Retro Gaming; yay or nay?

[FaceAche]

So all this talk of Pinball machines, Elite, Tie Fighter etc got me thinking about retro gaming.

Like i was saying in Captain X's Elite/Oolite thread, i totally loved Elite back in the day. Kept a detailed log of prices paid for goods so i could get the best price when i sold it ..... i'd draw pictures of all the ships, technical spec style, along with action dog-fighting ones ..... even played with a motorcycle helmet on just so i could pretend i was piloting an awesome space-ship .....

And we also recently talked about Tie Fighter in another thread, which i also loved back in the day. It compelled me to install a copy of DosBox and get it working, which i did.

But after playing these games for a while, it's all kind of left me feeling empty inside, to be honest. Was it childhood wonder? Was i just more easily pleased back then, all those years ago? These are not games that have aged particularly well, in my opinion - are my expectations too high?

As a blast from the past, they have been great, but i can't see me spending much more time with this little diversion. I mean, i'd much rather fire up Mass Effect 3 or Syndicate, or hell, Duke Nukem Forever ......

Nothing is as good as i remember it, and whilst they were arguably ground-breaking in their day, they just don't really grab me anymore.

Is it just me? Am i being overly harsh? Is there a legitimate place for retro gaming in todays world?

Or as i've mentioned elsewhere lately, is it just nostalgia-induced rose-coloured glasses?

What do you guys think?

What about this penchant for HD-ing everything? Games, movies, TV shows - lots of old stuff seems to be getting "HD'd" recently. Is it a legitimate practice, or just a cheap money grab because the businesses releasing these types of revamped oldies are too lazy to come up with new IP? Does the argument that the technology is now available today to properly do the story/game/whatever justice, actually hold water?

[that_black_guy]

It depends on what the game is... some age better than others.

I still dust off the ol megadrive and play a bit of Shining Force I & II here and there. Actually, I just finished SFII just recently. And I still jam the odd PSOne games. But it's mainly old JRPGs.

[Tel Prydain]

I love the gameplay of classic games, its not just the nostalgia. I'd love to see some remakes of classic games - the exact same game just with modern controls, sound and graphics.
Xcom, Eye of the Beholder, Elite (or privateer), colonization, Might and Magic, BattleTech, Ultima Underworld, Heros of Might and Magic, King's Bounty, Pirates, Lords of The Realm, Master of Orion and Conquest of The New World... all of those games would be awesome.
It's a shame that the gameplay of those games have been left behind with the outdated graphics and controls.

[accidental]

I think it's similar to watching an old sci-fi movie where the effects and sets and acting and pacing are all very dated and hard to enjoy. Nostalgia helps but something that relies heavily on technology simply can't age well to modern standards.

This is one of the things I'm finding fascinating about pinball. A machine from 1990 holds up far better than most video games of the same year. There are no graphics (other than artwork) to make your eyes bleed.

[Newsboy]

Nostalgia is a bitch and is usually best left in the mind. I ADORE Cannon Fodder, still do, but I'm terrified of grabbing it in some form and playing it again. I'm almost certain the framerate and controls will be laggy/slow. I'd rather leave it untouched and keep that amazing feeling of joy that I have surrounding the hours I put into it. The same goes with all those Atari 2600 games I played a wee kid. I know I wouldn't enjoy them these days, so it's best to just leave them be.

[Innocent Dingo]

Originally Posted by Tel Prydain

I love the gameplay of classic games, its not just the nostalgia. I'd love to see some remakes of classic games - the exact same game just with modern controls, sound and graphics.
Xcom, Eye of the Beholder, Elite (or privateer), colonization, Might and Magic, BattleTech, Ultima Underworld, Heros of Might and Magic, King's Bounty, Pirates, Lords of The Realm, Master of Orion and Conquest of The New World... all of those games would be awesome.
It's a shame that the gameplay of those games have been left behind with the outdated graphics and controls.

Freespace 2! So loved this game and in general the space flight sim game is gone the way of the dodo. Think Tie Fighter was the other one I loved...till the tie advances showed up! Those things were tough to track!

Been playing Pirates on iPad lately and really enjoying it. Its easier than I remember the old days (Amiga 500?) with the wind not so hard to sail into but then harder as in the old days could sail my 12 gun sloop around for an hour slowly tearing a war galleon to bits but controls on iPad not as great....tend to make mistakes. Game also moves a bit faster.

As for retro I still love some of those old games. Baldurs Gate not that retro but would love the exact same gameplay in modern game.....what dragon age should have been without the attempt to join the console revolution. Icewind Dale also with its full party building and tactical battles over
character development.

[flappersack]

I felt like having a platformer blast from the past the other week. Put Croc in, played for 5 mins then went bah! And played some more SSX (2012)

Some games however, age reaaaally well. Like playing MGS2 in the MGS HD collection. The story with themes of media control and new world order, seems like it was written in 2012.

[captain x]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

The same goes with all those Atari 2600 games I played a wee kid. I know I wouldn't enjoy them these days, so it's best to just leave them be.

...I know, I played ET too.

[NOL LUV DI]

It varies just like old TV shows.

The Professionals and American Gothic hold up well but Starsky and Hutch or Dukes Of Hazard does not.

Some of us go back to the spacies parlour. The games of course were designed to take your money and to reward practice so they were designed differently.

Beating Frogger or Galaga or Paperboy or Defender or Zaxxon was so different from completing a modern game. Having people stand around you watching you play the games you were good at was an experience that just can't be replicated.

The thing with those games is the challenge is still there, the patience to persevere and study and learn the game is not. Blaming the graphics is a cop out. It bemuses me when people rave over something modern with 64 bit graphics - the actual games that came out at the time have much more depth in most cases.

If I had to pick a game that I would want to see on Xbox live from the spacies era it would be Wonderboy.

With the advent of Vic 20 and C64 etc a new era came in with heaps of home made innovation.

Adventure games moved from text (Zork, HHGTTG), to static graphics (The Pawn, Eureka), to point and click (Simon The Sorceror, Monkey Island).

Sprites and sprite movement became more sophisticated, graphics stepped up and so on. There are games from that era that still don't have anything similar (Alter Ego, Wizball, Hunters Moon, Split Personalities, Bounder ).

I would have included Nebulus but Fez seems to pick up where it left off.

I'd pick Hunter's Moon for a remake and maybe Last Ninja series for a modern version.

Converting the IP for adventure games such as The Pawn, Guild Of Thieves, Silicon Dreams, or into a modern Dragon's Age or Mass Effect Game type game would be very cool.

There are examples of updating games form this era done well. The enhanced graphics of the original Prince Of Persia or Jetpac or Monkey Island were done well - other games such as Doom were well best left alone.

Quake with updated graphics on the other hand would be great.

As always gaming is in the eye of the beholder. What I do know is that you young un's can't beat my Frogger score and really that's all there is to it.

Just came across this ghastly beast:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Pr...5-d802584111f9

[captain x]

...and everybody is different, with different memories.

Just on the Elite/Oolite thing - I still get the buzz, coasting towards a planet I come across a larger, slower ship.

Python or Boa it doesn't matter, but I trim my speed and pull alongside in the blackness of space. Looking out the left window I feel the same things I felt 20 years before, me and this ship travelling together, but not together. Is there an AI captain on that vessel, looking out of his port window at me, wondering what I am thinking, is his finger hovering over a Missile Targetting button, is his hold full of contraband?
When I get bored I speed up leave him behind, I never see him again in all of the galaxies, but that is what retro games gave us when they were young - they let your imagination run free.

Beserk, looked nothing like a room full of robots, but it felt like it.

The generation window of gamers is moving along at a steady pace, some of us remember the horrid games along with the classics, while others came in later and benefitted from our mistakes.

You can't delve into the past without being put off by what you find, games were often ugly, but as we know there were gems of playability. The kind of games you played for months, whether they were single screen or not they got you to come back again and again, most often starting over from one night to the next.

Compare that to the games we get now, where you are fed scripted experiences and the game will always save your sorry ass a few feet further back, in a world where developers want you to see the end. An end that will lead the franchise on and maybe get you stuck on their multiplayer in the meantime.

The market has changed, the media has changed and most of all we have changed.

Retro gaming, for me, is exactly the same as going to a museum and admiring a Renaissance painting or touching the wingtip of a Spitfire. Retro games were once current generation and they build the road we now stand upon, if you can remember that far back its worth paying your respects now and again, right before we all start wishing our lives away for the next big thing.

The good news being that it's not Paradroid 2012, it'll be Halo4 or Bioshock Infinite or or or or....




However, I really want to play Captive again.

[captain x]

Originally Posted by NOL LUV DI

Just came across this ghastly beast:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Pr...5-d802584111f9

You get the pitchforks, I'll bring the torches.

[Vivasanti]

my greatest memory of retro gaming is the dawn of arcade machines and the rise of arcades, before consoles and before PC's were afordable, I spent a huge chuck of my young life in arcades pumping my coins in.

remember the fuss of seeing people crowded around a new game, or someone on the 67th level of bomb Jack on their first coin.

I believe the arcades to be the true "definition" of retro gaming.

[maccesfield]

of all the games i played, two stood out for me in my early days of gaming.

the first game i can't even remember the name of the game, only that i spent days with the curtains closed and final clocked the game. Having to defeat a witch on a broom.

the second was the Indiana Jones game based on the last crusade. having to look in the manual to make sure that I took the right path based on a random code was cool.

[NOL LUV DI]

Originally Posted by maccesfield

of all the games i played, two stood out for me in my early days of gaming.

the first game i can't even remember the name of the game, only that i spent days with the curtains closed and final clocked the game. Having to defeat a witch on a broom.

the second was the Indiana Jones game based on the last crusade. having to look in the manual to make sure that I took the right path based on a random code was cool.

Cauldron?





ZqWzCRyvCO8

[Leggetron]

Yeah, retro gaming doesn't necessarily mean that the old games have to be "good".

That said, some classics definitely stand the test of time and I could happily play them today.

One of my favourite things about XBLA is that I can download arcade-perfect ports of the games that I loved as a kid. Sure, I may never actually play Double Dragon any more, but I'm stoked to own it