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Games have got better over the years, sure there is the odd one that stands out on the older platforms, like Super Mario World or Secret of Mana for instance, but on the whole, the newest ones are the best.
The Spectrum had terrible graphics, sound, etc. I know this was because of the limitations in technology and video game know-how, but anyone who says games like Jet-Set Willy, Knightlore, Skool Daze etc. on the Spectrum were better is wrong and living in the past.
The games had no playability whatsoever, didn’t really offer that much enjoyment had no in game save functions and took what seemed like an eternity to load.
The games were cheap and there were thousands of them with many different genres.
(My dad still thinks text only adventure games on the Spectrum are the best thing since sliced bread!)
At the time, these games seemed great and we have many good memories of playing them, however, because computer & video games were new, nobody cared how bad they really were.
The games 8 & 16 bit machines of the early & mid nineties like the NES, SNES, Megadrive etc. had many quality titles.
Many of the games are still good to this day. They offered longer quests, the ability to save the game, etc. Many of the 2D RPGs and platformers were a delight to play, and many are coming to the GameBoy Advance in the future.
I’ve only been on the Internet for around 3/4 of a year now, and since then have downloaded loads of emulators and roms, but all those games just don’t appeal to me anymore.
The newest games machines like the N64, Gamecube, PS1 & 2 have given us ultra realistic graphics & sound enabled amazingly detailed and rich gaming environments, 3D analogue control meant playing games was better than ever, gripping movie-like storylines like Metal Gear Solid put gamers in the heat of the action. Movie size budgets are given to games and hundreds of people are used to create one game.
When Mario and Zelda took the leap into 3D, they were ten times better for it.
Many of these modern games however, rely too heavily on their presentation, and only offer a shallow gaming experience.
I’m not saying we should forget the classics from the golden age of video games.
I, like many others, have seen the games industry grow from nothing to the billion-dollar industry it is today, and I’ve experienced the best and worst of what games have had to offer. But when beardy chin-strokers try to impress the gaming youth of today by claiming Elite to be the best game ever, or proving their knowledge by bragging that they knew RARE were Ultimate Play the Game it annoys me.
Many retro titles like Elite, Mario World and Golden Axe are going to be released on GBA, so we will no doubt here those retro gamers fussing over Elite again.
Look ahead to new games, sure cherish the past, but the best is around now and yet to come.
I say bring on Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Gamecube, etc.
What do you think??
Are the old classics like Mario World, Chrono Trigger or old Spectrum games better than today’s offerings?
Are new games mostly style over substance?
Are too many old retro gamers living in the past?
> If you had the choice of a disk with about 50 or 60 Spectrum games on it or a
> disk with Metal Gear Solid 2 on it, which would you choose?
MGS2 for me every
> time.
There'd be no doubt about it....the Spectrum Games! (no joke!)
MGS2 for me every time.
The games you play leave memories about how you felt. I felt happy playing Mario Kart as it was fun. But now if I played it, it still would be fun, but not as fun as I remember.
I think that each game you play that you like has a happy effect on you. Its been about 4 years since I played on Final Fantasy 7 for the PS1. But I have happy memories of playing it, and wish I had the time to play it again. If I still had my SNES I would want to go and play on all my old games again, because of the happy memories I have while playing them.
I wonder if in 10 years time we will be into retro gaming on the PS2, X-Box, GC and DC.
Nothing 3D has every managed to replace the classic Mario and Sonic platformers. It's impossible to make a 3D game better than these - it's only possibly to make a platform game different to them!
FPS games and Racers obviously changed for the better with 3D graphics - such is the nature of these games, but I've yet to see a game truly better than Mario World.
During the early Playstation/Saturn years, there were a few titles that were sort of on the right track.
Titles like Crash Bandicoot and Pandemonium took the classic platforming formula and added a 3D twist.
The gameplay was pretty much 2D (only semi 3D in Crash's case), with 3D graphics.
Granted, this meant that people couldn't properly explore 3D worlds, but the the gameplay had all the classic qualities that most modern games miss.
I'd like to see the next Donkey Kong Platformer in a Crash Bandicoot style. Not only would it be more faithful to it's Snes roots, it'll be almost original.
The almost comes from the fact that it's just like games from 5 years ago.
The original comes from the fact that there hasn't been a great game in this style for atleast 5 years!
However, when you said that those who believe that games on the Spectrum are better than some of the modern games "are just living in the past", would you say the same in fifteen years time when there are newer games consoles and even better games about those who think Super Smash Bros Melee on the GameCube is the best, or Metal Gear Solid 2 on the Playstation 2 beats all other games?
It all depends on the individual. My dad will sometimes only have a go on the ZX Spectrum games. He very rarely touches the N64 and the closest he got to using a Game Boy was playing one of those game-watches (not Game & Watch, that was something different) with Tetris on it. You could say my dad is living in the past, however, when the Spectrum was released, he didn't have one, infact I was given a 49k from my Uncle. My dad liked to play Turbo Esprit by Elite, and I-Ball 2 from Firebird. Turbo Esprit was a game in which you had to chase cars and stop them from meeting up with other drug-dealers otherwise it's game-over. You could only move forward, backward and turn left or right at ninety degrees, and most of the roads looked the same. It was fun crushing people on Zebra Crossings though. I-Ball 2 however, was a game in which you control a metal spherical object which had to try and find special artifacts (for which reason I cannot remember) and it was a hell of a fun game to play! It needed a lot of skill and a lot of will to play, but the frustration only made me want to play more, unlike current games where frustration makes me want to power-off. Those games my dad would play because they were challenging, and the latter especially because it needed skill!
My dad has played on the N64 though. Infact, he could possibly be a World Record holder for many of the courses on 1080 Snowboarding (times matched by my brother). They both used to stay up til the early hours of the morning trying to find quicker routes and seeing what would happen if they turned slightly a half-second earlier. This I would say is my dad's favourite game. He started playing it because it looked realistic (despite the Panda boarder and the Penguin Board) and really enjoyed racing me and my brother. It comes to something when my dad's got some of the worlds fastest times on 1080, but I can still beat him in two-player action (I'm not so good on this game). The other game he likes playing (multiplayer only) is Mario Kart 64. He wont play single player, but when playing against me and my brother (without us taking short-cuts) he finds it really fun, as do I because it's funny being able to beat my dad, who then insists we play again so that he can try and beat me at it.
Even though I haven't set up the Spectrum in quite a few years, he still keeps mentioning I-ball 2 and claims it to be the best game. I myself wouldn't say it's the best ever, but it surely deserves to be up with the best.
So then we come to the more modern games (I'll use the SNES as an example because I've got one). We have games like Super Mario World and Mario Kart, which many people have said in the past have a certain sparkle to them. Graphically, they are no more powerful than any other Super Nintendo game, however, they do have that certain something which makes you want to play them again and again. Nintendo have realised that and have re-released them on the Game Boy Advance, only changing Super Mario World slightly and creating a whole new Mario Kart game with the Super NES tracks included. So when people claim these to be better than modern games, can they be as wrong as you claim? I don't think so. These games are classics. No one can say they were complete and utter rubbish. Some people may have disliked them, but the majority loved them. Infact, around seven or eight years ago, Sainsbury's were selling chocolate-minirolls with the Koopa's pictures printed on the foil! Super Mario World was the best Mario game of it's time, and Super Mario Kart inspired many other developers to make clones of it. Apogee released something similar on the PC (demo available on the Duke3D disc) and as you can see on the Game Boy we have Konami Krazy Racers.
Of course there were games that were just plain boring. There were on the ZX Spectrum, there were on the Game Boy, there were on the SNES and there are still boring games on the Playstation 2 and there will be some released on GameCube and X-box. To some however, they wont be boring. It all depends on the player and their tastes. To some, games that the majority of us think are really bad, will be classed as classics by the minority. It could be the other way round for some people. I got Shenmue 2 on the Dremacast because I had heard many peoples' opinions about the game. However, I dislike the game for many reasons and am very disappointed with it.
So don't moan against those who think the older games are better than modern ones. They could be right! Their opinions will differ from yours, so what the best game to them is, will most likely be different to the one you consider to be the best. The majority of the younger gamers here wont have any of the older consoles to play and try out, they will only have started playing games recently (in the last five years) so wont even know what a ZX80 or a Spectrum is! Just remember, everyone's opinion counts.
Games have got better over the years, sure there is the odd one that stands out on the older platforms, like Super Mario World or Secret of Mana for instance, but on the whole, the newest ones are the best.
The Spectrum had terrible graphics, sound, etc. I know this was because of the limitations in technology and video game know-how, but anyone who says games like Jet-Set Willy, Knightlore, Skool Daze etc. on the Spectrum were better is wrong and living in the past.
The games had no playability whatsoever, didn’t really offer that much enjoyment had no in game save functions and took what seemed like an eternity to load.
The games were cheap and there were thousands of them with many different genres.
(My dad still thinks text only adventure games on the Spectrum are the best thing since sliced bread!)
At the time, these games seemed great and we have many good memories of playing them, however, because computer & video games were new, nobody cared how bad they really were.
The games 8 & 16 bit machines of the early & mid nineties like the NES, SNES, Megadrive etc. had many quality titles.
Many of the games are still good to this day. They offered longer quests, the ability to save the game, etc. Many of the 2D RPGs and platformers were a delight to play, and many are coming to the GameBoy Advance in the future.
I’ve only been on the Internet for around 3/4 of a year now, and since then have downloaded loads of emulators and roms, but all those games just don’t appeal to me anymore.
The newest games machines like the N64, Gamecube, PS1 & 2 have given us ultra realistic graphics & sound enabled amazingly detailed and rich gaming environments, 3D analogue control meant playing games was better than ever, gripping movie-like storylines like Metal Gear Solid put gamers in the heat of the action. Movie size budgets are given to games and hundreds of people are used to create one game.
When Mario and Zelda took the leap into 3D, they were ten times better for it.
Many of these modern games however, rely too heavily on their presentation, and only offer a shallow gaming experience.
I’m not saying we should forget the classics from the golden age of video games.
I, like many others, have seen the games industry grow from nothing to the billion-dollar industry it is today, and I’ve experienced the best and worst of what games have had to offer. But when beardy chin-strokers try to impress the gaming youth of today by claiming Elite to be the best game ever, or proving their knowledge by bragging that they knew RARE were Ultimate Play the Game it annoys me.
Many retro titles like Elite, Mario World and Golden Axe are going to be released on GBA, so we will no doubt here those retro gamers fussing over Elite again.
Look ahead to new games, sure cherish the past, but the best is around now and yet to come.
I say bring on Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Gamecube, etc.
What do you think??
Are the old classics like Mario World, Chrono Trigger or old Spectrum games better than today’s offerings?
Are new games mostly style over substance?
Are too many old retro gamers living in the past?