Pac-Man Reloaded 33
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Toronto Star article discussing the resurgence of classic gaming. The article suggests that "..the renewed interest [in classic gaming] is not only reviving the games themselves, but also establishing them as part of cultural history", but also argues that kitsch nostalgia is playing a big part in the retro revival: "..for a culture steeped in an alleged retro-chic movement - unlikely revivals of such high-camp iconography as cocktail music, loungewear, or '80s new wave music and '60s mod styles - the draw to classic gaming seems to have some of the same sheen." Above all, though, it seems to be about "..the old games, with their simple concepts and ease of play, [as] a welcome refuge from the increasingly complicated games being released today."
You got that right (Score:4, Interesting)
Great! (Score:2)
A little too enthusiastic (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking over all of the reviews from E3 - I noticed that all of the reviewers constantly fawned over the impressiveness of the visuals or the realistic quality of the games, and most never actually stated whether a game was fun or not. The love of complex and graphically stunning games (for better or worse) is not going anywhere - regardless of what this guy says.
That being said, I really do hope for a sort of "game renaissance" - which will bring more focus back onto gameplay and give developers more options as to what kind of game they would like to develop (i.e. not all new games having to be multi-million dollar projects). I personally could not care less whether grass waves realistically or not - just give me a fun game!
Re:A little too enthusiastic (Score:2)
I know it is considered 1337 to praise the gameplay and diss graphics, but to do so is to greatly oversimplify the situation.
There are generally two distinct categories of games:
First category is akin to playing with toys, second to "role-playing" (not necessarily in the RPG-ish sense) where you assume a role of a certain character in a certain world. For the first category gameplay is essential, for the second realism is.
Games in
The old cliche is... (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course there's always emulation! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And of course there's always emulation! (Score:1)
10 PRINT "Call a bubble tape a game-copy station and you'r welcome at
RUN
Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Games should be $30 Australian each, or $15 US. Or something dirt cheap. Then parents would have little problem purchasing them for their kids, piracy would be less common, people would try new games that aren't big name. Adults would try new games, and youth with little money would be more likely to buy than to copy off their friend's computer or download from kazaa.
Come off it (Score:2)
Re:Come off it (Score:1)
Re:Come off it (Score:3, Insightful)
my stupid thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
many games today seem to be showing off what our technology is capable of, and often ignoring what makes a game good (I'm not saying every game to come out in modern times has poor gameplay, just that often the gameplay seems to take a sidestep to the technology used, as much as i'm looking forward to doom 3, at the moment it still looks like the original doom in terms of gameplay).
early games didnt have as much to show off technologically, people didnt play asteroids because it looked incredible or was completely immersive, they played it because it was simple fun.
then again, maybe i just didnt notice any of the really crappy games back in the early 80's because i was too young to notice them
though I think the signifigance of gaming is different now than it was then, more and more we're moving to online games, be they MMOG's, or simple match based games (quake, counter-strike, etc) where the human element is often more important than the game itself.
at least thats my drunken opinion.
Re:my stupid thoughts (Score:1)
Re:my stupid thoughts (Score:2)
Is the gameplay in old games simple? Absolutely. Is it good? Not necessarily. There is something ingenious in the arrival of the train, but over time viewers developed certain sofistication and demanded richer films. There is something really great about Pong, but how many people play it today, despite there being hundreds of versions including many online Flash and Java versions? Simple gameplay is appealing to simple and unsophi
Re:my stupid thoughts (Score:1)
Red Rag at a Bull.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now we'll get all these 'back in my day' 'when I was a kid' 'games aren't what they use to be' comments which are as valid as "when politicians were honest back in my day".
Really, you can get fun, simple games with fantastic graphics that are modern releases. The biggest problem is usually that they are 'pigeon holed' into the 'kids games' categories (See Animal Crossing, Mario Party 1-4, most GC/nintendo games of late.... etc.) and the games that we see (I assume all ppl here are 16+) are marketed at us (FPS/Shooters, RPG's, RTS's etc.) And the argument that in the 80's games were of higher quality is so laughable I really hope that no gamer believes it. I also think you could say that in the 80's and early 90's game publishers/designers (not neccesarily the same) saw the market as being at the extreme 15 yrs old, with the majority being 8-13 (...?) Now there are finally some mature games coming out for older ppl who aren't into 'simple kiddie games' or Leisure Suit Larry like GTA in 3D, shooters with a mature storyline (Thank-you HL1&2/Doom3) Personally I get easily bored by 'puzzle' games. A game where I have to think my way out of a situation (Jedi Knight II, many Command & Conquer games, AoE2/AoK, Starcraft), to make quick decisions on the go that have consequences (Halo, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell). I'll stop here, I have to get back to work. Looking back through this streaming flow of consciousness, theres holes in my arguments, but thats what slashdots about
Re:Red Rag at a Bull.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Red Rag at a Bull.... (Score:4, Interesting)
When you had 8-bit processors to build games on which you wanted to make money, you didn't exactly have much room to goof off with the gameplay and make up for it in the audio & visual department.
Games back then were good becuase there had to be a compelling gameplay if they wanted to sell games. They had to hire programmers and game designers, and 100% of the budget was spent on them.
Nowadays, companies can cheat and hire a small handful of programmers, then spend 90% of the development budget on musicians, graphics artists, motion capture actors, content managers, 3d model builders, etc.
This leaves little time or money to spend on developing such "frivolous" things as gameplay.
People go back to the old games for fun gameplay, because that's all the old games had.
The cell phone connection (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The cell phone connection (Score:1)
My spin (Score:4, Interesting)
Inexperienced fools (I call them kids) will often see an old game and think "I could remake it and make money!", so they do, they make an old game look and sound like it was born tomorrow, but then they go and do something stupid like spend 4 weeks on a realistic physics engine to make a ball bounce off a paddle and/or wall, when really we just want it to fly off randomly so we can enjoy running after it again. So these kids make nice screenshot-fodder, but they sidestep the whole purpose of the game : the visceral aspect of pushing a button and commanding a direct response.
In a sense, I like the old games because they remind me that in the beginning it was _one_ programmer and he was THE MAN. Not a team of artists, project managers, FMV directors and maybe one or two top-dollar low-IQ programmers compiling a 3rd-party game engine with just enough script modifications to change the application title. There was actually a time when writing a good game was a technical feat in itself, rather than a boring multimillion dollar project hierarchy.
Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
The most fun I had at E3 was playing Pac-Man GCN and Ninja Turtles. It's a simple concept that doesn't get boring.
Spoiled kids, back in my day we had wooden pixels! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, the complexity of the games has changed, but that's a good thing IMO. There are still games you can sit down and play for 5 min, but now there are games you can play for 5 hours with enough depth to satisfy the more sophisticated gamer. Strategy or RPGs used to be more for the hardcore gamer, as many were clunky and average gamers lost patience. But now there's enough eye-candy and action to attract a wider range of players. Same with action games, they have more depth and complexity now to appeal to involved gamers, but can still be played right out of the box. There are exceptions of course, but the most successful games seem to follow this formula.
As for the "retro gaming" movement, I don't think it's a protest or a wanting for more pure games. I think it has more to do with associating those simple games with simpler times. It's all about roots. And more power to 'em, I say.
Now if I could just find my paddle controller I could dust off Ka-Boom! =D
Wynter
Re:Spoiled kids, back in my day we had wooden pixe (Score:1)
We blew the dust off the protective plastic surrounding that good old game system, and pulled it out. Plugging it in was a little tricky (or so my fiancee says), but within about 10 minutes, we were playing Frogger, Ms. Pac Man, and other classics.
For about 2 hours that evening, it was like Christmas in May.
Retro != Good (Score:1)
Since when was the Jaguar the same vintage as any other Atari machine? Pedigree perhaps.
Yet another article by someone who hasn't got a clue. Why would Enter the Matrix have sold well? It's the first game they're releasing under the Atari name. Of course! Or maybe it's just that it was scripted by the Wachowski's and has additional footage from the blockbuster movi
Talk about complexity (Score:2)
Some games have been spoiled this way like the Monkey Island RPG series, which ended with version 4 being made in 3d for no reason and therefore is unplayable. Other games have strived to use every feature of the ATI and NVidia cards.
The older games have really been revived, especially the console games since they interfaced with very standardized hardware thats easy to emulate. The SNES and Genesis are the most common, with hundereds of games that are less than 4mb per image. Some emulators even allow
My experiance (Score:3, Interesting)
Now only if i can convice her to like Soul Calibur...
DEGENATRON - The arcade comes to your living room! (Score:2)
DEGENATRON*
The arcade comes to your living room!
Only without the creepy guys offering to show you puppies
PLAYS THREE EXCITING GAMES!!!
Degenatron on the Web - www.degenatron.com [degenatron.com]
* - of course, as featured in this classic 80s-style game [rockstargames.com].
Old games rock (Score:1)
I've just got an old Toshiba laptop [209.167.114.38] real cheap [trademe.co.nz] and it came win DOS. I've been replaying all sortos of old games from dosgamesarchive [dosgamesarchive.com] and other sites. I've rediscovered DOOM and Quake and Sam & Max hit the Road and Warcraft and sh!tloads of others...
Man old games were (are?) cool.