Forget PS3, Xbox 360 & Wii – For hardcore fun, go back in time
We are all surely enjoying this generation of video games aren’t we? There is a fine choice of consoles, from the hardcore, online capable Xbox 360, the middle of the road, improving all the time, Blu-ray enabled PS3, and the casual gamers dream that is the Nintendo Wii. But let’s not get too blinkered by all that is current and next-gen. Let’s also remember the good old days when games were hard, and gamers were more geeky teenagers than casual grandmas.
The current generation of consoles are all fantastic. Of course, we all have our favourites, as the comments on Blorge on a daily basis will attest to, but the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii all have their own good and bad points, and make good games machines for their respective owners.
But, do any of you miss the old days just a tad? I was inspired to think back to the days of the NES, Super Nintendo, Dreamcast, Saturn, Megadrive and PS1 by an article on The Bitbag. The writer describes how he recaptured his youth by organising a retro games tournament for a bunch of teenagers. To a man (or boy in this case), they all loved the old-school gems that he wheeled out of retirement.
I think it’s an important point to remember our past and to realise that the current-gen consoles are just the latest in a long line of games machines. This heritage shows us where we came from, and possibly where we are heading.
I am a huge retro games fan and still regularly play old games which should possibly have been put out to tender years ago. The most obvious differences are in terms of graphics and game difficulty.
The former have improved beyond my wildest dreams since the days when the main character, who you were meant to feel emotion for, was a tiny pixelated blob on the screen. The latter though has taken a turn for the worst, with games now spectacularly easier than they once were.
Assuming these two trends were to carry on then I assume in years to come we will end up with photo realistic graphics (unless Nintendo have anything to do with it) but games so easy they only last a weekend at best.
We’ve already discussed how casual gaming is the future, and so maybe the more hardcore gamers amongst us should be looking more to the past than the future for its kicks?
Metal Gear Solid 4 is undoubtedly a brilliant game, and has even been described as the best game ever, but with people finishing it in under a week, is the experience worth the huge amount of money being asked for it? That’s the other worrying trend: games are getting more and more expensive while becoming less value for money.
I know most people reading this will disagree, but I just want our gaming heritage to not be forgotten in the hopes it can play more of a part in the future direction of the industry.
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27 Responses to “Forget PS3, Xbox 360 & Wii – For hardcore fun, go back in time”
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June 22nd, 2008
watever get with the times and get a real game machine! PS3!!
June 22nd, 2008
Odd timing of this article DAVE PARRACK! I whipped out my old Megadrive over the weekend so my nephews could play Sonic, and I ended up playing it more than them. I was one of the unfortunates who purchased a Mega CD back in the day too, with Final Fight being the only decent game on it. That game is still tits!
June 22nd, 2008
Yet the Wii has the ability to emulate the old greats. I don’t think the Wii should be completely forgotten.
June 22nd, 2008
Well, that’s why the Wii’s Virtual Console exists! I download retro gems from it every now and then, and get pleased with the perfect recreation of the originals. ; D
June 22nd, 2008
The only thing you need to study is your ass….The Xbox 360 by far delivers on quality games! I used to be a PS3 fanboy. But since Sony procrastinates so much *cough in game XMB, Home, Dual Shock 3, exclusive high rated games, Tivx, cough*, I’ve decided to make the switch.
By far Halo 3 is one of the best video games ever made! At first I didn’t like it, but when I saw what hell the game developers went through in making the game, I had a change of heart. Halo 3 is the most advanced Halo so far. Although I still prefer the 1st due to the humor of the game, which Halo 4 desperately needs to incorporate in it!
If truth be told, the Playstation 3 has pathetic multiplayer games except for Warhawk, Call of Duty 4, Armed Core 4, NBA 2K8, and Grand Theft Auto 4…….
Everything is focused on online gaming! You know thats cool and all, but not everybody buys games just to play online 24/7. Some people actually buy games to play the “single player” mode or to have coop mode with their friends spending the night over.
……….When video games literally place you in the video game like virtual reality, let me know……These so called next generation games suck ass to me. Stunning visuals, eew wow! Like I never seen those before!!!!
June 22nd, 2008
To “The Future Of Sega”, clearly you have not had the 360 for long, because soon enough, the insides will melt, and you’ll wish you had bought a Wii instead.
Twilight Princess is probably the longest game i have ever played, and Resident Evil 4 the most involving and enticing. Both for Wii.
And to link back to the article, also the Wii has the Virtual Console inside of it. Old classic games playable on a new classic. How can you go wrong?
June 22nd, 2008
I remember when action games where less than an hour long so I’m forced to disagree on games “becoming less value for money”.
June 22nd, 2008
Josh, I downloaded Double Dragon from Xbox Live and finished it in about 25 minutes, and that is considering the time wasted by my mate and I trying to throw each other off cliffs etc.
June 23rd, 2008
wow…. WOW!!!
This is big news.. our resident retard Sega Future Boy… has jumped ship… therefore… his comments are now MORE credible…
Congratulations Future Sega boy… you have out retarded yourself…
Halo 3 was a good game… but it wasnt satisfying to me as much as Geow and Mass Effect and Biochock….
June 23rd, 2008
i wish i still had my ps1, then i could play hercules… yes its sad but i loved that game, as well as fighting force!!! i was too young for anything pre 1993 ( i was 3), but luckily i was given a ps1 at the tender age of about 6-7 which i adored, but i still have my plucky ps2 which is still runnning fine, albeit covered in dust.
I find it hilarious people still refer to the current gen console wars, and start slagging each other off when this article is primarily about retro gaming.
June 23rd, 2008
fighting force was TITS!!!!! Fighting Force 2 sucked, but the first was great.
June 23rd, 2008
I was born in the 90’s, so I never got my hands on a NES or SNES. My first game machine was a Playstation.And yes, I still go back to my PS1 to play that classic Crash Bandicoot game.
June 23rd, 2008
SNES Wins. 2nd N64. 3rd Nes. 4th PS2. 5th Well its a tie with the Mega Drive and TV without Foxtel…
June 23rd, 2008
Bourne, I noticed that too. I actually wrote a non-console war story (which is rare) and look what happens!
June 23rd, 2008
ahhh fighting force entertained me n my mate for hours, the graphics were crap but the way you could interact with the enrivonment was sublime! you could rip off car tyres, break off poles etc. i was always SMASHER the big fat fighter.
June 23rd, 2008
A lot of games way back when were very open ended. I’m not talking about games like Sim City, but even action games like Paradroid for the C64 were very open ended with a steep difficulty curve. You just couldn’t complete them, and the games were huge. Often you got bored or had enough before moving onto the next game (which was easily done, as the games were cheap, usually you got 4 on a tape for the price of a magazine), and there was hardly any save games, so you usually had to start from the beginning when you switched off the machine.
So I wouldn’t say games are getting shorter, but I will say games are getting by and large easier. Grand Theft Auto for the PS1 took me about 90 hours of playtime to complete (a lot of it was just racking up money to get to the next level), which differentiated greatly from GTA recent games with a more defined mission approach, with rather (all things considered) little deviance off the path.
It may be a case in that sense that the coders, to justify the large production costs, want as many people to see as much of the game as possible?
June 23rd, 2008
‘ ‘ watever get with the times and get a real game machine! PS3!! ‘ ‘
True that.
My nintendo and Sega Genesis never got the RROD.
i think they still work today, those were the days.
June 24th, 2008
@ Josh……Uh I bought mine back in early October 2007, when the Halo 3 edition was out. And I’d rather buy a Sega Dreamcast or a Playstation 2 than to buy a WII. That thing just sucks!
@ Darkwhitehair……You sleezy piece of cock sucking shit! I had a feeling that you would show your ugly face again
June 24th, 2008
You know all I have to say to this article is that I’m an American, and I can suck my cock.
June 24th, 2008
You know all I have to say to this article is that I’m an American, and I can suck my own cock.
June 24th, 2008
LMFAO
June 24th, 2008
hey does anyone remember porsche challenge? first game i ever had of any console, legend ha…although again graphics were shocking and there was no damage… but that was awesome.
June 24th, 2008
I just hooked up my N64 last week, and I still sometimes play though the old Legend of Dragoon on PS1 (better than FF7, FF6 is where its at!)
Going back, I realized a few stunning things. First, Majora’s Mask was the best game ever made. It stood the test of time much better than Ocarina of Time. Also, games were a heck of a lot harder!
My cousin breezed though Mario Galaxy and is making it though Twilight Princess. He needed serious help making it it to being an adult on Ocarina of Time and hasn’t even faced Bowser for the second time in Mario 64.
Games are getting longer, but they’re so much easier, they take less time to finish.
Maybe casual gaming is going to save us all, though. After all, Tetris is one of the most casual and hardcore games ever, at the same time. “Easy to learn, hard to master” casual games could be some of the most difficult games we get in a while, unless things turn around. It seems companies have adopted the idea that its a RIGHT to beat a game. I nearly wish that was the idea back in the days of the first Sonic games, considering I would go though hours of grueling levels, only to lose my last life and have to start over….from the beginning!
I do hope that there comes a time with more hard hardcore games. I think what we need is a revitalization of the turn based RPG for that. Those old games were hard, and it always took a little luck to win. Recently, those games have become easier. I would blame Pokemon, but the idea is to play against your friends, who have more than 60% of the possible levels and better strategy. So I blame the companies that follow the success of Pokemon and making their games just as easy to finish.
Until companies stop babying us, though, it may be that causual is the saving grace of hardcore.
June 24th, 2008
‘The Simpsons – Bart vs The Space Mutants’ for the old NES… now THAT was stupidly hard! Never got past the 2nd level. I might dig it back out sometime to see if was as hard as I remember.
June 25th, 2008
N64!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its Seem to have one of the cools remotes ever made.
June 25th, 2008
Bourne Thats what made the old games great death isnt death in old consoles.
June 25th, 2008
yeah i wish i still had my old ps1, just for sentimental value.