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Don't Go Down Memory Lane?
fieldsofclover writes "Gamers With Jobs is running a piece today about the darker side of gaming nostalgia. From the article: 'Here's an example. Konami's Castlevania had interesting monsters, catchy music, and a great gimmick: a guy with a whip. But if you went back and played it today, chances are you wouldn't bother playing past the second level. Why are the newest games in the series so drastically different from the original? The answer is because gamers demand more from their hobby now, and there's just not a lot of meat on those old bones. But when the fully 3D, story-driven sequel fails, they point at the original on its lofty pedestal and demand an experience that lives up to their memories. It's a double standard that's next to impossible to satisfy.' Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by staying obsessed with the old classics?"
Super Mario Bros is still lots of fun, I don't care what you say.
It's time we put away the Conkers and Contras and Castlevanias of our past and focus on the games we have yet to dream of
This message should be for video game developers, not video game consumers. Developers definitely need to get their heads out of their @sses and start dreaming up new, creative ideas instead of just taking the easy way out with throwbacks. Consumers on the other hand have little impact on what games are being developed, and therefore consumers can do whatever they want. If they want throwbacks or if they want brand new fresh ideas, no biggy. But the writer of this article needs to direct his ranting towards the appropriate people.
My gaming experience maybe jaded by my memories (I can't enjoy half-life 1 quite the same way anymore) and tunnel vision might obstruct my modern game view (New Super Mario Bros. was good, but It could have been so much more,)but they haven't discouraged my number one reason for buying the Wii...Fun new games with their classic predicessors all in one system.
Demented But Determined.
For some of us, gaming past isn't "looking back on things and remembering them."
While it's true some people do just look back on it and remember things as better than they were, and that's their issue, it's not the case for everyone.
Some of us still play those games you know.
Those "old bones" have a tendency to still have similarly excellent gameplay as the newer generation (and are usually far more challenging to boot!). When will we realize that gameplay isn't all bells and whistles?
Why put out new stuff when you make extremely minor changes and call it a new game? EA proved that business model to be a successful one, and everyone else has followed.
From a business standpoint, it makes sense -- why take a risk when you don't have to?
From a consumer standpoint, it sucks. Eventually enough consumers will quit buying SUPER-COOL-GAME-2,3,4....x and force a shift in the market. Until that happens, enjoy Madden 2007, 2008, 2009, etc and FinalFantasy-WHATEVER because its not going to change.
Haha. It bugs me when people talk like you do. Surely you don't really believe that every new game is utter crap, or indeed that every older game is fantastic? There were just as many absolutely terrible games back then as there are now. You've just conveniently forgotten about them.
Truth is, newer installments of classic games can be as good as ever, but they will never live up to the memories that gamers have developped for their classic, personal favorites.
I'm actually going back now and replaying quite a few of my older games, just because they're more entertaining than a lot of the current games. Castlevania? Played through it completely again a few months ago. Right now, I'm working on the first Might and Magic, and about to start on some of the Ultima games.
Ditto. I don't regularly play these games, the challenge factor isn't there as much, but every so often I'll fire up the ol' emulator and break out the classics... Mega Man series (esp. 2), SMB3, dragon warrior 1-4, contra, zelda...
Sorry, they're still fun for me. Maybe Conker just sucks as a game? Haven't played it myself, but I don't see many people pining over the days of Conker... On the other hand, Zelda, FF series... those always have replay value.
sure the old games have been done to death by now, but for the most part the good games from back in the day were pioneering things. Though, it should be said that for the most parts the major driving force behind the remake is the nostalgia factor. I mean, look at NARC. The remake was absolutely horrible because they spent more time saying "Remember how you liked play NARC back in the day? Guess what, It's back! and SHINEY TOO!!!" when they should have been making a game where blast druggies with missiles.
It's not that we crap on game remakes because they don't take us back to 1989, we crap on them because they are absolute garbage that try to change too many things from the gameplay that made it classic in the first place. I mean, my brother just picked up a copy of "Space Raiders" for the gamecube for $10, it hardly changes the gameplay of the original space invaders, and then updates the graphics, but the core game mech stays exactly the same.
If you try to change too much, you alienate the memories we had of the original. If you change too little, you get the same game over again, which may or may not be what the consumers want. I don't know about anyone else, but my fond memories of Ninja Gaiden were rekindled when the new one came out. It gave shiney graphics, slick controls, was still hard as granite, but it didn't alienate the gamers. I think you can mainly credit this to the fact that tecmo actually tried to make a new game out, not just advertise the hell out of a poorly designed potential cashcow.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
On top of it all, New Super Mario Bros. just got released and is doing quite well. This is a perfect example of classic gameplay in a successful contemporary game. Maybe developers just shouldn't waste so much time on production values, but should just concentrate on gameplay and level variety.
Twinstiq, game news
Just look at Metroid, Mario, Metal Gear, Castlevania (SotN and gameboy), Zelda, Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy... Fans and newcomers alike hated the more recent installments, right? Right?
No, it's not hard to involve the themes, maybe part of the storyline, and the major gameplay elements from the original game into an entirely new engine. But it does make a convenient scapegoat if you're a developer whose games are failing or a pundit firing off the first story idea that came to his mind.
I think the thing that was most enjoyable about the 'old' games, was that they always pushed the edge. One of my favorites was Ultima 7. The game play was very simple and consistent, but provided a ton of freedom. Once I beat the game, I spent a long time playing with the editor(cheat) mode, building castles out of gold bricks, making Lord british join my party and such. Wolfenstien, DOOM and Quake were much the same game, but all of them made huge leaps in gameplay. Then you had merging between MUDs, FPSs and Strategy(Ultima Online, Starcraft, etc...). The mixing of genres in a simple consistent way pushed the edge again. After that I started to grow up and found myself more interested in being social, so I'm not really up to date on how more modern games push the edge. However, I wonder what ideas slashdotters have for pushing the edge of gameplay.
There were some games we played because we had nothing better.
Then there were games we played because they were fucking awesome.
I play Asteroids, Puzzle Bobble, and Galaga regularly. I will fire up an NES for Punch-Out, Duck Hunt, or Mario. I doubt anyone in their right mind would slight Street Fighter II or Metal Slug.
Games like Castlevania, Resident Evil, and even Zelda were more promise than game in their first iteration. They were landmark games for their time, but if you were honest with yourself when you first played them, you knew that those games needed more power. The developers were making do with what they had, but they were coding for future systems. Those type of games don't age well.
What's the point of hypothesizing about "if", when emulators are cheap and plentiful? If you think that Castlevania 1 was better than it's latest sequel, go play it. Nobody's going to pick on you for not keeping up with the times.
Sometimes I find out that I just had low expectations when I was young. (e.g. Dragon Warrior 1, Final Fantasy 1, Paperboy)
Sometimes I find out that games which were good have nevertheless been surpassed by better alternatives or sequels. (e.g. Zelda 1, Mario Kart 1, Duke Nukem 3D).
And sometimes, the old games are fondly remembered because they were really, really good. Star Control 2, Deus Ex 1, and the Baldur's Gate series are each 5 or 10 years old, but (despite playing Starcon 3, Deus Ex 2, Neverwinter Nights, and lots of similar games from the same genres) I still haven't found any similar-but-better games to replace any of them. Judging by sales, there are a lot of people that feel the same way about Starcraft and Half Life 1. We don't all have some retro-gaming fetish, we just know what we like and know how rare it can be.
Maybe what is really missing is your imagination??
I was addicted to Legend of the Red Dragon in high school. A friend of a friend got a copy of LoGreenD running on his server last year, and I had a blast on it until Katrina took his computer away. It looked just as good as ever!
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Most developers would love to do something creative with the paltry time and money their publishers give them.
But the publishers see only one thing: the bottom line. They are firmly convinced that making a guaranteed mediocre profit is better than taking a risk and possibly hitting the big time with a new, creative, fun idea.
This is precisely the same problem with Star Wars: Episode One. It is impossible to live up to the memory of seeing Star Wars for the first time, especially when the first time you saw it you were seven.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Indeed, I think the article is totally off. I've been playing Earthbound obsessively for the past few weeks. It's fantastic. Mario RPG, Yoshi's Island, and Donkey Kong Country 1+2 are next. Then again, I'm not really your typical XBox gamer (my last console was an N64. My next will be a Wii), so maybe this only holds true for people like me.
What a horrible article. A roommate comes back with a Conker title which he probably only really enjoyed because of the crude humor (which he has since grown out of) and suddenly all nostalgia gaming is doomed.
Go back to the true classics and then tell me that I shouldn't be nostalgic. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Mario Brothers, Pengo, Bump-n-Jump... All fantastic games which are still fun to play today.
It's the gameplay, stupid.
When's the last time we had a decent turn-based strategy game?
Nintendo's Advance Wars and Fire Emblem series-- available for the GBA, Nintendo DS, Gamecube, and soon the Wii-- are fantastic turn-based strategy games.
Sure, there were terrible games 15 years ago, but the shear number of bad games today is the difference.
I disagree - I think it's all perspective. 90% of everything is crap, consistently. It was then, and it is now. But with older games, you're comparing the 10% of non-crap over a long period of time - because that's all you really remember - to the entire volume of current crap/noncrap that you notice on a daily basis. So it seems like there were more good games back then.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Back when the graphics were cheesy 3D lines (Wizardry) and 2D pictures (Bard's Tale), the top down looks (Ultima), or the top down look of Might & Magic, the the companies couldn't rely on "wickedly cool graphics" or "scantily clad heroine" to make a game work. They had to rely on the story in the game to keep you coming back.
The original Wizardry made it feel like you were playing a bit of DnD on your computer, right down to the dungeon crawl. The story wasn't that great, but the gameplay was different from a lot of other games.
Ultima gave us a fantastic story, coupled with 2D first person (and later, 4 person group) graphics to give you a sense of size to the world. You felt like you were going somewhere as the story plot carried you along.
The Bard's Tale was just flat out brilliant. The graphics were cheesy, but the story was strong, and you felt yourself moving around the city advancing the story.
And Might & Magic truly had a lengthy story line, filled with interesting puzzles that kept you going for months.
All of these games went beyond graphics to make you feel immersed. They had original thoughts and ideas, and were successful because of it. Then, the sequels started, and many of them stunk. But the name recogniztion alone made sales happen, and the bottom line is always the almight dollar.
Nowadays, with as much time as people have to put into the graphics, for a one time shot type game with limited extra revenue potential, they skimp on the story, and try to wow you with graphics. Even some MMOs are falling into this model, and don't last long.
I have also wondered why the mega boss always leaves tons of ammo for weapons possible enemies might have sitting outside thier door.
Compared to the 70's where everything was a dime-a-dozen maze game? Or maybe the 80's where everything was a dime-a-dozen platformer? Or the early 90's with their dime-a-dozen beat-em-ups? Or the late 90's with their and dime-a-dozen arcadey first person shooters?
Gaming...gaming never changes. You have the games that define the genre and you have a couple of other worthwhile titles and then you hve the vast amount of crap. Tell me, have you ever tried looking through a complete Atari, NES or SNES ROM collection and picking a game at random to see how it played. Trust me, it's just as much of a crapshoot back then as it is now.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
I've heard these arguments before and in some cases they have truth to them. I could say this about a game like Altered Beast, which when it came out on the Genesis was sold on it's graphics not it's game play. So when the draw was the graphics, and now those graphics are dated, there is no draw.
Not all games get their fun from graphics though. Why is it that every system and cellphone has an Arkanoid type game? Because Arkanoid is fun to play and requires no time commitment. Play and put it down, no logging out or spending hours leveling your chracter.
Castlevania 1, 2, and 3 on the NES were all excellent games because the gameplay was both challenging and rewarding. You kept playing to see what would happen next, what would the next boss look like? And in their own way, the graphics and sound contributed to it.
Sometimes less is more. One of the charming aspects of the old 8 bit games is that the rasterized rendering engines relied on simple block like textures repeated and varied to form the game world. This was cruder than bitmapped graphics but it forced you to use your imagination more. The box art and the user manuals for the game is where the art was. Those told you what the game was supposed to look like.
Any 10 year old can loose themselves in the world of Legend of Zelda with it's water falls and dangerous ascent to mount doom with it's falling boulders, and explore an entire world. And the map that came with the game showed you what that world was really like. So when you played the game you didn't see raster blocks stacked end on end, you saw woods and rivers. And since your mind was filling in so much, the real world, and hence real world realism, could never possibly be as fantastic as the one in your head.
There is no better example of this than reading a good book. You have nothing to go on but your imagination and the words of the author. Any bookworm here can tell you that the movie never lives up to the book. As fantastic as Peter Jacksons movies were, they can never capture the raw fantasy of reading the books themselves.
So rather than be disappointed by playing older games, they remind me of the shortcomings of newer games. As the graphics become more and more realistic, the imagination and fantasy elements took a back burner to the eye candy.
I can't look at a full moon in a clear sky to this day, without remembering the opening cinematics for Ninja Gaiden. And I absolutely lost myself in the world of Castlevania. In particular, Simons Quest was especially fulfilling to play over and over to get the different endings. I wanted to live in that world, and playing the game was the closest I could come to it.
Some people like nice rendering and graphics, they prefer photo realism to impressionism. Some people like Monet and some people just see little paint daubs.
The old games that are worth saving, are still completly viable games that continue to hold my attention and I only wish there were more games that sucked you in so bad that you dreamed about them.
I think you have put your finger on the problem. We remember the great games of the past when we get nostalgic, for the very reason that they have enduring value. Of course a merely average modern game doesn't stack up, even if that game is superior to an average older game.
I play a lot of games via MAME and enjoy them a great deal -- but I don't play every game I can find. I don't want to. Most of them weren't that good. Still, I think TFA overstated the case.
And the brethren went away edified.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
i disable sigs
Hardware pushed to new limits has pretty consistently been what drove games to blockbuster status, with a few exceptions (like say Tetris).
Pong with its VIDEO "ball", centipede with its trackball, Mortal Kombat with photorealistic sprites.