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If Next-Gen Is Too Pricey Go Retro
Via RetroGaming with Racketboy, a story in the San Francisco Chronicle suggesting that you go retro if the new consoles are too expensive. They single out the (still excellent) Sega Dreamcast console as the best buy for your money vs. enjoyment. The folks at SF Gate also mention several other older games and consoles that will allow modern gamers their fun without breaking the bank. From the article: "Scenario 4: I'm poorer than any of the characters from 'Angela's Ashes' but not quite as poor as Jim Braddock's family when the heat got shut off in 'Cinderella Man.' (I pulled this newspaper out of the recycling bin at BART.): You've presented a challenge, but not an impossible one. I saw a copy of the PC game Grim Fandango, a complete masterpiece that most people never played, for $6 on eBay. Since it came out in 1998, you can probably find an abandoned computer on the curb that will play it. You'll be experiencing about 98.5 percent of the fun that the Getty heir who bought the PS3 is having, at about 1 percent of the price. "
Believe me...anyone playing Grim Fandango is having a great deal more fun than someone playing anything currently available for the PS3.
Have you ever actually used a Dreamcast emulator? There are always sprites that don't render, polygons which are the wrong color, games which don't load, graphics which were meant to be viewed on the relatively blurry TV looking terrible on a computer screen, etc.
Also the computers required to run an emulator with any sort of speed will always be more expensive than the console, unless you're talking about an antique console which you can no longer find. That kind of defeats the object of trying to be cheap; who doesn't have the money to buy a modern console but does have the money to buy a PC which can emulate one?
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There is a mammoth amount of games out right now for the PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox 1.
If you (like I) am a nostalgia style gamer there's so much fun to be had.
Graphics and online aren't everything, for those of us who enjoy a good single player experience with a good storyline - graphics help but aren't the be all and end all.
I could go into naming all the games but I don't see much point, it's opinion which counts - the fact is the PS2 and Xbox are cheap, a PC which will run games from 1985 (yes 85) to 2000 is dirt cheap and that's 15 years of gaming right there.
Now, some of it is despicably bad and just unplayable (example, X-Wing 1, fantastic game but I re-tried it recently and sorry but 320x200 is no good - it's just TOO blocky, specially on the big screens we all own now)
However Monkey Island 1, Loom, even the 256 colour version of Zak McCracken are all perfectly good games despite being dead old.
There's No one Lives forever a nice FPS with, frankly a fucking great storyline - awesome camp humour and good gameplay - it's seriously like they packed about 15 bond movies into one game.
The PS1 games will work on the PS2 and well the Xbox may have the least games for it but it can be used for NES / SNES / other old console emulation and a media centre (plus KOTOR, Fable, Psychonauts, Beyond good and Evil, Jade Empire)
I for one intend to finish Wing Commander 3 soon - it's a great game also and yet any old crappy PC can run it now.
I would recommend people go to Metacritic and pull up their listing of top games on the platforms - then pick and chose what you like.
Also be sure to get a modified PS2 or Xbox and load the games to the hard disk, if you've purchased a second hand unit of either the laser assembly could be somewhat worn and the faster load times are the ONLY way to play games in my opinion, screw noisy, slow, seeking discs
Here's the blog of a chap I know who focuses primarily on older games for the cheap price.
(excellent game on the main page at the moment too)
http://roushimsx.livejournal.com/
Oh and the final good bulletpoint for you guys, the PS3, Xbox 360 and even the Wii will ALL still be there after you submerse yourself in a land of nostalgia for 6 months - only there will be MORE games, and CHEAPER games plus the systems could be cheaper too.
Personally, I'm hoping to hold out a good 12 - > 18 months.
Good luck.
Or so you've been told. Reality is that no, it's not so advanced and PS2 games can actually hold their own in gameplay with Motorstorm. I have no scientific facts or such to back that up, of course, but I didn't see any in the above post either. Yet by simply playing the game and comparing it to similar games on the PS2, and even the Dreamcast, there's not much difference in any physics. Nothing noticeable, anyway, since if it's true that there is more physics stuff going on, I sure didn't experience it.
It's basically everyone being told that these expensive, shiny new systems are superior in every way, and people see the shiny graphics, drool, and believe every word of it. People want to believe what they are told, and especially those who buy these systems defend the price they paid for it in their minds by fooling themselves into believing it will do everything including curing cancer, and do it better. Sure, the PS3 and the XBox 360 are a bit more powerful than their predecessors. The issue is whether they are significantly more powerful so that games for them are truly next-gen. And in general, except for the graphics, they're really not. And graphics, sorry to say, are not the most important part of a game. If you like pretty graphics and stuff exploding, go watch a movie, go outside, or whatever.
On topic, it amazes me how we march forward into the next generation of gaming and are so willing to pay so much money to be entertained in the same way that we have been entertained by consoles in the past. Given that there are so many good games available for past consoles that you haven't played (unless you are just a hardcore, no-life-outside-of-games gamer that has literally played it all), it's hard to imagine the need for a new console generation. The same, unfortunately, can be said about other entertainment media, especially film which is suffering from the same style-over-substance problem that gaming has, so it is not just gaming that is at issue here. Just like many modern film fans who love the latest SFX-filled action yawner and turn their noses up at old black-and-white cinema classics, new gamers that drool over graphics and won't give old games a second look are shallow people who do not care about the substance of the medium.
It's sad, really.
Right now, I'm replaying (actually re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-replaying) The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past for SNES and loving it. Old Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 (granted, only a few 2600 games are compelling enough to get regular play, but there are a few of them) games get regular play. I even played through Zork 1 recently. All of these are gaming experiences lost on the latest generation of gamers whose gaming snobbery prevent them from even looking twice at a game without shiny new 3d graphics.
Their loss.
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