#5. Games Were Simpler Back In The Day
Video games have undoubtedly been ambitious and impressive in recent years. If you look at the likes of The Last Of Us, it’s impossible to overstate how far video games have come as people played Pong forty-two years ago. But with everything new within the medium and with all the new abstract ideas and extended control systems, there is something to be said about how straightforward things are in the games we played as children.
Gambling today can be difficult for people without muscular memory from a dedicated gaming age. Give your mom or dad a PS4 controller, and if they are like me, they will spend half the time playing the game, looking down, trying to remember in vain where all the buttons are. Use the left analog stick to move, hold an X to run, or tap X to run. The L2 is a target, and the R2 is a shooter, but R1 becomes a shot when driving because the R2 is an accelerator in a car. R3 (where you click on the right analog stick), look behind you, and open the menu you need to hold the touchpad. And that's part of the Grand Theft Auto 5 control scheme, one of the best-selling games.
Even for experienced veterans, the growing difficulty of sports can be extinguished. Super Mario World is still as accurate as it was back in 1990 because its simple design and download and play style made it obsolete. You can give the child who has never played the game Mario a controller, and within seconds, it will have worked out how to play it. This simplicity is an attractive concept, which is probably part of the reason why retro games like Shovel Knight and Axiom Verge are so popular today. The simplest game you play, the most inclusive, and fast the fun. Retro play is rather on the spades, and that’s why I’m still playing Super Mario World twenty-six years after my release.
# 4. Retro Games Has Better Music
As game production rates have risen over the years, we have seen a moderate change in many ways. We have made it to 3D, we now have voice simulation, and the wide-ranging episodes tell complex stories that contradict those seen on television or the big screen. Games today include fully organized scores or songs featuring popular music that are as exciting as we will see in other mediums, but it sounds like we have lost something along the way, too.
I can still play the theme music in Treasure Island Dizzy in Commodore 64. I've been playing that game for almost three decades, and I've never played it since (and I've never played it, thrown it away), but I can still remember the music theme playing completely in the background. I played games last week, and I couldn’t even tell you that they have music at all.
Because of the simplicity of the original games, and without the voice imitation to tell a story, the music had to be good. Except for a few crummy sounds, game music was the only motivation for the games. There are still great sports songs today, but they look a few and far between compared to the games of my youth. Mega Man, Castlevania, first Final Fantasy games, and iconic titles like Zelda, Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog - all of these had some very memorable songs that stuck with us long after they last played them. I still remember how the Commodore 64 classic Prince Clumsy's music changes when you keep the princess at the end of the game as I was playing yesterday. We can't say that about the Shadow of Mordor, can we?
# 3. Games Used for Working Outside the Box
The one thing is that previous games have undoubtedly done better than today's games; they have worked well. You might think it should be the most important thing in any product released on the market, but it's really amazing how many games on 2016 ships are broken, requiring days or weeks of server tweaks for more players to work or big day patches to fix all the bugs that made it into -disc. Today, if you do not have a proper Internet connection in your home, some games are not truly playable, while others are severely disrupted.
Street Fighter V released earlier this year, Capcom promises that one-player Arcade Mode, the core of the series, will be available for download in July. What if you do not have internet access? Well, then you have half the game. That was not the problem we faced when Street Fighter II was released from the SNES in 1991. At that time, we did not have an Internet connection that acted as a safety net for the developer. Games had to work out of the box.
Going back and playing Global Gladiators today is as easy as putting a shell in your Genesis and unlocking the power. It works now as it did then, as it should, and without argument. This is one of the many good things about retro play; if you have a game with the hardware, you are perfect. You do not need to download drivers, or updates, or spots. You enter the game, and then you play as it should be.
# 2. Games Used to Get More Challenge
Today, anyone who continues to be aware of the latest trends in sports is likely to learn about the Black Spirits and the Bloodborne, with the reputation of the games having its share of heavy penalties. The Gamers flocked to the Souls series in large numbers, excited to play a title that challenged them and refused to shake hands. There are no extended tutorials. There is little on the way to help. You can't stand it for a while. And every enemy can make mincemeat for you without having to learn their attack patterns and do it right. It’s fun for the game to give us a climbing struggle like this; however, I’m old enough to remember the time when the whole game was like this. And worst of all.
Today's games tend to spell things out for the player, often to the point of almost shocking proportions. Installing a disc on PS4 in 2016 means waiting to install, then the first day, and then when you finally get the control in your hand, spend the next two hours walking through the first stages of the game as a kid on his first day of school. Everyone needs a lot of help repeatedly, but there is something that can be said by simply being thrown into the deep end and being told you are drowning or swimming.
# 1. Desire
Nostalgia may be seen as a police response; after all, looking back at the past with rose-colored mirrors is often criticized by fans of anything retro. It’s easy to dismiss a wish as a way to put the impression that everything was the best in your day, but the fact is that nostalgia is a compelling advocate and should not be ignored.
Today, we watch garbage movies and lament the use of explicit CGI, but happily, we will sit among the invaders of the Lost Ship and not bother to say that the melting Nazi eventually looks like it was made of plastic. We listen to the shocking pop music of our teens with a smile on our faces as we look up at Justin Bieber's latest video. And we will talk about Final Fantasy VII as if it were the second coming of Christ, completely ignoring all the flaws in this game that will stop the modern game from drying out. Nostalgia has a powerful enough influence to make us believe that the Sonic Hedgehog was actually always right. Now, that's critical.
The reason many of us like to play classic games is simply because of the feeling we get. I have played hundreds, if not thousands of games in my time as a gamer. And I'm smart enough to know that video games developed in almost every way at that time. But that doesn't change the fact that when I download Street Fighter II, I remember the days of playing it during the summer holidays at school with all my friends. I remember the day I finished Toejam and Earl and my brother every time I heard the first music bars for their humorous theme. And I remember the excitement when we first found the people who Mortal Kombat II killed.
Playing old games, such as watching old movies or listening to old albums, moves us back to the past that we love to remember. Whether it's the memories of old friends, loved ones, people we may see every day, or we may have lost contact with, all the old games we upload are an old window, and that's special. The latest Call of Duty will never compete with that.
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