviously have never seen the Megaman 2 box art.

Re:Was it better? Yes and no.

[Arthur Scott Smith]

Seeing your initials at the top justified the hundreds of dollars spent in practice and the pursuit of glory. Unless you were one of those punks that entered A-S-S.

Calling me a punk? Jerk.

Re:Meanwhile, beyond the land of False Dichotomies

[Rei]

Greetings, programmer! You are a female human codemonkey.
Quaff what [abcjf]? j
You drink a potion of booze. The world spins and you pass out.
You wake up. You have a severe headache.
Identify what [abcfnop] ? f
f - potion of coffee
Quaff what [abcf]? f
You drink a potion of coffee. You feel wide awake!
You fall down the stairs.
Drive which direction? l
Welcome to Initech!
You hear a faint typing sound.
You hear a boss screaming orders.
You hear a water cooler gurgling.
Commit what code [np]? p
You summon a boss!
The boss hits!
The boss hits!
The boss yells at you for breaking others' code!
The boss hits!
Read what [o]? o
You read a scroll of taming. Nothing happens.
The boss hits!
The boss shouts, "Document your code better!"
The boss hits!
Really quit [yn]? y
Do you want your possessions identified [yn]? n

You escaped the Offices of Doom with $23.36 in cash and $14k in non-redeemable stock options.

Re:Was it better? Yes and no.

[Mister Whirly]

"Or how there were no cheat codes or spoilers online, because THERE WAS NO ONLINE! (Just BBS's, and they weren't much help.)"

Speak for yourself. I learned how to phreak because I needed to call a BBS or two that was located 1200 miles away from me (and as a 14 year old I couldn't afford long distance charges) for the SOLE purpose of getting help with games... So let that be a lesson to all of you - don't say video games don't teach kids anything, they taught me how to commit felonies!

Re:Yes, it was.

[feepness]

The first time I saw the northern lights, it was so incredibly amazing and awesome. The second time I saw them, it was still very cool, but the shock and amazement and surprise had already died down a bit.

Northern Lights? Is that an RPG? Sounds kinda of cool.... which platform?