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Pac-Man Reloaded

Posted by simoniker on from the blinky-demanding-new-contract-terms dept.

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."

33 comments

  1. You got that right by BFedRec · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I LOVE the simpler times. Give me my one big orange button and Crystal Castles, Frogger, Barnstorming, Grand Prix, or a set of paddles and Circus Atari.. now THOSE were the days... back when I was 7 and spent my afternoons in a back room of my mom's office playing games for hours on end. Make's me want a peanut butter sandwich and some graham crackers.

    --
    wordtrip.com
  2. Great! by Shishio · · Score: 1

    I'm more of a fan of late-80's and early-90's games (Metroid, Zelda, Earthbound, FF6 anyone?) but even simpler games certainly are a relief now and again. Nibbles is great to play, and I was just playing some 2600-style Demon Attack the other day. No changing weapons, no mission objectives, very refreshing.

    --
    Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
  3. A little too enthusiastic by utawoutau · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This article seems to be a bit too enthusiastic, for example, although I may myself believe that game developers seem overly eager to push up the complexity of games - this is really the first time that I have read something that expresses that opinion.

    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!

    1. Re:A little too enthusiastic by danila · · Score: 1

      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:

      1. those where you play with something and
      2. those where you play as somebody

      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 first category may evolve in unpredictable ways, but not the games in the second category. Those will steadily improve with the emphasis on visual realism. Simultaneously the audio-quality, screen size, etc. will improve. Eventually (probably at some moment in the next decade) first advanced control systems will be developed (computer-to-brain interface) and the emphasis will shift on the overall realism (including tactile images, smells, etc.).

      So don't think that by paying attention to graphics developers take something away from the gameplay. They don't, it's just a different direction they are taking. Games with simplier graphics that concentrate on providing quality gameplay will continue to be made. Of course, even Pac-Man can't be released today with bad graphics (remember, original graphics are simple because of hardware limitations, not because it is cool to use only one colour for the main protagonist), but not all games need HL2-level graphics either.

      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  4. The old cliche is... by burnsy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Easy to learn, difficult to master.

  5. And of course there's always emulation! by dbirchall · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ...which is how I enjoy playing classic games like Ms. Pac-Man, Arkanoid, Spy Hunter, Q-Bert and others... running under a Commodore 64 emulator called Frodo.

    ...which in my case is running on my Nokia 3650 cell phone.

    ...which (upgraded like mine) has 2,000 times the RAM of a Commodore 64, anyway. Lots of room for games! :)

    1. Re:And of course there's always emulation! by Zandweter · · Score: 1

      What you think of Prince of Persia 1 ... I'm playing it again for about a week now. It really brings backk the old days with pc-speaker noise and keyboard smashing action... My heart still skipps a beat when I drop 3 floors down.

      10 PRINT "Call a bubble tape a game-copy station and you'r welcome at /."
      RUN

  6. Well by Tyreth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Part of the problem is that a lot of new games just aren't fun to play. The classics had all we need.

    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.

  7. Come off it by Kris_J · · Score: 1
    cartridges -- remember those?
    All the Electronics Boutiques around here still have N64 carts for sale, many still have a bunch of new ones and all of them still have secondhand ones. Cartridges didn't stop being produced that long ago.
    1. Re:Come off it by qwak · · Score: 1

      all the EB's around here still have atari, nes, and snes carts available... picked up the original metroid recently for about $6, contra i think for $3

    2. Re:Come off it by Kris_J · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What the hell am I thinking? Cartridges are still being produced in huge numbers. GBA. Doi!

  8. my stupid thoughts by qwak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think older games are being recognized more for their typically good gameplay as opposed to a 'retro' movement, as at least american culture tends to obsess over all things retro (just as the years progress which retro phase is chic changes, sometimes its the 70's, sometimes the 80's, sometimes the 50's etc)

    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 /shrug

    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.

    1. Re:my stupid thoughts by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

      If you liked pacman, and love counter-strike, Why not play both?

    2. Re:my stupid thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree. I wonder how many of the people commenting exclusively play emulated (or real!) 2600 or stand-up arcade games because they're good. I know for one i used to play heaps of games on my old 8-bit home computer when i was younger, and while it was fun for a few hours to download an emulator and all the tape/disk images again, it got old real quick. Yeah so you run around eating dots, it's fun in the background, but it doesn't come anywhere close to the immersive experience you have playing something like Deus Ex. I think the bottom line is that the people who prefer old games over new games aren't really big game fans, they're what the industry calls "casual gamers" - people who just turn on every now and then to shoot some aliens and then turn off. It's much less of a significant market than the "hardcore gamers", and i don't think it's going to change the world (much less the way software developers think about developing games).

    3. Re:my stupid thoughts by danila · · Score: 1

      That was actually pretty stupid. I wonder why moderators like that so much...

      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 unsophisticated gamers or in situations where you don't have enough time (playing in subway on your handheld).

      People played Asteroids because there was nothing better to play, that's all. Any gamer would kill for a playable copy of Half-Life then.

      When you claim that many games today renounce gameplay in favour of graphics, what do you mean by "many"? How many recent games can you actually name that had both great graphics and boring gameplay? Unreal2 certainly comes to mind, but what else? I think that poor gameplay usually comes together with shoddy graphics, but then this is indicative of poor overall quality and not some distrurbing graphics-over-gameplay trends.

      When you claim that Doom 3 has the gameplay similar to Doom 2, you prove that you either never played the original game or don't know anything at all about the sequel. I suggest you download a year old "Doom III Legacy" clip (7 min) with first Doom 3 footage (and some Doom 2 also) and brief interviews with Kevin Clowd, Trent Reznor, Robert Duffy, John Carmack and others. Or how about downloading the alpha and checking the gameplay for yourself?

      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
    4. Re:my stupid thoughts by qwak · · Score: 1

      I admit I didn't think everything through when posting the above (hence the stupid thoughts and drunken opinion). Admittedly, I do think half-life is a better game than say asteroids (was only using that game as an example, since i still enjoy playing it). The gameplay in half-life is excellent, and it's storyline was tied into the game very well, making for a very enjoyable experience. I can also only draw from games i've had the experience of playing to base my opinions, as for doom 3, I havent checked out the alpha yet, and have only seen 1 of the earliest videos available, so I haven't seen much to make me thing it will be anything than another doom game (though I do enjoy doom/doom2 more than the quake series, so i'm hoping doom3 will blow me away) you can blame all those devs who pop on the net and hype games up only to have those games be complete garbage when released, so i don't trust anything anyone says until i've had a chance to at least play a demo or the final product) I didn't necessarily mean that modern games renounce gameplay in favor of graphics (if thats what i said, it's not what i meant) often it seems as if the gameplay takes a lower priority in development than such things as graphics, complexity, etc. I don't think simplicity or complexity are really the issue, as both can be good or bad, sometimes the game is made too simple (say, evil dead: a fistful of boomstick) or too complex (final fantasy 9's weapon/armor system, which fairly necessary to get through the game, but rather obnoxious) I am not a casual gamer, however I do want the time I spend playing games to be enjoyable. I find that the games I enjoy most tend to be simple in concept, but draw you in and challenge you as you progress. (half-life, tony hawk, metroid, ssbm, etc) I hope I explained myself a bit better, but given that I just got out of bed, probably not ;)

  9. Red Rag at a Bull.... by fatboyslack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is what posting one of these articles is like.

    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 ;)

    --
    Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
    1. Re:Red Rag at a Bull.... by qwak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think storyline is as important as gameplay, I enjoy a good "kiddie game" just as much as a more "adult themed game". It all depends on how good the gameplay is, IMO a higher proportion of early games were enjoyable than many modern games, I think this is because developers of early games had to focus more on gameplay to keep a player hooked than on story/graphics/etc. FFVII and later are a good example of this, generally not to challenging, and rehashed gameplay, but for many people great storylines (even if semi-rehashed) and great artwork. I suppose the entire discussion of retro vs. modern in terms of games is rather inane. A good game is a good game, gameplay i think is most important, but even if the gameplay is nothing new or not too impressive as long as it is enjoyable is all that really matters. the gameplay in half-life wasnt anything new or special, but they way they worked the story into it was, and that made for a more enjoyable experience than say quake. The final fantasy series as of late are typically interactive movies, but they do a great job of drawing the player into the story that's being told. I think the amount of adult oriented games on the market now stems from people that got hooked on games in the 80's/early 90's are often now the ones making games, hence they cater more to themselves and their peers in terms of what kinds of games they want to play. sorry for the fairly fragmented ideas, i'm getting ready for bed.

    2. Re:Red Rag at a Bull.... by jafuser · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Very simple...

      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.

      --
      Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
  10. The cell phone connection by Go+Aptran · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I wonder how much of this is due to the reappearance of old classic arcade games on cell phones? The games that I download on my sprint phone wouldn't have been out of place in an arcade in the 80's.

    --

    "Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."

    1. Re:The cell phone connection by TPIRman · · Score: 1

      Good point -- and you're not the only one to make the cell phone connection.

  11. My spin by billcopc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Old games were simple but fun. Instead of being wowed by the 'realism', you could just say "this orange blob has to eat this yellow dot without touching the red fuzzies". Imagination and curiosity were key elements of gaming. So they made tons of remakes of PacMan, Tetris, Arkanoid.. you know what ? They all suck, why ? because the remakes have more emphasis on glitter than gameplay. Ever tried Arkanoid 2000 ? It's crap. It's the same game yes, but it doesn't feel right. And no one in their right mind would contest the Gameboy version of Tetris as being the best ever.

    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.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  12. Finally by M3wThr33 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's good to see other people appreciating design over visual output.

    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.

  13. Spoiled kids, back in my day we had wooden pixels! by wynterwynd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can appreciate the simpler times and the games of yore, I had a 2600. But I don't hold to the opinion that these games were somehow more fun or more "pure". As I remember there were several really good games and a whole lot of crappy ones, much like today. There were the River Raids and the Pitfalls, and then there were the ETs or the Plaque Attacks (real game, very sad). It was and still is all about the gameplay.

    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

    --
    "Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
  14. Retro != Good by matlokheed · · Score: 1

    "Gurudata has acquired 29 systems of similar vintage: The Atari 1200, 2600, 5200 and Jaguar. Colecovision. And he's got plenty of company"

    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 movie that was released the same day. /sarcasm

    Really. As for the resurgence of classic gaming, I'm not even sure I buy things up until that point. The point is that gaming is gradually becoming more acceptable. It's not that all Atari games are fun. Many (most?) are fairly sucktacular. The good ones were great because they were fun and simple. My mom will never sit down for Final Fantasy *. She'll never even sit down and play Super Mario Bros, a game that's extremely simple in comparison.

    Most non-gamers don't have a lot of disposable time to spend on games. How long is a good modern game? Several hours. How long will the average person play most games? 10-15 minutes. Have you ever played Pac-Man for 15 minutes? It feels like a lifetime because the game is very simple and fast-paced.

    The other part is that the old games don't have endings and that is very enticing to the casual gamer. No storyline. No sense of time. That's good for them because they don't have to remember anything from time to time. Try a few hours of any Zelda and come back a month later and see how lost you are. Now try to do the same thing with Tetris or Q-Bert.

    It's not that classic games were so great. It's that the constraints on them made it hard to build complexity into them so by default they were simple. There are a lot more casual gamers out there than hard-core ones and they like their simple Pac Men, Solitaires, and Tetrises.

    Nothing to see here. Move along.

    --

    "If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates." -Willy Wonka

    1. Re:Retro != Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hiho,

      Andrew Gurudata here - the person interviewed for that article. Just wanted to say that you're dead on re: the odd inclusion of the Jaguar in that list. Not sure what he was thinking in including that.

      But it doesn't amuse me as much as his inclusion of "1200" in that list. I don't own anything called an Atari 1200, and if I did, it wouldn't be a game system anyway, so why mention it?

      Cu,
      Andrew
      guru@vex.net

  15. Talk about complexity by mnmn · · Score: 1


    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 two players to play over a network but I havent seen good latencies with those.

    There are also those 'abandonware' old PC games, for which people really need hardware soundblaster emulation, or an ISA creative card. The software emulation just doesnt work. Its sad to see companies not making and selling these games anymore yet theyre still illegal to copy. Theres just no way for an obsessed gamer to get one legally.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  16. My experiance by Derkec · · Score: 2, Interesting
    My fiance says she lost interest in gaming when things went 3d. It's just too hard for her to visualize and control. I pretty much just thought of her as someone who didn't play any games until we went on a trip and played Pac-Man at the hotel arcade for hours on end. It was a total blast. I picked up Namco's classic game pack for the Cube and although she doesn't game nearly as much as I do, she's able to share in one of my hobbies.


    Now only if i can convice her to like Soul Calibur...

  17. DEGENATRON - The arcade comes to your living room! by danila · · Score: 1

    DEGENATRON*
    The arcade comes to your living room!
    Only without the creepy guys offering to show you puppies

    PLAYS THREE EXCITING GAMES!!!

    • DEFENDER OF THE FAITH - "Save the green dots with your fantastic flying red square!"
    • MONKEY'S PARADISE - "Swing from green dot to green dot with your red square monkey!"
    • PENETRATOR - "Smash the green dots deep inside the mysterious red square!"

    Degenatron on the Web - www.degenatron.com

    * - of course, as featured in this classic 80s-style game.
    --
    Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  18. Old games rock by Hugh+Lilly · · Score: 1

    Yeah old games rock.

    I've just got an old Toshiba laptop real cheap and it came win DOS. I've been replaying all sortos of old games from dosgamesarchive 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. :)

  19. Re:Spoiled kids, back in my day we had wooden pixe by know_gnus · · Score: 1

    About a month or so ago, my fiancee's parents got a 40-in flat screen. My future mother-in-law jokingly suggested that we pull out the old Atari and see if it would work on the brand-new set.

    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.