Retro Gamers and why they need to get over it

[Jim Morrison]

You liked James Cameron's Avatar, didn't you?

Does this even matter? What's wrong with someone liking a Pocahontas story in a space-age with aliens fighting humans and huge beasts killing each other?
Now you say there's nothing wrong with it, so why the **** did you bring this up? You want to make it look like the person is really shallow for liking the movie. Liking something that's mainstream doesn't make you shallow, it means you're just into that stuff.

 

[finalark]

Does this even matter? What's wrong with someone liking a Pocahontas story in a space-age with aliens fighting humans and huge beasts killing each other?

Because the story was ****!

Now you say there's nothing wrong with it,

When the hell did I say that?

so why the **** did you bring this up?

Because he was gushing all over the special effects and ignoring everything else.

You want to make it look like the person is really shallow for liking the movie.

Either that or they've just had so little experience with stories that they have a hard time telling quality from crap.

Liking something that's mainstream doesn't make you shallow, it means you're just into that stuff.

Not the point.

 

[soju]

Umm one question why are we talking about avatar in a gaming thread?

 

[Sucumbio]

...? So basically, you mean to tell me that the CGI in episode III wasn't the coolest thing you ever saw?

Correct. It is definitely not the "coolest" thing I've ever seen. It's decent, no doubt. It's even "well done" by today's standards, and "really well done" by the standards of when it came out. But as a STAR WARS movie? Crap. Total crap. And believe me, I know all about why the first 3 episodes were supposed to be polished looking, because during the times of Republic, the galaxy was in its finest hour, the golden age if you will, and 4-6, everything's -supposed- to be darker, dingier, gray... that's fine. But for instance, the scenes on Naboo, c'mon man, it looked like a ****ing coloring book! And what the hell was jar-jar, we already have comic relief in 3PO we didn't need Jar-jar, that was totally just a marketing ploy so kids would have something to giggle and laugh at. Ya know when I watch ep 1 I basically fast forward to the sword battle w/mual and watch it a bunch of times cause really the only saving grace of the prequels is the saber battles, those are without a doubt epically done.

I don't know much about the special editions of IV-VI besides the fact that they changed the gravel in the spaceport in IV,

Bring my shuttle. That's all I have to say. One of the finest moments in Empire. Just... ooo you can FEEL his anger. The hate, growing inside him. And instead, changed. "Inform the command whatever to prepare for my donkey ***** blah blah I'm like, no way! wtf. The shootout with guido? Screwed. They added in a scene with jaba interacting with han, totally unnecessary, I mean there's a reason they cut it originally, to put it back, yeah no, didn't work. The dance scene in jedi, with the hot *** alien chick? redone with some muppet ******ry I mean seriously RIGHT out of sesame street I was like Vader in ep 3 Noooooooooo.

If I-III are "shallow and hollow", then that makes just about every other movie in excistance look like the poorer of the youtube videos out there.

From this past decade? Actually, you won't get much argument from me. I'm of the strong opinion that movies have basically sucked since the late 90's, with very few exceptions. And CGI is to blame, largely. The Matrix, awesome movie. Its sequels? Total crap. I mean really, the scene with the hundreds of agent smiths, ridiculous, there's even one point where a bowling sound effect plays when he throws one into a bunch of others I'm like, really tho? the bowling pins getting knocked down sound? no man. f that. I could rant for eons about how movies, music, television, video games, life itself, has degenerated into digital harlotry over the past 10-15 years, but that would not be the point of this blog.

PS I actually liked avatar for its stunning visuals. Story though? Yeah total ****. At least he admitted that he was basically making giant eye-candy.

 

[finalark]

Umm one question why are we talking about avatar in a gaming thread?

Because this thread has been way derailed?

 

[soju]

oh ok just wondering. . . now were talking about starwars. . . lol

 

[M.K]

Oh.

Now i see where this came from.
I just stupidly debated something on AIM over video games, avatar, and the purpose of movies, and now I know where the person I was talking to got it from...
I'm REALLY dense.

Right.

 

[finalark]

Oh.

Now i see where this came from.
I just stupidly debated something on AIM over video games, avatar, and the purpose of movies, and now I know where the person I was talking to got it from...
I'm REALLY dense.

Right.

I'm sorry for changing someone's opinion thus causing them to get into an argument with you?

 

[firelord767]

It should be noted that the CGI was simply where we were going with this, and the only reason i "gushed" over it. The CGI completes the story. I know that episodes IV-VI where supposed to be darker. And they certainly where. There are much better ways to make something darker today though. It makes for better story telling. James Cameron's Avatar had a great story, and i loved it. The Last Airbender also had great special effects, right on par with Avatar. The thing that set them apart, just like the "Original Trilogy" and episodes I-III is the story. While there was nothing wrong with the story in the OT, I-III were just plain better in every way possible. James Cameron's Avatar had character development, breathing space in between everything, and a just plain good story. The Last Airbender, however, was a train-wreck. Very surface level with characters, way too crammed, lack of any, idk, skill at acting in the actors. The storys were told great, but one story was simply better than the other. Now, I-III were already better than IV-VI, but were also told a lot better.

The same goes for games, in a small, probably failed attempt to try to get back on topic. Though story telling is really gameplay instead of using CGI to the max. Sonic Adventure 2 was a lot better to play than Sonic Unleashed by far, making the story told smother. And then Sonic Unleashed didn't even have a real story, just fanservice towards the 6-8 year old players. In that right, the older was the better, kinda messing with my point, but it goes to show we have games that are good and bad all over time. For example, someone pointed out how in the original LoZ, you have to start at the same place every time you die. We graduate to being able to choose from a handful of respawn points in ALttP (which pwned nontheless). By OoT, you respawned in the dungeon you died in. The games got better over time.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Old games rarely had stories. It was just something simplistic you would hardly get explanation on and you just jumped in the adventure, collected ****, beat a boss and somehow the world was saved again. This was the Atari, NES and SNES. Old Gameboy as well.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

There are some major misunderstandings in this topic.

For one, wandering aimlessly is a property of a vast minority of older games. Yeah, that's a big problem with Final Fantasy I. Zelda 1? Uh, did you even play it? If you did, did you even try? The game is about exploration. You aren't told directly where to go, but things are pretty findable. From the starting area, the super obvious cave has the first sword. If you go west and actually explore (see how the screens connect, try to figure out the complete geography of the area instead of skipping screens) you will easily find level-3 exposed. If you went north, level-1 is trivial to find as you follow the lake front, and if you continue past there are very natural paths that lead to the white sword and the letter (depending on whether you go left or right at the fork and keep trying to go north always, of course). Heading into that maze-like forest in the east gets you into some heavier exploration but will net you level-2. I could continue about how finding the rest of the levels is an intuitive progression and a really, really good example of amazing game design wherein the game doesn't hold your hand at all but it's still completely reasonable to beat with nothing but a combination of player skill and some brain power. The plethora of smaller secrets spread around the overworld and given as rewards when you "burn every bush, bomb every wall" helps the game a lot too. You don't actually have to do that to just beat the game, but you can really search almost anywhere and find something of interest.

The reference to a Link to the Past is just confusing. Uh, how is it you're getting confused about what to do? If you pay attention to what NPCs are saying and use the map (press X) you are always told your next destination. At no point should you be confused about what you need to be doing if you just pay attention. The world is absolutely packed full of stuff to do regardless so even if you blank out and forget everything every NPC told you (which is your own fault and no one else's) you should be able to go just about anywhere you haven't been and find something of value, be it heart pieces and such or another dungeon. Dungeons can be done out of order to a great extent even. I didn't find this game confusing when I was 6. I got lost internally in a few of the less straightforward dungeons, but solving a labyrinth was all part of the fun. I'm sure everyone here can handle it.

The fact that these games have been brought up and not thoroughly put down as bad examples leads me to suspect a lot of people in this topic don't have the careful eye for design claimed. The original post's claim that games "age badly" is absurd. Games are fundamentally a form of art. All art is timeless. Art does not get better or worse with time; at the most, our appreciation of what it always was matures. Mortal Kombat only seems bad today because it was, in fact, bad from the beginning. The people who were telling you to play Street Fighter II instead really just had better tastes in games, and you notice most of them still like that game (because it's actually good, always was good, and always will be good). There are newer games that are very good (any of the three excellent Mario games for the Wii, for instance), but they are still to be judged by the same timeless standard. I do believe that overall the best games are mostly older, but all time periods have good and bad games and oftentimes it's apples and oranges as the better newer games tend to excel in really different areas than the better older games. I've played hundreds of games and have never "changed my mind" about a game being good or bad, and I've played older games that I missed back in the day recently and found my judgments mostly consistent. I played Zelda-2 for the first time on the Virtual Console and loved it. It is just an objective measure of quality.

As per stories, I'm not sure what people are getting at. A game's story is a fundamentally different beast than a movie or a book, and good games with very good stories play to the medium's strength. I'll use as an example a game with an exceptional story that I suspect most people here have played: Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask is a game with a great story for many reasons, but the main one is how well developed Clock Town as a whole is. By playing the game to its fullest, you get to know every random member of the town. You really dig into their lives over those three days as you talk to all of them and help them via random small sidequests for each one. I can't even begin to imagine how this would work as a book or a movie, and you couldn't "write out" the story here coherently for a lot of reasons. However, it's a very, very strong story as it is made precisely because it uses the advantages of gaming as a medium to tell the kind of story that no other medium could possibly accomplish. If you can grow to appreciate this obvious case, a lot of other game stories that you may be writing off suddenly begin to make more sense as strong. Just play any Final Fantasy game, talk to every NPC as you go, and see how much you learn about the world and how interesting it can be. Try factoring in your experiences as a part of the story. General Leo's death in FFVI would be utterly trivial in a book or a movie, but because you are actually playing as General Leo as it happens, it's a lot more moving, and it's unfair to the game not to give it credit for that type of experience. If you look at games that are actually good, you can find tons of strong stories (and most of Square's stuff is strong!), but you just have to appreciate the inherent strengths of the medium and how they are used.

 

[firelord767]

There are some major misunderstandings in this topic.

For one, wandering aimlessly is a property of a vast minority of older games. Yeah, that's a big problem with Final Fantasy I. Zelda 1? Uh, did you even play it? If you did, did you even try? The game is about exploration. You aren't told directly where to go, but things are pretty findable. From the starting area, the super obvious cave has the first sword. If you go west and actually explore (see how the screens connect, try to figure out the complete geography of the area instead of skipping screens) you will easily find level-3 exposed. If you went north, level-1 is trivial to find as you follow the lake front, and if you continue past there are very natural paths that lead to the white sword and the letter (depending on whether you go left or right at the fork and keep trying to go north always, of course). Heading into that maze-like forest in the east gets you into some heavier exploration but will net you level-2. I could continue about how finding the rest of the levels is an intuitive progression and a really, really good example of amazing game design wherein the game doesn't hold your hand at all but it's still completely reasonable to beat with nothing but a combination of player skill and some brain power. The plethora of smaller secrets spread around the overworld and given as rewards when you "burn every bush, bomb every wall" helps the game a lot too. You don't actually have to do that to just beat the game, but you can really search almost anywhere and find something of interest.

It's hard to explore when you die every five seconds. Even if you have an ability to play LoZ without meeting my painful fate, you still run into an awfully repetitive thing: find door, go through door, slay demons, find door, go through door, slay demons...

The fact that these games have been brought up and not thoroughly put down as bad examples leads me to suspect a lot of people in this topic don't have the careful eye for design claimed. The original post's claim that games "age badly" is absurd.

Technology as a whole ages badly, excluding some of those holy games out there.

As per stories, I'm not sure what people are getting at.

A games story makes level two something more than just level one but just harder.

A game's story is a fundamentally different beast than a movie or a book, and good games with very good stories play to the medium's strength. I'll use as an example a game with an exceptional story that I suspect most people here have played: Majora's Mask. Majora's Mask is a game with a great story for many reasons, but the main one is how well developed Clock Town as a whole is. By playing the game to its fullest, you get to know every random member of the town. You really dig into their lives over those three days as you talk to all of them and help them via random small sidequests for each one. I can't even begin to imagine how this would work as a book or a movie, and you couldn't "write out" the story here coherently for a lot of reasons.

Writing it out would be boring. Go buy the manga adaptation of MM. I still haven't gotten to that one, but the 5 pages i have read were excellent, as where OoT, FSA, and a few others like Oracles.

However, it's a very, very strong story as it is made precisely because it uses the advantages of gaming as a medium to tell the kind of story that no other medium could possibly accomplish.

Gaming is the best way to tell a story, unless you can get a shaman who makes mad hand signals while he talks.

If you can grow to appreciate this obvious case, a lot of other game stories that you may be writing off suddenly begin to make more sense as strong. Just play any Final Fantasy game, talk to every NPC as you go, and see how much you learn about the world and how interesting it can be. Try factoring in your experiences as a part of the story. General Leo's death in FFVI would be utterly trivial in a book or a movie, but because you are actually playing as General Leo as it happens, it's a lot more moving, and it's unfair to the game not to give it credit for that type of experience. If you look at games that are actually good, you can find tons of strong stories (and most of Square's stuff is strong!), but you just have to appreciate the inherent strengths of the medium and how they are used.

This is the reason i play most games.

That was a behemoth of a post, so some stuff was taken out by myself, but that was cause i agreed with it for the most part, or blanked out reading it, which usually happens anyway.

 

[Teran]

Since you were discussing Avatar earlier, I have to chime in and mention that the story is utterly irrelevant.

It was one of the most immersive cinema experiences I've ever witnessed. The artistic direction and use of technology were top notch.

Anyway, retro games are great because they're actually a different experience. Greater complexity doesn't always mean something is better. Tbh, games have been outrageously easy now with the ability to pull off outrageous numbers of manoeuvres and streamlined control. The lack of character control in many directions and the lack of complex manoeuvres make retro games actually challenging on the gameplay front.

Yeah sure it may be frustrating and some would say it's a flawed form of difficulty, but I see no difference between that and an enraging puzzle section. Retro games are also what set the foundation for so much of what we have today. Even if you're introduced to a game in its current gen format, going back and playing the originals is an interesting experience that lets you piece together more about the characters and game univverse, as well as watching the evolution of the gameplay.

Retro games are awesome.

Peace out.

 

[gcubedude]

Anyway, retro games are great because they're actually a different experience. Greater complexity doesn't always mean something is better. Tbh, games have been outrageously easy now with the ability to pull off outrageous numbers of manoeuvres and streamlined control. The lack of character control in many directions and the lack of complex manoeuvres make retro games actually challenging on the gameplay front.

Yeah sure it may be frustrating and some would say it's a flawed form of difficulty, but I see no difference between that and an enraging puzzle section. Retro games are also what set the foundation for so much of what we have today. Even if you're introduced to a game in its current gen format, going back and playing the originals is an interesting experience that lets you piece together more about the characters and game univverse, as well as watching the evolution of the gameplay.

Retro games are awesome.

Peace out.

QFT

To this day, I go back and play my classic favorites, like Wario Land II, Harvest Moon 64, and the original Fire Emblem (The first one to come to America, not the first Fire Emblem game, I think it's called Rekka no Ken in Japan.) I love playing these games, sometimes because I like to see how much games have changed. I personally think that Rekka no Ken is, so far, the best Fire Emblem game (mind you, I haven't played any of the Japanese-only FE's). The most recent ones, Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon, are great, but they tried to introduce features that kinda complicated the way the game worked, or changed it in a way that I don't agree with.

In the end, it really comes down to personal preference. I really enjoy old games, but at the same time, I'm not going to totally ignore a new game just because they changed something from the previous game that I loved. To anyone who either refuses to play new games because they're too new, or dislikes old games for whatever reason, I just wanna say that you both are missing out on a wide array of great games.

 

[Black Mantis]

I'm just happy that so far nobody disagrees when I say Modern Warfare 2 is overrated.

 

[Black Mantis]

Somebody find me a game more influential and amazing that came out from the last decade than this.

 

[firelord767]

Somebody find me a game more influential and amazing that came out from the last decade than this.

I'm not at all sure why this came to mind, but

Ya know, i'm just too lazy to find an image again. Who wants to pretend we see a cover for Brawl here? I do.

 

[PassWurD]

I'm just happy that so far nobody disagrees when I say Modern Warfare 2 is overrated.

I like the game. It's enjoyable and I laugh at it's stupidities. I always see more people complain about it (despite still playing it when other games are available).

 

[Teran]

MW2 isn't a terrible game at all.

Well I never like CoD games but that's besides the point.

It's just a streamlined version of typical war shooters. That doesn't make it bad by any means, it just doesn't break any new ground. A game doesn't have to break ground to be good.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

My favorite newer game is bit trip runner.

It's pretty sad, actually.

And Megaman 9 & 10, though I really don't count them as "new games", depite their release dates.

 

[Red Arremer]

Honestly, the only thing this - and partly last - generation has brought were sequels of sequels, and them some sequels.
Hardly there was a new, innovative game, yet alone a whole game concept, just the same thing only with a bit better graphics, a few more levels and enemies, and depending on genre, a few more little gimmicks.
But essentially, it has stayed the same, and that kinda makes me sad.

I think that while it is true that a lot of older games have not aged well, many of them still stand up to what the gaming industry produced nowadays, and in fact, a lot of them are still better than new games.
Sure, genres that are going for realism always will be better now (FPS, simulators, some racing games, etc.), but there's genres where good graphics won't help a lot, like platformers or RPGs, where it winds down to other aspects other than graphics. And this is where older games shined.

Why is, for instance, Chrono Trigger considered being one of the greatest RPGs ever? Because of an amazing story, and an amazing gameplay. I think it had one of the most innovative and interesting ways of round-based combat I've seen so far in the whole genre, and the story was really creative and well-thought out.
RPGs nowadays have little to offer other than staples, though. That's why I grew so detached to them. One of the few newer RPGs I liked was Eternal Sonata, because of its cool battle system. The story started out really good too, but it became kinda bland and towards the end it spiraled out of control, like with most JRPGs.

It's just that the replay value in older games is waaaaaay higher than in newer games. There's still a ton of people who play classics like Tetris, Super Metroid, Street Fighter 2, Bomberman or Super Mario Bros. 3, not to mention the whole spectrum of clones of these games that spawned in their age and still are done now.
Newer games are mostly "play through it once, done". Hell, the replay value even had to be artificially pushed up through achievements/trophies. But that doesn't hide that most games are just like "yea play through once, then you're done", except they're aimed towards multiplayer.

First and foremost graphics are important to developers now, and everything is not as important.
That said, I love both old and new, and I love good graphics, but to me, old games usually take the cake because it seems that since the developers didn't have to worry about making good graphics, they had more time to invest in other aspects of the game, make it innovative and have a good gameplay or strong story.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

This is my biggest problem with video games today:
High Resolution =/= Good Graphics
Good Graphics =/= Good Gameplay

 

[firelord767]

Honestly, the only thing this - and partly last - generation has brought were sequels of sequels, and them some sequels.
Hardly there was a new, innovative game, yet alone a whole game concept, just the same thing only with a bit better graphics, a few more levels and enemies, and depending on genre, a few more little gimmicks.

This is pretty true, but for some reason i tried to disprove it to no avial. It's getting harder and harder for a new series to shine. Band games just shot up recently, but as a genre. Anything not called Rock Band or some sort of a Hero doesn't stand a chance, if anyone was stupid enough to even try to make one.

I just leaned over to look at my disc collection. I only found a few independent games, and then quickly noted how bad they were.

 

[Red Arremer]

The old rhythm games were better though imo. I was having a real blast with games like Space Channel 5 or Gitaroo Man.

 

[Metal~Mario]

I must be in the minority because I like Final Fantasy XIII.

I liked FF13 except for the linear-ness of it.

You're not alone, man.