New consoles just don't cut it

[mickyboy]

Well, it's true isn't it. Since aquiring my TurboGrafx and dusting down my Megadrive, my poor old Xbox has been left out in the cold, I haven't played it for months.

The last game I played was Ninja Gaiden and it, funny enough sparked off my new found interest in retro gaming. I thought Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox was fantastic and I happily gave up my social life in order to play this until completion.

Complete it I did ( eventually ) but what I found interesting was the scarabs idea, you know, get 50 and you unlock the original version. Inspite of hard searching, I only managed to find 43 so I never unlocked the secret game.

But this obsession with scarabs and the 8 bit original lead me to climb up the loft, get me Megadrive down and dust down my Revenge of Shinobi cart.

Then I got the TurboGrafx and inspite of a huge library of TG16 releases, this machine is bringing a smile back to my jaded Xbox weary face.

My brother has hung up his PS2 joypad and has recently got his Saturn going again, what a console that was!

I just think nowadays, too much emphasis is on graphics ( especially those lengthy FMV sequences ) sound and movie tie ins & licenses.

As we all know, it's all about the gameplay, if you ain't got that, you ain't got nothing right?

Remember Flicky on the Megadrive, I rest my case.

[Wild_Cat]

Well, that's still true to some extent. A game with ****ty gameplay, no matter how good its graphics and sound are, is still a ****ty game. If the controls are unresponsive, the game system bugged, the button layout stupid and the camera controlled by a drunk monkey, chances are few people will buy the game (exception to that: games with big licenses and/or massive advertising -- bought by the ignorant masses but everyone knows how bad they are).

However, in hindsight it's amazing to see how many games have managed to sell themselves purely because of their graphics and sound. Shadow of the Beast, for the Amiga, comes to mind. 20 layers of parallax scrolling, overscan graphics, enthralling music... Massive sales. Yet it's one of the worst side-scrollers I've ever played.

[Sketcz]

hehe, Ive been lamenting modern gaming for months now.
Even had a long letter complaining about it printed in issue 21 of GamesTM. (I actually 2 letters printed in that one issue)

But you're absolutely right.
There is a lot wrong with modern gaming, and it just feels like games lack "soul".
Anyway, I could ramble on for pages and pages AND PAGES about whats wrong with it, but its good to see that another person has seen the light.

One of the few (only?) releases this year that I actually enjoyed was Katamari Damashii. Most games despite having incredibly high production values, are just boring.

Ive been going through all my old games in my vast collection as I pack them up for storage, and playing games like popful mail, shubibinman 3 and anything by Treasure plus many other games, reminds me of why I started playing games in the first place.

Gaming is in a sorry state right now, and I dont know if it will ever pick itself up again.

[MartyG]

Nope, don't agree with that for a second. People seem to forget that there were just as many ****e games around in the 16 bit era, just that we tend to forget them simply because there were **** and not worth us remembering.

A shining example of a modern day game eclipsing anything retro is Disgaea. It's a pinacle of SRPG design and I don't know of any retro game that could beat it in gameplay concepts. After 230+ hours it's still refreshing to play. I can dust off the SNES and play Ogre Battle for a bit, but it's no where near as satisfying as Disgaea. Morrowind didn't get the greatest of receptions, but that's a game I lost weeks of my life playing, and expansive universe that couldn't be seen in a retro game. In fact, RPGs have certainly benefited from improvements in storage and processing.

Shooters have improved on concepts (see Ikaruga or Border Down), Fighters e.g VF4 Evo or Street Fighter 3 Third Strike if 2Ds are your preference. Racing games? Burn Out 3, OutRun2?

There are plenty of games around today that have high entertainment value, if you choose to look for them. It's all very well reminiscing great games of the past and there are some great games, but think about 15 years down the road. Don't you think people with PS5 and Xbox3 are going to be saying, "Ah, dusted off my old PS2 and Xbox1 the other day, my poor old Gamecube3.5 just gathers dust these days...4096 bit gaming just doesn't cut it".

[Pij]

Im with MartyG on this one, theres always been a lot of pants game no matter what generation.

The thing is when you look back at the golden days of 16Bit you dont remember the pants ones like Rise of the Robots, Rival Turf, etc etc.

anything by Treasure

what like that really bad Mc'd's game on the megadrive.

[Lyris]

I don't mean to sound like a broken record but yeah, a lot of the new stuff bores me... so many 3D games just all look the same to me.

[Wild_Cat]

Ion: No, actually we don't remember the moderately pants ones. Real ****ty, painful games remain etched into our memories forever, like bullet holes in our brains. Conquest Earth, SNES Ultraman, Night Trap... This is the stuff legends are made of


In any case, I'm neutral on this debate. There are good games and bad games, old games and new games. I still like to play Super Mario Bros, Turrican 2 or Parodius, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating Bujingai, Beyond Good & Evil or Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou.

[mickyboy]

I think that Lyris is right, I'm not saying new games aren't good either but they are just so tired and predictable. When I think back to the golden era of games consoles, I can think of literally hundreds of games that bring back good memories and like Wild Cat, I remember the crap games too but they can be forgiven because they were being brave and trying new ideas and new techniques.

Nowadays, there is no excuse for a game with poor graphics, bad sound, slack controls and dull gameplay because games like Ultraman ( which I actually quite liked ) have done all the hard work and tested the water for the games of today.

Take the Dreamcast, great console but why did it fail? Didn't Sega learn nothing from the Saturns demise at the hands of the Playstation?

Nope!

Shame too.

[Big Al]

Oy, I liked Ultraman 8(

[Sketcz]

what like that really bad Mc'd's game on the megadrive.

I happen to like that game. A lot. Despite the main character being Ronald.
(I also liked Night Trap as well)

While I may like KD, Morrowind and Cubivore on the current generation, the overall buzz I get is lower than when I buy older games I havent played before. Never has this been more apparent to me than when I actually went through everything I had again, proving it was not just happy memories.

[mickyboy]

Ultraman was a good game, nothing more, nothing less. Okay graphics, cheesy music but it had some really good moments and excellent, well creative enemies. I'm just trying to think of some. I remember that spinning thing and the robot that looked like he had goat skin trousers on was just genius, who saw that combo coming?

I say there should be more robots in goat skin trousers.


Was he called Zuton or Muton, no it was Mutton, Mutton dressed as lamb, that was it, hence the goat skinned trousers, yesssss I'm the best!

[Resonance]

I think that we look at retro games through the eyes we had when we were young and nostalgia adds to how well we rate the games we played years back. I was much more excited about videogames when I was a teenager then I am now and this negatively affects what I think of the new games I am introduced to.

We have definatley lost something as 2D games and graphics eventually fade away and less of the smaller creative companies that would have made good 2D games 10 years ago simply cannot exist because of the overly complicated nature of modern day games dev. You need much more then a great idea and some technical skill to make it and because of this I am sure many great ideas never materialise into great games.

[edandersen]

So true.

Take the rose tinted goggles off!

[Ginger Tosser]

I like others have mentioned ****e games were around in the 16bits days (waynes world anyone?), but i guess what annoys people now if so many ****e games come out after developers spending millions on production.

To balance it out there are excellent games around, maybe some, including me somethimes are bored of mainstream gaming.

Remember a ****e game will always be ****e.

Actually its got me thinking are there any games that were utter ****e and gained cult status over the years?

Mrs Mopp on the Spectrum must be one of these.

[Wild_Cat]

The Chou Aniki series is another example. (homoerotic wrestling games, which started on the PC Engine IIRC)