Are Neo-Retro Game Releases a Fad? 266
With modern console technology making it easy to develop and distribute small games, more and more companies are taking advantage of gamers' nostalgia to re-release decades-old hits, and to create entirely new titles in older styles. Gamasutra takes a look at what the retro game fad has become, and where it can go from here. What old games or series do you think would translate well onto today's consoles?
"Many gamers who bought Mega Man 9 did so because of the game's inherent nostalgia, or because they never had a chance to enjoy the older games on the Nintendo Entertainment System when they were younger. Mega Man 9 is very much a product of its context. Its gameplay is fantastic, but it too is a product of the time period in which it reigned supreme. It suggests the question: can neo-retro games stand the test of time? Will games that mimic or lampoon the 8-bit era remain relevant and interesting to the masses long after its original audience has disappeared?"
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
> There's nothing special about the NES era, as the article insinuates.
You are right there was nothing special about the NES, but there was something special about that time period, across both console, early 8bit PCs and the arcade scene. That was the period when everything was new, the genres were being defined and every month or two some development house was putting out something that was actually new and different.
For example, a lot of good fantasy has been written after J.R.R. Tolkien blew open the genre, but each generation keeps going back to his work. Same thing is games. Donkey Kong might not have been the very first 'platform' game but Mario's enduring legacy traces back to it and because it and the Mario sequels forever left such a stamp on the genre designers still, even unconsiously, follow in Nintendo's footsteps when doing anything that resembles a 'platformer.'
> In the future, gamers will be nostalgic for the games they grew up on.
And will pine away for them in vain. Emulation saved the old 8bit world from oblivion because DRM, even when used, wasn't a serious obstacle. There still hasn't been a proper crack for any of the current generation consoles. Hopefully the proven nostalgia market in this generation will induce teh publishers to do a port to the platforms of 20 years from now, but since the effort will be non-trivial and the die hard fans won't be able to do it themselves.....
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Hopefully the proven nostalgia market in this generation will induce teh publishers to do a port to the platforms of 20 years from now, but since the effort will be non-trivial and the die hard fans won't be able to do it themselves.....
If the current trend continues, in 20 years making a game of today will be trivial compared to making a game of that day.
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people won't buy the NES or SNES era games without the gaming magazines that go along with them. that's not an opinion, it's a fact. i could never have beaten zelda without nintendo power. and i am not alone. in fact there are at least 2.7 million people just like me who can't keep up with classic games without period specific game guides.
i just made the number up, but it sounded cool.
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Now we have Google and Wikipedia to find on-line gaming guides. I don't think you need worry about this lack.
Some of the X-com and Thief games have shown up on Steam, the PC gaming service that includes Half-Life and Darwinia. I'm thrilled: now I don't have to hang onto my old media, and I can play it on any PC I have access to.
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there was always gamefaqs, but text walkthroughs are so much less worth it, even at the price of 'free' pictures which belong to say Nintendo in the case of Nintendo power, make zelda walkthoughs for instance much faster, especially if you have dual screens, one for zelda and one for the walk though magazine.
downloaded pictures of copyrighted materials, is a crime in some countries.
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You wrote:
> downloaded pictures of copyrighted materials, is a crime in some countries.
Not necessarily. The 'fair use' exceptions, while not as clearly defined as a programmer might like, certainly exist and allow 'criticism' of copyrighted work. I think that careful use of screenshots would be fair use, especially if you're careful not to violate the trademarks and claim that your guide is official material from the game designers.
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Oh, if only there was a place where you could still get those hints. It could even be a website, so that it could be more easily accessed, with a web search service to help you find it. Alas that there is no such thing...
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Try playing nethack sometime. Even with the help of every spoiler I could find, it still took me 4 years to figure out how to beat the thing.
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In the future, gamers will be nostalgic for the games they grew up on.
My games of nostalgia will be SimCity 2000 and Civilization 2
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There's nothing special about the NES era, as the article insinuates.
Not so. The NES was the first game console with a significant library of non-sucky titles. I tried playing my old Atari 2600 a few years ago and gave up, because it's all crap except for maybe a couple of games (Adventure, Outlaw, ... I can't think of a third title, and I had dozens and dozens of games). On the other hand, there are a ton of great NES game. Tetris had an NES version, and it's still gold. (OK, so the NES version was crap c
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fallout 3
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Because those were the first ones you played and you're looking through rose-tinted specs. Someone brought up on Crysis or Call of Duty or Halo would think Quake was a piece of shit. You might be tired of WWII, other people might be tired of shooting monsters in brown corridors.
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I never had a NES, but bought the MegaMan Anniversary collection for my PS2(*), since it was a set of games that looked like fun. (I've only gotten partway through the first, and it is hellishly hard like the reviews talk about.) I had an Atari 2600, I'm of the age that could have had a NES. (One housemate at college in the late 80s did bring one to our apartment.)
(*) Which I actually got only several years ago, after the PS2 had been out a LONG time. (It was free due to Sony credit card points.. but s
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Well they won't keep making recreations of NES era games when nobody remembers NES anymore. They'll make recreations of newer games that people still remember playing as a kid.
I'm not sure I agree with you. My 5 year old really enjoys Atari 2600 games as well as Pac-man and other old arcade games. There's something to be said about the simplicity of many of the older games. She also loves playing Spore, so it's not like she can only handle simple games.
Er. wait a mo... (Score:4, Interesting)
Andy
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My friend's son in the shop two doors down is probably playing Mario 64 (N64) right now...
This proves the GP's statement. Already the N64 era is starting to become the fond old memories. Give it 10 years, and N64 stuff will be the retro gaming. What you're saying is that people enjoy playing quality games, which is always going to be true. Open-minded gamers will always play through old classics they never had, and discover how great they are. The primary driving force, though, is nostalgia, which is going to manifest itself differently as different generations of gamers grow up.
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My 10 year old sister obsesses over Zelda and insisted on getting every version available on the Virtual Console. She did this on her own, playing the original Legend of Zelda and also Super Mario Bros. Even though she's growing up in an era when 3D graphics are nothing special, the old games still appealed to her and will be part of her childhood memories. Now she's getting into Majora's Mask, and that came out almost a decade ago. It's new to her.
I think these games, rather than being relics of the pa
Real neo-retro games (Score:3, Interesting)
Making old-fashioned new games is nothing new.
In the '60s Star Trek gave us 3-D Chess.
In the '70s gave us Sudoku, similar to Magic Squares number puzzles.
The 21st century is giving us modern versions of Monopoly, which uses pre-real-estate-market-crash valuations.
Me? I like Pong.
Yes and No. (Score:2)
The Retro games often have some staying power that newer games lack. When the new video games are more like interactive movies and less like a game, it creates a niche market for people who actually want to play the games, the old way with simple controls and not having to remember hundreds of key combinations to use all the features. But in terms of releasing them using the old 8 bit graphics I see that dying out as the people who plays them die out. Unless they reincarnate them in dirt cheap hardware f
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Just an FYI... anyone with a Wii can be playing NES games. Most of the NES titles are available as extras that can be downloaded to the console with a net connection. Miss that old 3 level Donky Kong? Download it. Have a Yearning for Castlevania? Download it. Then sit back, turn your Wii controller sideways, and play.
Neo-retro? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure of the definition of 'neo-retro.' If this means creating 8-bit games just for the sake of nostalgia, then they'll probably die out. But games that build on and improve old styles of gameplay (here I'm thinking of the Castlevania series for the DS) will, I hope, always have a place in the video game universe.
Here's hoping for Super Paper Metroid.
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How about...
neo-retro (adj) -- Deliberately creating a game for an older style, thus cutting development costs and allowing developers to concentrate on fun and gameplay instead of media presentation while still allowing developers to take advantage of modern technologies.
For example, "Braid" and rhythm games are neo-retro.
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Yeah, kind of like Dogme for films. From Wiki - "The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, postproduction modifications and other gimmicks"
It would be an intriguing experiment to set down similar rules for video games.
Wii Virtual Console is a disappointment (Score:2)
Does anyone else feel like Nintendo dropped the ball with the Virtual Console? There aren't that many channels, Wii Ware selection is still sparse and uncompelling, and the titles released from old console systems don't interest me, partly because what they have put out is crap that didn't sell in the first place.
I've had 2500 Wii points sitting unspent waiting for the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior titles from the NES and SNES. The only reason I can think of preventing this is some licensing issue with
Re:Wii Virtual Console is a disappointment (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you serious?
- Defend Your Castle
- Toki Tori
- World of Goo
- Mega Man 9
- Alien Crush Returns
- Lost Winds
- Bomberman Blast
- Tetris Party
- Art Style: Orbient
- Dr. Mario RX
- Star Soldier R
- Strong Bad
- Wild West Guns
- Gyrostarr
While a few of the items do not appeal to me personally, I included them because they appeal to a majority of other gamers I've spoken with. However, the super-majority of the list are games I have downloaded and enjoyed. (WiiWare is going to send me to the poor house at this rate! :-P) The games I didn't like on that list are merely a difference in gaming preferences.
So there is certainly more than enough to choose from. If you can't find a bunch of great games on WiiWare, you either are too picky or have already played them all because you've got WAY too much time and money. ;-)
Re:Wii Virtual Console is a disappointment (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I can't say I miss some of the NES RPGs. A few years back I dusted off my NES console from a closet and fired up Dragon Warrior. Somehow my saved games were still intact from 1989, but first I started a new quest. After 20 minutes I was pretty well bored. These games were the ultimate grindfests; killing slime after slime to get enough gold to upgrade my bamboo stick to a sharpened bamboo stick or whatever comes next without even the social interaction or plot that makes WoW or modern RPGs interesting respectively. Sometimes nostalgia is well placed, in this case old is definitely not better.
I remember that some of the later titles in the Dragon Warrior series were more interesting. I did get a kick out of loading up one of my nearly 2 decade old games, saved right near the end, and killing the Dragonlord once more for good measure.
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Can't say I agree. River City Ransom is on there! But you're going to be waiting a long time for FF or DW games. As others have said, Square would rather sell you remake upon remake. Just grab the ROMs.
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And you'll continue waiting because they're making a ton more money by reissuing/reworking them (well, FF at least) for the GBA and DS. And they've done a great job of it. If you want to play them, that's the way to do it. And a nice thing is that you can then leave the TV on and listen to it while you play the game.
Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
New stuff is love or hate: Either it is new, improved, shiny, and exciting, or shoddy crap that ruins the original.
Current stuff is ok: You can see the flaws and have some ideas about what could use fixing; but it is familiar and mostly comfortable.
Old stuff blows: It is largely the same as current stuff; but the flaws that used to be merely niggling are horrific now that you've been using stuff that fixed them for a few years(I got into shooters pre-mouselook; but I'll be damned if I could go back).
Quite old stuff is awesome: It is so far from memories of practicality that its defects are part of the charm, and most of the worst elements(remember all the NES games that aren't timeless classics?) have either been forgotten about or are now old friends.
The above is quite vague, I admit; but it fits my experience of how the desirability of things like tech toys and video games change over time. Cutting edge PCs are cool, and fun to read about/drool over occasionally. My current rig is adequate; but unexciting. The couple before that suck, exactly the same feel as the current one; but slower, louder, and more expensive. My old-school Compaq portable rules, even though it is only really good for doing stupid basic tricks, I don't actually have to get any use out of it, so its limitations are quaint and endearing rather than annoying. Games are similar in many respects.
Now, this is just a general outline. Some things are genuine classics, most things sucked from day one. I think, though, that it fairly well explains the current pattern in retro gaming. 8-bit is big because it has a lot of nostalgia for many of us, and because it is qualitatively different than current games.
A little while back, I gave GoldenEye a try again. It was horrific. I don't know how I ever enjoyed it. The experience was qualitatively equivalent to a modern 3D shooter; but with gaping holes where all the stuff we've improved between now and then should have been. Same thing happened with Dune II. A true classic of the RTS genre; but all I could think about was how Dune II's interface was missing all the refinements that it had picked up by the time Red Alert was released. It's like picking up an old Pentium machine, it's exactly the same deal as whatever beige box is under your desk now, none of the exoticism of an old C-64 or apple or amiga, but it's a zillion times slower, you can't get RAM for it, and you had completely forgotten that it predated ATAPI CDROMS.
Don't forget.... (Score:5, Informative)
Those of us who didn't have consoles as kids, and are enjoying these titles and genres for the first time!
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I think that we have recently seen a resurrection of 2D gameplay, both in terms of rereleased 8-bit games as well as completely new games (including the amazing Super Stardust HD [wikipedia.org], Bionic Commando Rearmed [wikipedia.org] and the new king of 2D platformers Little Big Planet [wikipedia.org])
Wonder no more! (Score:3, Insightful)
And people wonder why Hollywood keeps retreading the same old stuff...
Retro games (Score:2)
There's always going to be a market for retro games, but the definition of "retro" will change depending on the market.
8-bit games like MegaMan 9 will be big with the set who remember playing them back on the NES. As will parody games, like Strong Bad's Snake Boxer 5 and Alge-bros. (:
I never owned a NES (only console my parents ever sprung for was the Intellivision); I spent my halcyon youth playing Sierra games. So stuff like the VGA remake of Quest for Glory 2 by AGD Interactive [agdinteractive.com] are like gold to me.
As tim
professors of late 20th century gaming (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine the professors of late 20th century gaming who fight with the professors of early 21st century gaming about how the 21st century was just a dumping ground for mindless copies of the true classics. Mario Tennis is after all just a graphical update for Pong. Fallout 3 is really just a graphical update for Bezerk.
Imagine the angry depressed loners with digital fingernails and LED hair who fight about how ET for Atari was the best game of all time.
And, of course, there will be people like me who still write text adventures for the yearly ifcomp. (If you've forgotten, check out ifcomp.org. This year's contest ends on the 15th of November!)
Here's a 'retro' game (Score:2)
What I do know is that it has a heavy metal soundtrack, explosions, wireframe graphics, spaceships, lasers, shit blowing up left and right, and MORE.
I haven't been able to get more than, like, a minute into the first level, but just playing it cracks me up. The geekiness of it (e.g. bumping into "kernel space" at the top of the screen) mak
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I agree about the binaries though; especially having a prebuilt Windows binary.
Sweet (Score:2)
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Dragon? What Dragon?
Personally, I can't figure out why more games don't have killer ducks. Those mofos were the scariest fowl ever rendered on a low-res display!
Test of Time? (Score:2)
Who cares if it stands the test of time? If I enjoy it now, and it is cheap, isn't that a winning combination? It isn't like I'm paying $60 for Mega Man 9 and expecting it to stand up against Gears of War.
what the retro game fad has become (Score:2)
What it's become is an easy way to make money. Why make a new Megaman and sell it for $10, rather than emulating a bunch of older, tried and true games? Why doesn't Sony create a way for volunteers to develop retro/homebrew games for the PS3, and then distribute them freely/cheaply over the PSN? It's all about money.
With digital purchasing made easy on the consoles, the potential for an endless profit stream is huge. Realize this, and you'll start seeing that it drives everything the console makers do, espe
Different interfaces and priorities (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's backlash against 3D gameplay. I'm not talking about 3D graphics, but rather 3D gameplay and interacting with things in a 3D world.
In 2D, you can do a lot of really cool things because you don't have to think about depth, like how far you have to jump to get to a platform. In 2D, it's obvious. You also don't have to worry about camera angles, which have gotten better in the last 10 years due to improved AI, but they still pretty much suck. I hate backing against a wall in a 3rd-person platform game and seeing the camera go berserk.
I also believe that 2D games, especially platformers, give you more freedom to goof around. If a game has a good "feel", you can go all kinds of cool chain-reaction moves which are pretty much impossible in 3D games. 3D games have usually been more procedural due to the interface complexity. I can jump off a platform, smush rows of goombas, and punch a brick to get a coin in one shot. With a typical 3D platformer, you pretty much do one thing at a time -- walk up to something, jump, move again, pick something up, shoot, walk, talk, then walk some more. That's my theory as to why the Wii's 3D controller is wasted on waggle games. Thinking in 3D is actually very difficult.
Of course, style matters, too. 3D graphics often lacks the color and graphic power of good 2D. I like remakes of old games, but they cannot either be exact replicas of the old games, or use too much technology. Geometry Wars is a real favorite of mind, as it brings back the old arcade feel, but still offers a pretty fireworks show. Games like Mega Man 9 really turn me off. I have fond memories of 8-bit gaming, not 8-bit limitations.
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I feel about the same way. I am a big fan of the more recent 2D Mega Man games, like X4. There's a 2.5D remake of Mega Man X for PSP that's decent.
On the other hand, there's something charming about the limitations themselves, and how developers worked with and against them to make art. Chip tunes, for instance. Some people don't like it but I love the style of the original Mega Man serious music, or Castlevania, etc. Granted, I don't drive around listening to it, but when I play the games it definitely add
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Very true. I think that since the widespread advent of 3D graphics, 3D has been seen as a must-do, i.e. well feel that 2D belongs to the early 90s. And therefore, 3D is forced onto any genre because well you don't have the choice, people still enjoy the relative novelty of 3D.
However, sometimes, often, as you pointed out, it makes the gameplay worse, by making things harder to control, to see, and so on. Sonic the Hedgehog was never better than when it was in 2D. It should have stayed this way, unfortunatel
Fun Games (Score:2)
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if a game is fun and challenging it will win no matter how sophisticated (or "unsophisticated") it is.
So if "fun games" is a fad then fuck it I'm on the fad bandwagon.
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I think the article was talking specifically about Mega Man 9 and Contra 4. Not just about simple games or 2D games, of which there are plenty on the online stores for each console. But actually reviving old franchises and making games in a specific style, down to the palettes and music composition, etc.
What they did with Mega Man 9 was probably more sophisticated than it would have been had they not been trying to artificially recreate an NES-style environment. They went even beyond that, by setting out to
Variety is fun but... (Score:2)
The good games keep you coming back. Whereas in the 8-bit days games were cheap you could keep buying new ones, I was shopping yesterday and all the new PS3 releases were 60-70e (about $100). Probably ok value for money considering all the work that has gone into them but no longer in the realm where you can play for a couple of days and then forget about it. The retro games fill a good niche for a bit of variety in between the more 'serious' purchases. My favourite 8-bit game was Elite, and I recently disc
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Whereas in the 8-bit days games were cheap
Although I was fortunate in that by the time I got my 8-bit Atari 800XL there was a healthy budget games market (UK £1.99-2.99) and most games were cheap, I understand that this wasn't always true earlier on, particularly with the Atari. Some of the early Atari home computer games were apparently very expensive, and AFAIK 8-bit console games- whether for the early Atari VCS or the later NES- were *never* that cheap. In fact, taking inflation into account a lot of those games were just as expensive.
T
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60-70e (about $100)
the Euro is only 1.27 to the dollar. 60e-70e is only $75-$89
The internet is a fad (Score:2)
So are pockets, shoes... Florescent dyed hair..
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The market is already there (Score:2)
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MAME (Score:2)
Hard to think that MAME is just a fad.
Then again, wait until all the people who grew up in the 80s can't play, and ask that question again.
By that time, WoW will be considered "retro".
--Toll_Free
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
It has something to do with walking to school uphill both ways in 16 feet of snow while carrying our siblings in a burlap sack, all with two broken legs and... HEY YOU KIDS! GET OF MY FSCKING LAWN!
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
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Woah, your lawn does that? I always have to check for errors by hand...
Hands???? Luxury!!!!
Re:Nah (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true. Recent games aren't games so much as simulations. Simulations can be fun at times but they don't have the same game play value as a real game. It's the difference between running around in a field with a paintball gun or playing Scrabble. Both are entertainment but only the later is really a game under that meaning of the word.
Most current games aren't designed for gamers - they are designed for people who want to spend a huge amount of time involved in complex simulations. Most of us don't have time or energy for such complex simulations and have satisfying enough lives that we don't need pretend ones so this sort of game doesn't appeal to us. It's just not the same sort of beast that classic video games were.
ie. I have a real wife, a real child, real friends, and a real job so I don't need or want to waste 16 hours a day playing Sims or WoW but I'd still sit down and play a classic platform scroller for 30 minutes every now and then.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. Games used to be fun because of their interesting mechanics, not their realism. We used to have such wonderfully varied genres ranging from platformers, side-scrolling shooters, space combat, point and click adventures, "arcade" games (e.g. QBert/Donkey Kong/Galaga), action-puzzle games, shmups, etc. Once gaming went down a path of realism, the lines between games started to blur more and more. Some of the genres that were once popular got lost in the transition to greater realism. Pretty soon the only genres left were First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters/Platformers, and Racing.
Some of the newer games are trying to differentiate themselves with interesting mechanics (e.g. Using a cyber-arm to swing around, gymnastics, portals, vertical climbing and gravity effects), which does occasionally make the games more compelling. But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
look at the sheer number of games released in the 80's and 90's, and you'll find that a lot of the ground breaking stuff was released pretty sporatically. Games NEEDED realism, or atleast, better graphics. Comparing the boss fights from Mega Man 1-6 to MegaMan 7 and 8? Or From 1-6 to X, Z, and ZX? Bigger screen real estate, better sprites, and 3D graphics *did* something for gaming. Portal wouldn't be Portal if it was a 2D platformer, Mirror's Edge would be no fun if it was top down. Metal Gear would be no fun if it started with:
"You are on Shadow Moses Island, you are being lifted up to the surface by a cargo elevator. You see several guards and you are armed with a SOCOM Mk.23 pistol."
> Use gun on man"
there is unique flavor with 2D gaming, and while it's gone, it's not gone forever. Braid, LBP, and any number of platformers, fighters, shooters or puzzle games that have come out in the last 12 years since the original PlayStation was launched really prove that. I mean, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix is slated for this month! Street Fighter 4! King of Fighters 12, Raiden 4, Mushihime-sama, and god knows how many other "old school" style games are being released with with modern twists. SSF2THDR is getting a 1080p make over, KOFXII is 1080p and so is SF4(which is also 3D rendered on a 2D plane with 2D game mechanics), etc.
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Had Valve released that with The Orange Box, gamers would've strung Gabe Newell by his toes and hung him out to dry.
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But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
True - and I believe the really good games; no matter the era, will stand the test of time and remain popular. Fun games capture the player and make them want to play; and are not necessarily complex or graphic intensive. Tetris springs to mind, as does an ancient ASCII based DOS air traffic control game I used to play on an ancient Compaq sewing machine portable with a tiny green CRT (6 or 8" I can't recall).
The challenge for computer games, unlike the more traditional board or non-computer based games i
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It is worse then that. A real simulation at least is interesting because it is complex and allows many different ways how things can interact together and most importantly because it gives you plenty of freedom to act, todays games however seldomly go in that direction. Instead most of them go more into the direction of a roller coaster ride, they are flashy and noise, but ultimately they are repetitive and pointless, because the player really doesn't have all that much to do in them. Its always the same: p
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
What is an adventure game? A maze, or freeform level, where you collect objects, and use them to progress further, and advance the storyline... What's a modern FPS? The exact same thing, but in a first person view.
The problem that FPS are facing now is the same that adventure games dealt with... Puzzles and themes are overdone and repetitive, stories are too thin, or too far-fetched, and interfaces are too cumbersome to do everything that you want/need to do in order to play your game.
So, FPS and adventure games are similar. they both started out with simple controls. Adventure games were Text based games like the infocom games, FPS were really 2 dimensional with Wolfenstein. More realism was needed to keep interest, and people NEVER STOPPED with pushing realism. Adventure games got graphics with "Mystery House", and then Animation with "King's Quest". FPS got Depth with Doom, and 3D with Quake. Plots for both were simple, and linear. People wanted more Drama. Adventure games got more and more story driven, or more and more rediculous with puzzles. FPS did something very similar - More map complexity, and more movement/jumping/physics puzzles. All the while, the focus on making games "Prettier" than the last, was always a driving force, which eventually overtook as the measure of Quality for which the industry stood upon, instead of gameplay. Doom3 Engine versus Source/HL2 was one useless fight, just like Sierra's SCI1+ interpreters versus LucasArts SCUMM interfaces. Simplification was a key point at several points... LucasArts brought point 'n' Click, just as "Quake 3" did away with ladders, secondary attacks, and other extraneous controls such as leaning, etc... We now sit in a market which is flooded with FPS, just as the market used to be flooded with Adventure games... And everybody is looking for the next "Big Thing" to replace the FPS....
Then comes this game, where you can pretend to be a rock star, and all you have to do is mash 3 - 5 buttons, and flick a switch back and forth. Game play is fun and simple to understand. It doesn't require 100 buttons, and has no plot to worry about. "Guitar Hero" makes a bunch of people realize that fun games are more than just pretty graphics, are more than walking around and shooting things, and are more than just puzzles that don't really make sense... And OF COURSE people are going to realize that in all the hype of "who's prettier?" and "Who looks more real?", somewhere we lost the concept of fun and entertainment as the standards of a good game.
Now, we have a resurgence of old games, neo-retro games, and unique new games which really could have been made 15 years ago, had corporations not had their heads up their Wazoos, trying to cash in on previous Intellectual properties, and jumping on bandwagons to create the prettiest FPS to win the FPS war. There's still the old school, such as the Crysis team who pumps out a gorgeous looking game that's as forgettable as most FPS' on the market. The indy-game developer is still at work trying to get their innovations to market, and finally, there's the new crew trying to resurrect the old and market as new, because it really is new to a whole generation. Net result? An new generation and appreciation for old gaming, which will likely last a short period of time before someone tries to out-tech and out-spec the rest.
Already, we are starting the same progression with Guitar Hero vs Rock Band... Who has the more realistic guitar? Hey, lets add drums, and make them more complex... I'm waiting for the day where you need a webcam and you get scored for how close you dressed up like the band you're playing. Imagine - Dressing up like RHCP in their sock-donning glory of the late 80's early 90's... Good ol' Family fun!
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Bollocks. Stop focusing on what's getting the headlines, which has been the latest photo-realistic FPS for at least ten years; look through the aisles at the store rather than the big stand, and you'll find all the variety there used to be is still alive and well. Yes, the quirkier "gamier" games get less exposure than the "realistic" ones, but guess what? They don't sell as well.
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Your average game is very much a game, as lots of compromises are made in realism to make the gameplay mor
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Wing Commander, Duke Nukem I & II, BioForge, Command and Conquer, Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity, Secret of Monkey Island, System Shock, Sim City, The Incredible Machine, Where in the [World|Time|Space] is Carmen Sandiego?, California Raisins, Space Quest, Prince of Persia, King's Quest, Myst, Doom, X-Com, Under a Killing Moon
Just to name a few. :-P
I miss Gaming Goodness(TM) and all the pointy sticks that went with it. *sigh*
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Ahhh memories. Yes I did miss a few. :)
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I still play Alpha Centauri, Birth of the Federation, and Ancient Domains of Mystery a couple months a year. Every year. And they can still trap me at 3 am with the obsessive "just one... more... turn..." mindset.
I really miss the Microprose classics like Airborne Ranger and F-19 Stealth fighter. Not to mention Star Control 2 and Stars!
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"You know what? This whining that there hasn't been a decent new game in years is getting seriously old."
It's not that there hasn't been a decent new game in years, it's that there hasn't been a decent IMPROVEMENT in the new games in a franchise, in years! I can count MANY games who after their first sequel or two started going downhill and just sputtering around. There are tonnes of games that never live up to their potential and I am not the only one who feels this way. I can name a tonne right off the
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Final fantasy series FF4, FF6, FF7 > FF8, FF9, FF10
I almost agree with you, but I thought FF9 was fantastic -- the core gameplay mechanics were better than FF7 or FF8 (mostly due to the dearth of long-ass summons), the art and music were bright and colorful, the cutscenes were spectacular, and the story was acceptable. Now I kind of want to get it back out and play it some more.
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"but I thought FF9 was fantastic "
The thing I didn't like about FF9 was the art direction and the fact it was caught between sci-fi and a bad disney movie, the game itself was ok, but the art direction really ruined a lot of it for me. Especially the tin man guy and the monkey boy, the main hero, and the fat greenish queen... ugh. That and they took the black mage and cutified him to the maximum extent (vivi?? wtf?), I was hoping FF9 would take the world thematically right back to it's roots in FF1, but t
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You may not be the only one who feels that way, but your opinion isn't exactly the majority viewpoint, either. Mario Kart, for example, has got better with every iteration. People loved Chrono Cross. FF8 and 10 were fantastic games (FF10 is my second-favorite in the series, behind 7). Twilight Princess was even better than OoT (it was essentially the same gameplay as OoT but with better graphics).
Call of Duty 1 and 2 were kind of OK games in my opinion, but Call of Duty 4 was amazing, and was a big step for
Some games can't be 3d (Score:4, Insightful)
Some games just aren't as good or are totally different games in 3D. Sonic, Mario, Metroid, Secret of Mana, etc... Seriously, who wouldn't want to play a good Super Mario World 3? And let's not forget the atrocities that happened when Capcom brought Mega Man into 3D (X7, X8)...
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And plenty of games are much better in 3D than in 2d. Halo comes to mind along with any FPS or over the shoulder. Mario and metroid are clear examples of the opposite of what you're suggesting even though you compensate by saying "totally different." Katamari damancy... The grand theft auto series is by itself a reason to say that all 2d series should at least have one attempt at a 3d incarnation.
2d has it's place, there are definitely some games that need to be 3d, I think we need more 2d platformers
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Some games just aren't as good or are totally different games in 3D. Sonic, Mario, Metroid, Secret of Mana, etc... Seriously, who wouldn't want to play a good Super Mario World 3? And let's not forget the atrocities that happened when Capcom brought Mega Man into 3D (X7, X8)...
Agreed. Sonic in 3D on the Dreamcast was impossible for me. I played one of the 3D sonics that came after that, again it was awful. Tried Sonic on the Nintendo DS, it was perfect! Same 2D format that made sonic sonic but everything was polygonal so they could do fancy stuff that couldn't be done back in the Genesis era. Of course, I still suck at it but that's no slight against the game.
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The problem is that a "good game" is something different from a game I care to play. I fully agree that many of todays games are very solid and would be plenty of fun, however most of those games come from the 'been there, done that'-land and feature the same old gameplay that already got boring last year or the year before. I mean, just look at the weapons in a shooter genre, pistol, shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher. I have already played with those weapons back then 15 years ago in Doom1, I don't
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Because a bunch of pretty ( and expensive ) graphics with pathetic game content does not qualify as a "good game", which is most of what has been coming out for YEARS.
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There is a large number of perfectly heal
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Of course it's a fad. If it was a fad the first time, why wouldn't it be a fad this time?
Oh, you're saying it's some fundamental change in human existence? That people, now and forever, will want to play eight-bit games?
You do realize that after a few generations come along that did NOT grow up on 8-bit games, they will become as popular as quoites.
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http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/ [pyoko.org]
Just a word of warning: very difficult. Well, not much more so than the old platformers - memorization is key..... pretty sure I found that on Slashdot a while back.
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IWBTG looks pretty funny. But here's a serious one that may or may not blow your mind: Cave Story [cavestory.org].
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Opinions, opinions... even back in the day, I thought Phantasy Star 2 and 3 were awful. The original Phantasy Star was a great game that pushed the SMS to its limits; those two sequels had some good writing, but despite the better hardware, they looked worse, sounded worse, and played worse. Luckily, Phantasy Star IV redeeme
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Rehash old sure-bet ideas.
The thing is, old games still provide tons of ideas that you haven't seen in 15 years. They might not be totally new, but they are certainly a lot more interesting then many of the stuff that goes into todays games, since what goes into todays games is mostly the same stuff that went into last years games. And of course also keep in mind that some of those 'old ideas' are older then the gamers that play todays games, so those things will be fresh and new for a newer generation of gamers.
And about the nostal
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With Fallout, which I currently play for the first time, it was a little different, since that game has a ton of bugs and issues, but still it was a pretty good experience so far and I had plenty of fun with it, more fun then with many of todays AAA titles.
Did you install all the official and unofficial patches?
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I played X-Com just a few years ago for the first time, back when it was already a well over a decade old and yet it was nothing short of a mind blowing experience where nothing I have played more recently came close and I don't even like turn based games.
X-Com: Enemy Unknown is generally regarded as one of the best PC games ever. Last year at IGN it was voted the #1 Best Game Ever [ign.com], ahead of Civilization IV at #2. For a game released in 1994, that really says something. I bought the game when it came out and could only barely play it on my 386SX16 machine. 14 years later, I still play that damn game once every few months. I still occasionally play a few old games (e.g. Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic), but none really compare to the full-bore "replaya
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I get the feeling that if someone really loves FPS-style games, they're going to want the latest, because the better engines allow for more fluid play and better immersion. X-Com doesn't fit into that, I guess.
The games you mention just aren't that old. Still, I think we've all had the experience you mention...I used to love playing Duke Nukem II, but when I fired it up recently I realized that while it has a certain charm, it's pretty annoying as far as platformers go. Pretty much every Genesis/MegaDrive p
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I get the feeling that if someone really loves FPS-style games, they're going to want the latest, because the better engines allow for more fluid play and better immersion. X-Com doesn't fit into that, I guess.
Well yeah. People who play nothing but basketball and live and breathe basketball aren't generally going to find chess to be a suitable alternative. X-Com is a shooter for the turn-based folks more interested in "thinkery" than developing razor sharp reflexes and complex key macros in the (vain) hope of getting the bulge on some 10 year old who plays the game 14 hours a day.
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Ask for Chris!