Realization about why I enjoyed older systems

Nicely said, same for me, really.

Within about 10 seconds of turning the megadrive on you would be running as Sonic. I miss that.

Games today bring a lot to the table, but naturally the changes that progression brings sit oddly with the older generation. We've grown up with games from almost (or in some cases, the actual) beginning and have played through the change.

Children today haven't - but in 20 years time I really wonder what the gaming scene will look like.

 

Modern gaming is good for different reasons to retro.

I so dislike resolutions and all the visual junk- I wish I was ignorant on the matter.

 

I feel the same for arcade games. back in the days (begining to end of 80s), those huge cabs were like big black boxes. not the smallest clue of what could be in there and what conjures such nice, colorful and action loaded grafx onto the screen.

later when I went more and more into arcade game collecting (mid of 90s), the magic about those machines and games dropped in the same way down.

 

For me the magic of the arcade still exists.

There is one thing and only one thing I want and that's a Ms Pac man machine...to use as my coffee table.

 

I liked games a lot more when I was younger because I wasn't competitive and didn't care if I won or lost.

Now, however, I like games that are competitive and encourage competing with other people. I want to win all the time now.

 

This.

I can NOT play games that have random things now. At all. Except Mario Kart for some reason.

The more and more I learned about fighting games, frames, invincibility frames, match ups, hit boxes, etc.

That made me appreciate it MORE.

the more I learned about Halo 1's spawn system, made me appreciate it MORE.

It really depends. I still love my NES and I know it's hardware inside and out.

PC Gaming would stress me out, the price, patches, drivers, hardware incompatibilty, minor tweaks you can do...

that's why I just play console games. You put it in, and enjoy it.

A lot of the time, the more I learn about the work that went into teh game and how it works, how they had to program it, and with console games this is more prevalent - the tiny little tricks they would have to do to push more power out of the system than thought (now this doesn't happen since consoles are so god damn powerful, and PC gaming doesn't either) it REALLY made you go "god damn, That. That is amazing."

Street fighter 3: Third Strike for example. When I saw Elena's leg animation- in 2003 when I first saw it. It blew my mind. Was it amazinglly photorealisitic graphics? No. They were just WELL animated, and I loved it and could not help but smile at Capcom.

 

I didn't play Symphony of the Night until it hit the 360 a few years ago. I'm still taken aback by Alucard's walking animation.

 

I Second or third this notion... cause i can rememebr on quite a few occasions saving up money for a game for MONTHS and then getting in and playing it for quite a long time.. (P.O.W and River City Ransom come to mind).

Also with the rare occasion of a game for Bithday or Christmas.. the whole less is more really appllied.. as i look back i remember getting the NES TMNT game when it first came out and really enjoying it... looking back its hard to understand why... but when you have less it seems the little that you do have is enjoyed more... (or valued)

Also of note.. i remember renting games WAY more then i have done in recent generations of systems...

Just some thoughts...

 

Yeah, I used to rent games like CRAZY. Now, I think I've rented only a handful of times. The N64 I would always rent games. Starting with the gamecube it stopped happening as much. I rented MKeadly Aliance for my gamecube 2 times, and I rented super monkey ball. I rented Mario Kart Double Dash and that's it. For my Xbox I rented Halo once when we needed another copy. And for My Wii I rented No more Heroes and NiGHTS, and I rented Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Ghostbusters. That's it really.

 

I know I'm a bit of an odd one when it comes to my Generation. I'm only 20 years old and ~85% of my games are NES or older. I just love the amount of detail, work, and pride that went into classic games. Now it just seems like just a bunch of people out of college working a job under the company with the highest budget. There really aren't too many true video game developers left in the industry today. Sometimes I almost wish for another video game industry crash so some amazing creativity and dedication can pull it back up like what happened with the '83 crash.

 

I'm still amazed how conker's BFD for the n64 was accomplished on 4mbs of RAM... how Perfect dark's AI performs on an 8vs8 player map with human and simulants.... how FFIX looks very rich on the playstation. How they managed to get FMV from RE2 to play on the N64 by coding a new compression codec!!! (Rainbow studios)

 

I was playing Panzer Dragoon Zewi the other day, and I couldn't help but think it looked on-par with an N64 game (naturally it sounds a lot better thanks to CD). I guess it must all come down to the developers time, skill and effort.

I remember reading that even Shigeru Miyamoto wasn't entirely happy with the N64 spec's. A perfectionist if ever there was one...

 

The biggest difference between 'old school' and 'current gen' games, for me, is the time between turning the console on, and starting playing.

on NES, it was 10 seconds, most. on SNES and MD, the publishers and developers started to insert some logos. But now you have (un)skippable logos, licence and anti piracy screens before you see any in-game menu, and don't forget those tutorials. I frikking hate those:

- Press the 'A' button to jump.
pressing A, confirms message
- Try to jump now.


ARGH!

Also it was more like magic, controlling your own movie. And having a party because you finished the first level / world / stage etc. Those where the good times.

 

I like how tutorials have done away with the need to first consult an instruction manual. If they are done well, it's fine. It's when they will explain to you something that you already know and you cannot skip it.

Good examples include Dead Space and Modern Warfare 2.
An example of a bad game is Amplitude- for fucks sake- the amount of times I have wanted a quick go or to show someone, only to find the absence of a save game means that I HAVE to do the long winded tutorial before I can just begin play.

 

i have thought that myself, so true

Also
Old games are kind of like books, you may get a picture and sound since it was so basic your imagination
filled in the gaps. In turn making the games more moldable by one's own mind and more memorable.

Well that one of my theories

 

a LOT of NES games had a copy right screen at first and logos too. Not first generation NES games but after 88 or so it happened and started becoming standard.

 

Give it a try on "Striker 96" for the PS1. It's so annoying it's kinda funny.

There are so many loading screens before the actual main menu, that you'll give up before actually playing the game. :lol:

Also it's the first (and only, if i'm not wrong) game that has Loading screens for the actual Loading screen! (ex: a black screen appears with LOADING written... When it finally changes, we have a screen with a football field and a small sand clock that means the loading is just starting - everything before was just for this Loading screen. Oh GOD!)

 

think of it as one long loading screen with a changing background to keep your ADD ass in front o the TV.

 

anyone else heard this song? it's lo-fi/underground stuff..pretty old by now.

I'll gladly upload it if you ladies ask for it =)

 

some games on the PSP require several minutes of start up till you see the first bit of the actual game, after clicking away several logos and crap. it's worser than the c64 times.