Should Gamespot review old games?

[Atarifever1]

The more I read the gamespot reviews of older games, the more certain I am that they need to simply stop reviewing them.  It's like they totally don't understand classic games at all.  It bugged me yo see them give Galaga on the 360 a lower grade than they gave to NASCAR 07, but I put that down to my bias toward Galaga.  However, I've been playing a lot of DK Jr. this week for the 7800 high score club, and I wanted to see what Gamespot had on the game.  They reviewed the Wii VC version and said it was a perfect port of the NES version, which is a really great port of the original game.  However, they gave it a 4.9. 

In particular, here's some stuff they said that really makes me question whether any of them are older than 16. 
[QUOTE=Gamespot]
This is a perfect port of the NES version of Donkey Kong Jr.--all four levels of it.

The Bad: Only four stages to play through; audio and graphics don't hold up well; gameplay is extremely simplistic.

as fun as some of the levels can be, with only four to play through, you're over and done with the game before you know it

 [/QUOTE]
Did anyone tell them that once you rescue Donkey Kong, the game isn't even remotely close to over?  Did the score along the top of the screen mean nothing to them?  I really don't understand how anyone in their right mind wouldn't understand that judging this game on the number of boards isn't a valuable criticism.

[sega saturn x]

I think they shouldn't, just to stop the whining that their reviews always prevoke.

[Adamant1]

They panned the original Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. for the same reasons as well. "Too short, you'll see all there is in a few minutes". I agree that these games should be reviewed, yes, but at least get a guy who respects them for what they are to do it. All three are excellent score-based platformers which are almost universally loved, and Gamespot gets some kid who doesn't even know the concept of the game to review them? No, no, no.
And seriously, what's up with them talking about how you already have Mario Bros. on your GBA carts? The remake included on those carts plays very differently, mostly due to the new control system, and appear more like a sequel than anything.

All three games got fairly good reader reviews as well.

[MappyMousePD]

Of course they should be reviewing them.  They may be classic games, but they're also for sale right now, and a lot of the kids buying them might not know much about them.  If you're upset about the reviews, chances are they weren't even written for you. 

.

[ActRaiser1]

Am I the only one that never really liked Donkey Kong?  I always thought the game was too hard and could never make it very far. 

 

Now, Mario Bros on the other hand was such an awesome arcade game.  I loved that one!

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=ActRaiser]

Am I the only one that never really liked Donkey Kong?  I always thought the game was too hard and could never make it very far. 

 [/QUOTE]
I don't know about it being too hard.  I think it's just difficult enough actually.  Even when you get really good you can't play blindfolded or anything.  I agree that the original Mario Bros. is very awsome.  I don't know which of the arcade Mario trilogy I like the best, so I can't say which I prefer.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=MappyMousePD] They may be classic games, but they're also for sale right now, and a lot of the kids buying them might not know much about them. 
[/QUOTE]
But if the kids today need to be informed, then shouldn't they be told what the point of the game is?  If a review said

"Mappy is a dumb game.  Most levels look really similar, and really, the challange of getting to the bonus stage is really pretty low, and that's the main point.  After that they just throw bells in there, which isn't really much of a switch-up.  There really isn't much point and it doesn't even have bosses."  

wouldn't you question whether they accomplished anything with the review?  Have they enabled people to make a good judgement regarding if they would like the game or not?  That's my point.  They wrote the whole review as though getting to level four was the end of the game.  How could anybody ever want to play the game if they thought that?  Thus, they are not informing people who have never played the game, they are misleading them.

I'm not saying the VC version deserves an A.  It doesn't have leader boards, which would be a simple addition that would make the game a lot more appealing to new players.  However, failing some of the best arcade games of all time just for being score based is pretty stupid.

[m0zart1]

[QUOTE=Atarifever]Did anyone tell them that once you rescue Donkey Kong, the game isn't even remotely close to over?  Did the score along the top of the screen mean nothing to them?  I really don't understand how anyone in their right mind wouldn't understand that judging this game on the number of boards isn't a valuable criticism.

[/QUOTE]

I couldn't agree more.  They actually jumped the Donkey Kong port because it was missing a level.  Then since they couldn't jump the Donkey Kong Jr. port for that reason, they drummed up another.  It really peeved me off!

 

For that matter, they gave the original Legend of Zelda a 7.2.  Gertsmann said somewhere when asked about it that since it was a game on the Wii, the graphics of the original Zelda didn't hold up to Wii standards, even though it was a PERFECT emulation.  That kind of logic makes me wonder what those guys at Gamespot are smoking.

 

Thing is, in some ways I understand why they are doing this.  They are trying to write reviews for the younger crowd -- the ones who might never have played these games.  These guys are used to something a bit more epic than the games most of us grew up with.  They might read a glowing review of the original Donkey Kong, download it with some of their points, and then wish to God they hadn't.

 

These games were not released for that younger crowd.  They were released for those of us who knew them, loved them, and wanted a chance to play them again.  Then again, those of us who knew and loved and want to play them again might only care about one or two things in a review of that kind -- how good is the emulation, and how well does the game control compared to the original?

 

In a lot of ways, I wish Gamespot would allow a dual review system for games of this kind.  Write a review for the classic gamers who loved these games in their youth, and write a review for the modern gamers who might expect something more.  Either that, or just make the review describe the game as well as possible.  I am sure that Gamespot thinks that since that would put the onus on the reader to see what the game is about by actually reading the review instead of just viewing the score, that many younger gamers wouldn't bother to do it.

[m0zart1]

[QUOTE=ActRaiser]

Am I the only one that never really liked Donkey Kong?  I always thought the game was too hard and could never make it very far. 

 

Now, Mario Bros on the other hand was such an awesome arcade game.  I loved that one!

[/QUOTE]

I am the opposite.  I liked Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. in that order.  Mario Bros. on the other hand was a game I didn't really care for for years.  The first time I really liked it was in the VirtualBoy version.

[Anayo1]

[QUOTE=m0zart]

These games were not released for that younger crowd.  They were released for those of us who knew them, loved them, and wanted a chance to play them again.  Then again, those of us who knew and loved and want to play them again might only care about one or two things in a review of that kind -- how good is the emulation, and how well does the game control compared to the original?

 

In a lot of ways, I wish Gamespot would allow a dual review system for games of this kind.  Write a review for the classic gamers who loved these games in their youth, and write a review for the modern gamers who might expect something more.  Either that, or just make the review describe the game as well as possible.  I am sure that Gamespot thinks that since that would put the onus on the reader to see what the game is about by actually reading the review instead of just viewing the score, that many younger gamers wouldn't bother to do it.

[/QUOTE]

I see where you're going, but I can see some holes in your reasoning. I think if someone can't appreciate a classic game, then the problem lies with that person, not the high tech stuff they were brought up with. Case in point; I'm only about sixteen years old, not even enough to have been alive during the Atari era, but despite this I love games like Asteroids, Missile Command, Battlezone, and Pac Man. They're just good games. They have ingenious and addictive gameplay. Someone disliking old games for being old is like someone disliking an old film because it's in black and white, or because it doesn't have any CG-special effects. It's dumb and tasteless.