Posted: 4/30/2005 7:30 PM
Post subject: Game Quality and Nostalgia
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Ramzi
Joined: 3/25/2004
Posts: 459
I had a thought today, as I drove past my old house and felt nostalgia. I played video games as a kid. The Mario's. And they were fun. And I still play them today. So when a new game comes out, that I might not like, I might say, "Classic video games were just better." I might try to justify my statement somehow, like, "They had to focus on gameplay because they graphics weren't great enough." Now I'm thinking, maybe if a kid grew up playing Mario Sunshine, he would like it in the same way I like Mario 3. Do you think we measure how good a classic game is based upon (more or less) objective criteria, or do you think a large part of how we rate a classic game is based upon our emotions and memories?
Posted: 4/30/2005 7:43 PM
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slash_star_dash
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Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 518
its emotions for me... every game usually gets tied to a moment in time with me (Oil Ocean in Sonic 2 always reminds me of Soundgarden's Pretty Noose intro and vice versa; Shadowman's Lavaducts reminds me of Guns N Roses rendition of Ain't it Fun; Paper Mario reminds me of that cold and comfy apartment i lived in for a bit... and Degrassi... and watching my hair fall out... and now i dont like Paper Mario as much :(). sorry for going off track, but i felt it best to cite examples... As far as growing up with different games (better graphics as you pointed out), im not sure... i mean, i can enjoy playing flash games just as much as running around Unreal Tournament (which is oddly what ive done all day).
Posted: 4/30/2005 7:51 PM
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nifboy
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Joined: 5/31/2004
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I think the correct answer to any question like this is always "Both." There were a lot of things (both gameplay and graphics) that we were willing to put up with in the early days that now seem like sloppy programming.
Posted: 4/30/2005 7:52 PM
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Bob_Whoops
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Joined: 3/19/2004
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Location: USA
I think it's rather objective. Being pretty young, my first real system was the Nintendo 64 (though I did have a Sega Genesis, but I didn't play that much). Still, I would take SMB3 over Sunshine any day.
Posted: 4/30/2005 7:58 PM
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nesrocks
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My passion for older games started becasue of nostalgia, but i aprreciate new and old games, even if i had never even heard about them, as long as they are good games. I think that people who dont have a nostalgia feeling from older games are less likely to have an open mind to accept them as being good. The usual thought is: old game= bad
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Posted: 5/1/2005 3:03 AM
(Edited: 5/1/2005 5:50 AM)
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Ferret_Warlord
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^ And the thinking new game=bad (which I have seen) is equally close minded and born of nostalgia. I think the statement, "They didn't need awesome graphics back then," is a blurring of the past, if not a lie. Even back then, they had to push awesome graphics to be noticed. Heck, "excellent graphics" were the introduction to The Legend of Zelda's ad campaign ("Woah! Nice graphics!"). Every generation has had to rely upon technical superiority; simply because the bar is being raised doesn't mean the focus was any less than it was a decade ago. That being said, I find it hard to appreciate pre-Nintendo video games. Why? Because of the never-ending style of 99% of them. I like my games to finish, thank you.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 5/1/2005 3:08 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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But a never-ending game gives you infinite opportunity to get a bigger score to send in to Twin Galaxies!! ____________________________________
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 5/1/2005 3:18 AM
(Edited: 5/1/2005 4:19 AM)
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nesrocks
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Never ending games dont bother me. As long as they actually get hard at some point.
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Posted: 5/1/2005 3:19 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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But then they might get hard enough that you can't keep playing... So they aren't as never-ending...
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 5/1/2005 5:00 AM
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feitclub
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Joined: 3/13/2004
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Location: Kansai, JAPAN
I often wrestle with this question, because I don't love video games nearly as much as I used to. As one of the older users here, I may have a slightly different perspective as my childhood gaming experience began with the positively primitive Atari. Yeah, I owned a copy of E.T. and I played it constantly. I envied my friends who had Colecovision because, well, the graphics were far superior. Whether those games were actually better than my Atari games, I can't say. That was twenty years ago, after all. I can honestly say that the strongest draw of each new system, be it NES, Playstation, or Dreamcast, was always the graphics. These days, all the systems offer visuals beyond my wildest childhood dreams. So why don't I play games all night anymore? I don't know.
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Posted: 5/1/2005 2:45 PM
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nesrocks
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I dont own any new videogame because: #1: its super damn expensive here in Brazil, i'd rather have major upgrades on my PC like putting 2 more GB of ram #2: playstation failed me and that was part of the reason i searched for older games.
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Posted: 5/1/2005 3:09 PM
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Zoizite
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Joined: 7/12/2004
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Location: Dirty South, USA.
I can't put my finger on it either, really. I'm sure a lot of it is probably nostalgia. Much has changed over the years, but I think the biggest thing to change gaming on the whole is the change from 2-D to 3-D. Although 3-D games have come quite a ways since the earlier days, I still find 2-D games easier to control and navigate. It's probably just a personal preference, though. Even with the newer games I prefer 2-D (MZM vs Prime for example).
If for honesty, you want apologies, I don't sympathize.
Posted: 5/2/2005 1:20 AM
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quietkane
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I think Nostalgia and emotions may have an impact on an individual's opinion of a certain few games, but any real gamer (and my definition of that is too complex to go into without going seriously off-topic) can appreciate old games that they've never played, in some cases moreso than newer games. Super Mario Bros, for example, strikes a chord with a lot of people because it was their first video game. It was not mine, and therefore it doesn't intrigue me much. Super Mario Bros. 3, however, was simply an excellently done game and is therefore considered "the best" by a much larger group of people. (Myself included.) (And I do believe the GBA version is superior to the NES version. Same game, better graphics. Can't go wrong.) We've also seen technology inhibit some games/series, most notably the Castlevania series. Castlevania 64 sucked because it didn't follow the formula. It just wasn't a real platformer. Symphony of the Night was great, because it was basically a longer, prettier, slightly more complex version of Castlevania II. And all the GBA Castlevania games are considered good by fans of the series, whereas Lament of Innocence is just another PS2 game because it's too high-tech. People don't want to play 3D Castlevania games. (Megaman X7&8 have also suffered from this. Cell-shaded is just not right for Megaman, and the sales show it.) Will today's kids feel the same about Mario Sunshine as we do about SMB3? Absolutely not, but they will feel that way about Metal Gear Solid.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 5/2/2005 2:44 PM
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Cazlab
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 551
Location: Karlstad, Sweden
Ferret Warlord wrote:
^ And the thinking new game=bad (which I have seen) is equally close minded and born of nostalgia. I think the statement, "They didn't need awesome graphics back then," is a blurring of the past, if not a lie. Even back then, they had to push awesome graphics to be noticed. Heck, "excellent graphics" were the introduction to The Legend of Zelda's ad campaign ("Woah! Nice graphics!"). Every generation has had to rely upon technical superiority; simply because the bar is being raised doesn't mean the focus was any less than it was a decade ago. That being said, I find it hard to appreciate pre-Nintendo video games. Why? Because of the never-ending style of 99% of them. I like my games to finish, thank you.
Omg! That retrojunk site f*cking owns!! Thanks :DD
Posted: 5/2/2005 7:50 PM
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MahaTmA
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 185
Location: Denmark
Ah yes, nostalgia. A theme I might not be qualified to talk about as I'm only verging on my 18th birthday, but I'll have a go anyway. Bulletin style. - I played the classics in day-care and pre-kindergarden (4-5 kids getting babysitted at some farm.), in that, I'm referring to Snake, TMNT, Mario 3 and not much else. I always envied my big sis for going above 20 "apples" ( @ on our old old something PC-like abomination which my dad brought home from work - state of the art with a 512 kB HD and 16 kB of ram - wow! It even had a 12" yellow/black screen!) The NES was at my pre-school care farm. - In afterschool I was first introduced to the C64. A machine on which I utterly pwned all resistance in this neat little ninja 1on1 fighting game it had. Even took a lowly 2 minutes to load! Great 4 (or was it 8) bit graphics caressed my eyes. - A little later, I got my hands on a SNES in the same after-school club together with a revisit of the NES. Played a lot of different games, even though consoles weren't made for me. 8 bit full-colour dream machines. - Ahh, the wonders of our first PC, with 133 mHz, 128 mB of ram and a 10 gig HD. Cost my dad ~ 2000$ back in 1995, but it ran age of empires smoothly, which pleased me. And every friend I brought home. On 2d vs 3d: I really find 2D controls way more intuitive than 3d controls in many aspects, especially RTS games, as it's much easier to remain in overview if you only have to look for certain colours instead of constantly adding the layer of lighting, movement etc. 3D also causes a lot of high-paced action to be lost. I still remember the 3d levels in sonic levels making me scream "Get on with it!" to my comp, as I was used to the usual action. A lot of things have been lost in 2d->3d, but the addition of first person controls is still something to marvel at, as most of these games give a much more immersed game than any 2D platformer did in the past (I dare to mention HL2 in this respect.). On graphics vs gameplay: Not all games are as bleak as you percieve them. A most recent example in the PC world (Which is where I mostly reside) is Rome: TW. It's graphics are by no means on-par with most other games, but it still scores for having a well-planned and thought-out singleplayer element. Gameplay is high on this one. I'd say every period has its own good and bad games, both graphics-wise and gameplay-wise, but these two do not necessarily have to match up. For every instance of %New and %Old : New != Bad New != Good Old != Good Old != Bad
"We observe the behaviour of simple folk, and derive pleasure from their defects." -Aristotle - Book of Humour
Posted: 5/12/2005 11:54 AM
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VirtualAlex
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 464
Location: Minnesota
Fietclub brings up and interesting point... Kid Icarus is a game I played alot of when I was a kid. I remember it coming in the mail, and playing it. I playing it SO much. I never ever beat it I always got stuck on castle three with that goddamn 20 second loop of creepy maze music which has been burned into my mind so badly that it's the only tune I ever hum TO THIS DAY. I would play that game for 8-9 hours, often starting over again and getting to castle 3 again thinking maybe I missed something (you know, it never actually occured to me to map the castle out...) I downloaded the game on an emulator a year or so ago, and beat it in a day. Talk about a let down. I had a great time, and it was fun to see the eggplant wizards again but I was ready to take 3 days out of my life! I had no idea that castle three was almost the end of the game. All you need is a peice of paper to map it out. Anyway this isn't even my point. My point is that now I don't play any game for more than 1-2 hours and rarely even that long. Usually I play a game until I lose, die or whatever and then I go do something else. When I was a kid I would have Nintendo time, I would play one game until I got frustrated and then another. Ninja Gaiden, Halo 1 and Prince of Persia Sand of Time are the only new games I have had the conviction to beat, everything else just kinda... I lose interest in. Maybe I am just getting picky. It seems to take alot more to impress me now.
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Posted: 5/12/2005 2:53 PM
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nesrocks
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Its not as fun to play on an emulator looking at a pc screen. If you lose a life you lose interest in the game. I have played ghosts'n Goblins at my friends house and it took me literaly 50 lives or so to beat the last level. On both times. But we were there TO PLAY, we had nothing else in mind, so i was having fun at the 50th life lost because it was so hard and i was almost beating it. Now, when i play at home, unless i put it on the TV on the living room, with a controller, put full screen and sit back i nthe couch, i will never have the energy to keep trying the same level several times.
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Posted: 5/12/2005 3:02 PM
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Bisqwit
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I agree with Foda's observation. But I'm not sure whether it's actually caused by aging.
Posted: 5/12/2005 6:25 PM
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Zoizite
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I can agree with FODA as well. There's something about playing on an emu that just doesn't keep me interested. When I put a game in my NES/PS2, I can usually play for a few hours. When using an emu, I find it VERY hard not to abuse savestates. Time attacking has got me in that habit, and it's hard to break. It's not as fun if I can undo all those deaths. I still play mainly by emu because I don't have a TV in my room, and it's a miracle if I can get some of my NES games to actually work, not to mention any battery games (zelda, ff) won't save anymore.
If for honesty, you want apologies, I don't sympathize.
Posted: 5/13/2005 9:01 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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If you can't undo your mistakes, then it actually forces you to get better at the game. Assuming you don't get frustrated and give up completely... :)
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 5/13/2005 2:29 PM
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xebra
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
My battery games still have all their old saves, I wonder why yours haven't lasted as long, Zoizite? (And I also really wonder why Nintendo didn't use rechargeable batteries.)
Posted: 5/13/2005 3:54 PM
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Truncated
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Arcade TAS of 2023 Sega TASer of 2021 Sega TAS of 2021
Guess: because rechargeable batteries became economically feasible in the early 90-ties, and the final fantasy and zelda games were relased in the late 80-ies.
Posted: 5/13/2005 10:08 PM
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xebra
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
Good guess, but no cigar. Rechargeable battery technology is over 150 years old. The technology behind the most popular type of rechargeables, nickel-cadmium, was invented in 1899 and has remained virtually unchanged since 1947. Despite the fact the Ni-Cd batteries are not generally suitable for applications with shallow discharge cycles, the power requirements of a NES cartridge are so minimal that even a Ni-Cd functioning at 1% capacity would doubtless be sufficient. It's true, though, that the much better Li-Ion reachargeables weren't commercially available until 1988, while Zelda came out in 1986.
Posted: 5/14/2005 6:21 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Well... They didn't think of that, Mr. Smarty.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 5/14/2005 2:49 PM
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nesrocks
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I have been told that you should use the cartridges that have batteries once in a while so that the battery doesnt wear off. So maybe its recharged, dunno. Anyway, a rechargeable battery is more expensive than a normal one.
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