Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

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steer

Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby steer » April 1st, 2009, 8:04 am

This is all true. But there was a certain charm to the old games that is really lacking in today's gaming. Even with the Nintendo Wii

I don't agree.

Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy, Wii FIt, Bit Trip, Orbient, Mario Kart Wii, Endless Ocean, Mega Man 9, World of Goo - those games charmed me big time, made me smile, lots of fun, sound game design, great control, etc, etc.

And I could name a list of GC and N64 games that charmed me as well.

Look at all the things we will never have to go back to :

-Mode 7, that was horrible.

-N64 graphics look a lot better on Wii, but look at something simplistic like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, how great and iconic THEY look. PS1 3-d visuals, need I say more?

-Look at how big of a pain in the butt the NES is for getting carts to work - now you can have many many many NES classic on ONE sd card, and have plenty of room, and load of games from Master system or Genesis, or whatever off of one screen....

-Indie game developers have huge opportunities with a very committed audience on 3 home console online services, and they are takind advantage of that big time. Did they not have to preorder 100,000's of carts on the NES from Nintendo? THink how much easier it is today.

Critic, you talk about time, and I understand that. But maybe you are playing the wrong games? Imagine if you had reviewed 10 less disc games for Wii - (especially the games that anyone could see would be crap or generic at best) - and had spent that time downloading and reviewing 10 Wiiware games.

You would have had MORE time, been able to write very concise reviews for very concise games, and had really enjoyed yourself.  Its all still there, you just have to get it.

BanjoPickles1
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Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby BanjoPickles1 » April 1st, 2009, 1:08 pm

I actually liked mode-7! Lol! To be honest, I still sorta do.

I agree with you, Steer, that today's gaming is every bit as charming as it was "yesteryear." It's not really the games that have changed(though, in a way, they have), but myself really. What I was getting at was the feel of it all. It's sort of like that first girlfriend. My first kiss was a sloppy, slobbery mess in a playground tire castle but it was exciting, new, and I couldn't wait to try it again! Well, fourteen years and a whole lotta miles later and that freshness has worn off. Sure, I still love it and would miss it tremendously if it were to disappear. However, that moment in life that you said yourself that you didn't really have, that living and breathing of video games, is sometimes what I miss. Talking about Nintendo Power in the bathroom at school and at recess, waking up early on Saturday to watch Captain N and play games until the afternoon.

Also, as somebody that has been playing a bit of ps1 lately, you're right....god, those graphics have not aged well at all! Lol!

Anayo1
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Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby Anayo1 » April 1st, 2009, 3:30 pm

To be honest, I think today we have the best of both worlds.

Today you can actually own a Sega AND a Nintendo and twenty games for each without going completely broke.

Plus we've got games with outrageous, 3D-rendered lifelike graphics that I hardly dared to dream might someday be possible.

Why would you want to go back to the old days?


Megavolt

Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby Megavolt » April 1st, 2009, 3:57 pm

Absolutely.  I look into my old game magazines and remember a time when gaming was so much more imaginative.  When it used to fill me with a sense of wonder.  Some people believe that it's not games that have changed, but our ability (as kids turned adults) to enjoy them.  If that's the case, then why do I go back to old games I never played and find myself captivated by them just as much if not more than I do with some of the popular modern games?  Because great game design is not a matter of lighting effects and framerates.  As shiny as many games are today, they're rarely as memorable.  I think it's because many games these days are less about personal vision and creativity.  They're more about catering to the mainstream and maintaining profit margins (which have always been a part of things, but not to the exclusive extent that they are now, what with rising development costs and such).

Steer would think me crazy, but I'd take SMB3 over something like God of War II ANYDAY.  I'm not impressed by the flood of war and crime simulators out there (or the boatload of minigame shovelware on the Wii), and something is very wrong when I walk into a game section and every game seems the same and/or uninteresting.  There's just no middleground anymore.  It's one extreme or the other.  Also, this current gen has been pretty damn RPG starved, which sucks for a longtime fan of the genre like myself.

Of course, the ability to download old games is very cool, but I'm comparing today to back then in terms of original titles.  Otherwise the PC is the ultimate gaming platform and this discussion has no purpose.  It's like comparing PS1 to PS2 and asking which had the better library.  To bring up that PS2 can play all PS1 games kind of defeats the purpose of actually comparing THE GAMES.

Oh yeah, and arcades thrived back in the day as well.  I have a lot of fond memories of going to the arcade with my dad.  Combined with the booming home console market during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, everything was going great for gaming all-around.

BanjoPickles1
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Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby BanjoPickles1 » April 1st, 2009, 4:03 pm

Anayo:

I guess for the sheer simplicity of it all. Here's a short list of reasons why I prefer the old to the new(while, at the same time, still appreciating the new):

-There was one simple truth: gamers and the games they played. There was no multi-media, and nobody complained about the lack of it.:-)

-Going off of the first, it was the simplicity of it. None of my group of friends ever bothered with "hardcore, casual," terms. The most we had back then were "sega vs. nintendo" debates. Now it's casual vs. hardcore vs. sony vs. microsoft vs. nintendo vs. downloadable content vs. retail vs.....argh! Lol!

-The excitement of picking up a new copy of one of those fun-to-read monthly magazines where, at any time flipping through it, you could potentially be shocked by any given game announcement. The puns were awful but endearing, the reviews were a bit too soft at times(why are they praising the game while only giving it a 3.0 out of 5.0?), and some of the tips were either too "duh" for me or too impossible to pull off! There wasn't anything questionable, or even that smartass, in any of the publications. EGM, while remaining one of the better publications on the market, just became flat-out mean in the way they handled their letters! They went from actually being informative to just trying to be as off-putting and ironic as possible. Pass.

Anayo, I guess that I'm one of the few who doesn't see eye-to-eye in regards to the "more is better" philosophy. Things are great today, but sometimes I wish the spirit of the mid-90's was still there. It sounds stupid, I know(I felt stupid TYPING it! Lol!), but I guess it makes sense to me.

Bow

Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby Bow » April 1st, 2009, 4:58 pm

This is a good topic, Banjo. I have to agree with m0zart. A lot of it is probably just nostalgia for the simpler times of childhood.

But at the same time, I'm always amused by how today's racing games never offer enough variety for me, especially in the number of tracks, yet I can always go back to the same five tracks in Road Rash and not get bored. I do the same things over and over in Pirates! Gold and not get bored. I do the same things in Pat Riley Basketball and NBA Jam (just score as many points as humanly possible) and not get bored.

It's about leaving something to the imagination. But it's also about not overwhelming your senses. I think there was a certain monotony to older games that let you get into a sort of relaxed state and just play. Today's games are so visual and require more concentration, especially with all the buttons involved, so your mind isn't as free to wander.

But I probably shouldn't be responding. Most of those older games were exercises in frustration for me, so, with just a few exceptions, I would have to fall into the nostalgia camp.


BanjoPickles1
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Do any of you miss the era where it was "just a kid's toy?"

Postby BanjoPickles1 » April 1st, 2009, 5:20 pm

Thanks, Bow. I think you're onto something there, though!

I remember reading about Twisted Metal 1, in an old Game Players, that was a showcase for the "upcoming playstation!" That was the game that lured me in because I was suddenly obsessed with driving around an actual city! I kept wondering what it would be like: would it be like a virtual reality experience? Would I have to stop and fill up my tank? Would the city be huge? Would it be alive? Would I be able to go out of the city? To my(initial) disappointment, I could literally do none of those things! What was inside was just a fun game where one car blew up the other! Outstanding!

About ten years later, we get San Andreas! Outside of filling up my gas tank, all of those things that I envisioned for Twisted Metal suddenly could happen and be done so well! I loved San Andreas but my enthusiasm waned when it occured to me(like Bow said) that nothing was left to the imagination! It was a living, breathing city with tons of things to do and see. Don't get me wrong, it was so well made and incredibly fun to boot but I got bored with it whereas I didn't get bored with Twisted Metal. It's strange how our own wants and needs can turn on us.;-)

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scotland
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Re: Do any of you miss the era where it was

Postby scotland » November 11th, 2016, 6:42 pm

And old thread from Banjo Pickles, on is something missing from modern gaming, or is that just nostalgia talking?

With the interest in the NES Classic Mini system, it does seem like someone wants old style gaming, easily available, on new style televisions. Is that the best of the old and best of the new?

So is gaming today better, if only because you can still play older games if you want, as well as the best of the new?

Or did gaming have something in the past that has been lost in the internet, to sites like Gamefaqs, all the videos on Youtube, all the AVGN mockery, etc. Has a genie been taken out of the bottle and cannot be put back in, even for playing older games?

What do you think?

matmico399
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Re: Do any of you miss the era where it was

Postby matmico399 » November 11th, 2016, 8:48 pm

I enjoy both retro and modern gaming a lot. But I think I am a bit more retro. In my mind the greatest console ever was the PS2. But to be honest what gen did I truly enjoy the most looking back on it?! Def the 4th gen. My Genesis was so adored by me. Then when I added the Sega Cd I was in gaming heaven. Unreal the excitement I had. Then I got a 32X and that sucked outside of three key games. But I do have one console from every generation except the first and eighth.

Voor
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Re: Do any of you miss the era where it was

Postby Voor » November 11th, 2016, 10:46 pm

I thought video games jumped the shark when they start having preview trailers like big budget movies. Now, we have " professional" who act like they are playing a legitimate sport in tournaments where they can win tons of money. and don't even mention the streamers who make money from people just watching them play games everyday. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Lol


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