New gamers?

[Admonished]

I came up with Super Nintendo...too young for Atari and barely grazed the original NES. I remember when 3-D was new and epic and Ocarina of Time was new. I look at my younger siblings and realize they missed that era. My own brother didn't know that Princess Peach was also called princess Toadstool. And I watch him play games that make me cringe on the inside for being....bland. He shows no interest in my older games (Super Mario World? Cmon that game ruled) And all he wants are better graphics.....*sigh Is the new generation of gamers similar to this? Or am I over-reacting...Maybe. But are graphics replacing good-old-fashion fun? And are the new generation of gamers doomed to never know the joy that Nintendo brought me throughout the 90's?

 

[LordOmnit]

I sympathize with you man, Emulators save me every now and then from the craze of newer games, but still don't match those halcyon days of youth (says the eighteen-year-old =P). Kirby, FF 6&5, sprite-based Zelda (although Ocarina of Time was great in my opinion), and Mario bring back wonderful memories, and then sadden me when I look at... Bioshock... Halo... etc. Although I'm not saying they are bad; I merely mean to point out how gaming has changed and that something like those will never come out again because of the requisite insane amount of... something to be put into games. Maybe I just like that cartoon-y silliness and such, I dunno. I think that they are doomed to never know the joy of 90's Nintendo, except for classic game fanatics, but they aren't really in it for the right reasons I think.

 

[Katana314]

When games are 2D, I actually manage to still appreciate their graphics. Otherwise I just get this uneasy feel when playing them, and it almost feels not much fun. Examples...
I don't like the look of most low-poly PS1 titles.
I do like the look of Metal Slug and Megaman
I don't like the look of Metroid 1.

Maybe I too am a bit picky, but I was kept away from games until Game Boy Pocket.

 

[Nordstrom]

How often do you go back and play Pong or Space Invaders? I can't believe that people don't appreciate the classics.

Whatever a person experiences first has a nostalgic gloss about it. It doesn't matter that games have become more engaging and that the old games don't hold up. (If they did, why don't newer players want to touch them.) I'm old enough to remember Pong when it came out and I haven't done much gaming in the mean time. I'm starting to catch up on it now. I go back to the classics that people revere (the ones I didn't play) and they don't hold my interest like newer games.

Perhaps all of us will someday be the old person looking back to the "good old days" when we were first drawn into a game. Regardless how hard we try to keep up, sooner or later our brains can't. And when our flexibility gives out, we look back into our past as though it were a shining, golden era. We don't realize that our experience feels unique because it was our first. We harangue the kids for not understanding the good old games as though we knew something superior. Meanwhile, the kids roll their eyes at the old git that won't get it, their eyes shining with their own experience of newness.

As a seasoned gamer, your experience of a new game is entirely different than the experience of someone new to the medium.

So, I'm asking, do you play games that are older than your own gaming era? Do you play them with enthusiasm? If you answer "no", then you get an inkling of the way new gamers think about old games. Historically speaking, those games are interesting, but an old game is not going to grab them the same way it grabbed you when the game was shiny and new.

And are the new generation of gamers doomed to never know the joy that Nintendo brought me throughout the 90's?

Short answer: no, it's not likely that they'll understand your joy any more than I understand my father's joy about black and white movies and cars from the 40's. I mean, I can understand it on a conceptual level but I didn't experience those things first hand.

 

[LordOmnit]

I don't think it's possible to argue with that, and if it is then I don't want to hear about it. Nordstrom just owned us with the Stick of Amazing Insight, and I am submiting.

 

[xbeaker]

It isn't just you. I even call your kind whipper snapper. I grew up with the 2600 and I still own one. There are a lot of "gamers" out there that are spoiled by graphics but the true hard core know what is at the heart of a good game. If you have never felt the joy of bringing back the chalice in level 3 of Adventure, flipping your score in Asteroids, seeing Mike Tyson for the first time, finding out Samus was a girl or any of the other true classic game moments; I simply feel sorry for you. To judge a game by its polygons and textures alone is a sin. Mind you it you give me a game on the 360 or PS3 with muddy low-res graphics I *will* blast you for it. But the old systems and games have a lot to offer. The nostalgia market wouldn't be as strong as it is if the games were all crap.

Do yourself a favor. Go play Maniac Mansion (NOT the NES version if you can help it.) Don't use gamefaqs.com or some other cheat system, and really work you way through it. When you finally take down Dr. Fred and the meteor you will know what it means to be a gamer.

...ok that is 3 posts today about old-school games. I am officially feeling like an old man.

Oh and Nordstrom, I have to disagree with you. A true car aficionado can appreciate a 70's muscle car even if a modern 4 cylinder can out pace it. A true movie-buff can watch the Maltese Falcon and be drawn in like the audiences at it's first run. And a real gamer can play the classics and see beyond the big pixels and sprites and just enjoy a good game.

 

[LordOmnit]

True, a true car afic- afori- acro- lover can appreciate a whatever, but comparing the love of something from the after is kind of strange when comparing it to a nostalgic feel, since they can't look back at it, because they have forced it into their own immediate present. When anyone looks back at something (that was before their time), it seems (at least to me) that they aren't appreciating it in the same way, because they had to have already known about it, rather than known the title and what little the producers released about it, and aren't there when the hype is up about something and waiting in lines for hours and days on end for something to come out (sadly this has been abandoned in *modern* times for the raving, rabid madness of the PS3 launch). So it isn't necessarily something that they can feel the same way about, but they still can appreciate it in a different way.
Not to say I'm better than anyone else, but personally I've never really cared much about graphics as long as they are good for whatever it is, but I certainly HAVE to say that in the same respect I am always skeptical and dismissive whenever something significantly new technologically comes out (I still hate my cell phone except for emergency use, hell, I hate ALL phones and they came out a little before I was born). Although with the nostalgia market, they tend to mess things up when you look at things like the FF Anthology remake of FF6 and how amazingly slow it loaded (same with Chrono Trigger, making it a real test of patience, when I could have easily picked up an emulation of either), and when they feel like updating the graphics from the original you rarely get something as good as FF Dawn of Souls, since nobody wants to take the time to rebuild it from the ground up visually.
Again, something like that.

 

[DayDark]

I grew up, almost missing out on mario, can't remember much of it either, there was a friend who had a console with mario, it probably was super mario world, but I honostly can't tell, never got to play mario much, and then my family moved, never saw mario or anything from nintendo after that. only thing I remember is mushrooms that make you bigger or fly or shoot fire, and some big dino you could ride on. anyways after I moved the nxt console I experienced was the playstation, and my "real" gaming history began. remember mario from TV though, fighting slime from the sewers.

 

[Force Feedback Codpiece]

I grew up with games like Pac-Man, Police Quest, Duke Nukem 1 & 2, the first Prince Of Persia etc. I've never owned a console, I've always played on PC. I do know Mario etc, through emulators, but maybe I'll buy a (S)NES some time with a bunch of classics. That would be cool.

It's true that many gamers of these days prefer shiny graphics over substantial gameplay, but it's not like there are no more good games coming out. In fact, I think this is a great year for gaming.

 

[Girlysprite]

I don't think players prefer shiny graphics over good gameplay; hell DS sells better then the PsP, while PsP can cram out better looking pictures. DS is more popular then the PS3, while PS3 looks much better. I think it's more of a myth from older gamers, looking down upon the younger people.
Of course, there are some picture happy people, but those are of all times. Also from the old era's.

Older games are not better. Hell, the game market crashed once because of the tons of shit that were crammed out (to be saved by Nintendo). Even after that a lot of shit was produced, but guess what; we forgot about those titles because they sucked. I have been trying to play some old games through emulator, and boy, some shit sucked a lot there.

 

[ccesarano]

In some ways I agree with Girlysprite, that older gamers do think the new audience cares too much about graphics. The simple truth, however, is that times have shifted a bit.

Back in the day, graphics were poor, which meant you had to do crazy outlandish things for characters to be recognized. This made most characters look cartoonish in the end. However, if you look at a lot of Western PC titles, plenty of them tried to look realistic. Look at some of the console titles from the West, even. Jurassic Park on the SNES and Genesis tried to go for a realistic look.

Now, however, graphics are better, so a lot of developers are going to want to make some serious, realistic looking games. Also, when we were growing up, not only were there fewer companies, but a lot of them purely existed for cash. Now I know people want to cry out on EA, but honestly, a lot of developers grew up gaming, and they want to make ideas influenced by multiple forms of media.

xbeaker, you referenced finding out Samus was a girl as a big memory. I agree, it's a major moment in gaming. Honestly, though, I see myself uttering "would you kindly" from Bioshock years from now, as that produced a pretty big moment for me when I first saw it. Can you say the death of Aeris in FF7 didn't make an equally huge impact? Games today are still bringing out a lot of amazing moments, but as you get older the glitter wears off. A lot of the feelings you get are simply nostalgia factor.


My niece is two years old, and I'm trying to get her to play games already. Thus far, her skills are pressing a button and steering one direction in Mario Kart: Double Dash and pressing a single button and occasionally strumming on Guitar Hero. Which she loves, by the way. If I bring Guitar Hero home from College, it's guaranteed that eventually she'll start bugging me calling for "guitar!". Is she going to know about the games I played? Maybe, but unlikely. She's going to grow up with a totally different style of games. But you know what? She's not growing up with the same television or film, either. Unless I have her watch the older stuff, she's going to see the new. In the same vein, while she's young I'm sure I can get her to enjoy the older games as well. However, that's just because I'm a hardcore gamer looking to influence that.

In the end, kids today will have their own memories, but times have changed what they are. The only thing I feel bad about is the most "imaginative" game we've gotten in a while is Katamari Damacy, which just pales in comparison to a game like EarthBound. However, I can't say I disapprove of my niece growing up with Viva Pinata, Harvest Moon and Kameo, either.

 

[Russ Pitts]

Give them time and they're get nostalgic about Crash Bandicoot and Lara Croft.

I've already gotten nostalgic for Lara Croft. I've been playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary the past few nights, in the dark, with headphones to re-create the "magic" of my experiences with the original game in the mid-90s, when I was squatting in a dismal studio apartment and staying up all night playing games, listening to rats crawl around in the walls and being wowed by Lara's ... physics.

My first console was the Fairchild Channel F. Before we got one of those, we played in the arcade. I've been playing games since there were games, and I have to say honestly that I don't think the kids these days are missing much. That is to say, they missed a great deal, historically, but I don't think they care, nor should they.

The games being made today aren't necessarily better or even more engaging, but they sure are awesome. I think it took a lot more imagination and willingness to suspend disbelief to become enraptured with games in the past the way they practically beg one to become enraptured today. And that's fine. We can sit in our rocking chairs and mock the little bastards if we want, but true appreciation of a thing comes from experience, not knowledge. If I hadn't played the original Tomb Raider, for example, I'd probably have completely different feelings for the remake.

I knew a guy in school who was into old black and white moves and tried to get everyone to watch them with him. No one did, but he was a huge fan, seeing something in them no one else saw or cared to see. Later on I became a fan of Hitchcock movies and have spent years trying to convince my acquaintances that his films were magical and brilliant. Few give a shit. I can imagine a time when older games will be revered and admired by young people with a history fetish. I look forward to that day. I'll probably be dead, but it will be awesome.

 

[xbeaker]

I?m not in the corner shaking my fist at the disrespectful young gamers of today. When I say I feel sorry for them for missing those moment, I genuinely mean it. There are some magic moments in books films, and video games that once time has stripped them of their surprise, while they may be well know, they will never be able to be truly experienced again. In literature Take The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. If there is a single person who can see those names and not have images of a gentile scientist and monstrous alter ego I would be amazed. When it was written and first published you didn?t find out they were one in the same until the very end. That moment of surprise is forever lost to readers because Mr. Hyde is a such a fixture of our culture. That same goes for the Samus reveal.

This is not to say these *types* of moments are forever lost. Just that those great classic ones have been spoiled.

As for the graphics issue, that is more a 90?s thing. Today every system can throw around textures and polygons at levels where you can complain that it doesn?t look good for what the system is capable of, but few people focus on just if the game looks good. When the NES came out, and later the 16 bit era hit all the advertising focused on was graphics. How close they looked to the arcade versions, how much space the game took up on a cartridge. It is no wonder that is how people began to judge their games and systems. And there grew an elitist idea that to play anything less was unacceptable.

It was not that the games were crappy that caused the crash. It was people not understanding the new tech. Then once it caught on a bit, unregulated production by fringe companies and shoddy ports and the consumer having no way to tell the good from the bad before they made a purchase that killed it.

But like Russ? college friend, I do still recommend people go back and try some of the old games. It usually goes without saying these days to try to look past the graphics. When you get tired of fighting WWII, or racing in a Ferrari as we all do from time to time, go play X-Com, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Yar?s Revenge, or something else you have never tried. Unlike his friend I can see all the fun that is out there now too though.

Are you missing something if you don?t play old games? Well, yes. But it doesn?t mean you aren?t a gamer. It certainly isn't wrong to like what is out now and not have a taste for the old games. I really hate the term ?nostalgia gaming? because when I fire up one of my old systems I don?t do it because I want to remember the good old days and feel like I?m 12 again. It is because I am legitimately in the mood to play Pitfall.

I really feel lucky that I got to be one of the few that has been here since the beginning. A charter member of the Gamers Club, and I like nothing more then welcoming in the new recruits.

 

[propertyofcobra]

Me, I started gaming with a little thing called the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis to americans), when I was four...yeah.
The Sega, and Sonic, was my life. Then the PC came in, and I got introduced to excellent titles such as Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and down the line, Tomb Raider and Soldier of Fortune.
Boyish wonder of videogames, and loving even the bad ones because that's how it was, got replaced slowly with cynicism over bad games, the Mega Drive got set aside (but I still have it. And it's happened that I plug it in and get my Sonic 2 on) for the playstation, which got set aside for the PS2. And then the PS3.

My childish wide-eyed wonder of videogames died when PS2 came out, I would say. I started viewing Sonic with the old-man "those were the days" sigh and mentality. Do I wish I could return to that? Yes. Do I think gaming as a whole has changed, increased awareness leading to decreased acceptance of mediocre or bad titles? (Don't tell me you don't have one or two that you love, inexplicibly, but you know it sucked) Yes.
Has gameplay and story been replaced by graphics? I want to say yes, but that's not entirely true. The process was already well underway by the time I got the mega drive, it's just speeded up a bit lately.

 

[xbeaker]

You can make a pretty good argument for game play being replaced by graphics, but story? No, the stories in games as a whole have never been stronger then they are now. Most games of old didn?t have or tell any kind of story. At best you got a general framework and minor motivation. Aliens attacking, bad guys doing nasty things to good people/animals is premise of most pre 32 bit games.

Yeah, you can point to Ultima or Kings Quest or something. But as a whole the back story of games and the stories they present as we play are at a peak.

 

[propertyofcobra]

I have to disagree somewhat, I believe story in games has evolved very little since the late 90's.
What HAS happened is that story has dispersed and gotten wider in genres, it is no longer the sole domain of slow-paced games such as strategy or roleplaying, but is now in every type of game, from first person shooters and action/adventure games to roleplaying games, story is now more firmly implanted into gaming as a medium.
But I do not believe that story has become "better", just more common on a game-by-game basis.

 

[hooliganyouth]

I was/am a member of the console generation. I was too young to have been part of the arcade boom.

Recently I went back and played some of the games I loved growing up: Intelevision's "B-17 Bomber" and "Time Bomb". "Combat" for the Atari. One or two of the anthologies - Namco. You know what? No wonder I went insane and used my first curse words as a kid on those games - those games were a nightmare to play, ugly as hell to look at, and instant rage inducing.

Now there are a stack of games for the Nintendo that - for me - still hold up because they are pretty much perfect games: Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Ultima, Castlevania, Metal Gear - I actually hate the Metal Gear series because of how hard the original was. Certainly those games are classics but they are classics for a reason. I spent my entire youth gaming - wait, scratch that I've spent my entire life gaming - my pasty white see-through skin and giant bioluminescent eyes attest to that.

The term "Nostaligia gaming" makes sense when people pine for archaic/unplayable - by today's standards - games. The game sucks but your memory of playing it is good. Perhaps you played Intelevision on a rainy Saturday afternoon while drinking Ecto-Coolers and it was awesome. You can't capture that moment again no matter how much you want to.

"Retro gaming" makes a bit of sense though I cringe at the term "retro". I think I prefer "Classic".

 

[LordOmnit]

I have to say that if someone told me to pick up certain old games (like sprite-based Kirby, Mario, Zelda, or FF), then I'd probably tell them, "When I'm good and ready." If I was coerced into doing so though, then I certainly wouldn't be having no fun. As such, someone tried to tell me that there is a better platform game in the world than "Kirby Super Star" (past, present, or upcoming), then I'd think they were raving mad (although that is personal preference). In terms of gameplay, it had the most variety I've ever seen in combination of buttons to produce different attacks outside of the latest fighting games (each individual (non-one-use) power Kirby/Helper could get (about 24 separate abilities) had a wide range of attacks depending upon button different combinations). And even then, the separate 'games' delivered many different kinds of flavors, with The Great Cave of Offensive being like Metroid with the single, long, snaking, backtracking setup, The Revenge of Meta-Knight with its timer, several of the other games as simple level-by-level platforms, and The Arena as a fighter-esque (in addition to all of the mini-games).
Sorry if I was raving or ranting or something there.

 

[Arbre]

quote just for the name

It's not exactly the same thing. Cars... I even like the designs of the prohibition era. I dig the '70 muscle cars. I love the modern cars, and prototypes.

But, I can't feel the same about games. Since I started playing when well, video games became a market thing (Pong hello), I'm not really, well, able to tell stories about games more retro than me, but I know that the very old games I play on emulators are games I played back then, safe for the Neo Geo, but the 2D on this console is timeless.

However, I literally struggle to play old games I didn't play back then.
Yet, I would not downplay the value, especially when put into the proper context.