The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Since the death of cartridge based games ("You mean those GBA things you slot in the back really have tiny CDs inside them that spin around? Wow.", I hear you say), I have felt a pain deep in my heart for the industry, as there used to be something rather special about them. Even though they cost more to produce and thus to buy, you felt as though you were getting an article of substance rather than a piece of plastic with some digital 1's and 0's on it. I do not consider CDDVD based games to be collectable despite their obvious advantages.
I remember when I bought Zelda OoT and Perfect Dark home. The feeling of quality was amazing. I bought Final Fantasy 9 home and it slipped out of the PlayStation tray and onto the floor. No biggie. Cleaning the contacts was always fun. I guess I saw cartridges as a physical extension of the console rather than just a piece of code to run on it. To me this increases the feel that you have for the game. If you go into a retro shop now, it is the shelve filled with cartridges that draws you towards them. Even the rows upon rows of Boxless Atari VCS carts seem more appealing than the bin of soleless CD's. Or is it just me? I'm actually tempted to rake out any old cartidges I can find and have a smell-o-thon.
SNES was when gaming was gaming - no FMV, useless non gaming stuff, just gameplay. I used to love the burning smell of the cartridge after hours upon hours of gameplaying (remember - hardly any save options in some games) - its like you could smell what Sonic's sneakers smelt like after all that running. But on a more positive view; larger formats hold larger game ideas. Although I suppose they also hold that 'lets fill the disk with useless rubbish because we can' theory, ie, pointless FMVs, cutscenes and silly amounts of (sometimes) uneeded non-actual gameplay stuff. CD's/DVD's just don't seem tangible enough, and you could switch games much quicker, in 4 easy steps:
1. Hit the power switch off.
2. Pull out/eject cartridge and drop/throw anywhere you like, because it won't break. Ever.
3. Whip out next cartridge, blow quickly along connectors and slam it into the machine.
4. Trip the power back on.
Allotted time: 1.5 secs approx. Changing CD's takes ages...especially if you're as much of a perfectionist as I am...
Oh well...On the other side of the argument, at least CD's and DVD's don't have battery backups that expire with age. Any SNES/NES collector must be well aware of that - it gets to a point where you try to save as little as possible in the hope that the BB will last longer. Strange, though, as I've never had this problem at all. I recently bought a copy of the original Might and Magic on the Mega Drive circa 1990 I think and the battery still worked fine with all the saves. How strange.
This reminds me of a debate I once had with a friend about Vinyl .vs. CDs. And once again, surprise, surprise, CDs lose, even though they are obviously superior. I love cartridges, but have a special place in my heart for the GameCube CDs (despite the fact that I've never used one :D), I think they retain some of the magic, sort of connected. Another point - could the fact that we love cartridges be that it makes us different? Despite the constant push to make videogames mainstream and more widely used, we still want something that we can relate to as gamers, for exmaple the GameCube CDs, which are obviously very unique and different from normal CD's and hence the 'magic'. We want gaming to be noticed but if they are going to notice us, we dont want to feel like we've changed for them in any way, which is the same as being accepted in life in general. So really, its all sort of obvious.
I'm hoping for a return to cartridges one day. Perhaps a new form of solid-state media will be designed that is cheap as...er...chips. My main gripe with discs is that they scratch. The copy of Halo that is boxed and stacked on a shelf in my mate's living room will almost certainly be outlived by the copy of Mario 64 that is chucked into a corner of my untidy bedroom. I'd even be happy if they put DVDs in some sort of cassette, like they do with floppies. The fact that Nintendo were talking about casing for CDs when the Snes CD add-on came out made me believe that they would do that exact thing when they eventually did go with an optical format.
To be fair, the loading times will undoubtedly get to the point where the only ones who notice anything will be a few freaks. Hell, I haven't seen any signs of loading times on the GC (apart from the excessively long startup animation obviously). But until they do put them into some sort of cases, they would always be more susceptible to damage than carts. In my old school, they had a PC with a CD drive that accepted CDs in clear plastic cases. If Nintendo used a similar thing, then surely that would make the game virtually indestructible - you could just buy a replacement case if the old one got buggered, and these could be sold for a quid each or something.
*Large sniff* Ah...its funny how you can actually still smell that burning now, on long-time-unused cartidges. I always prefered cartridges for their loading times and durability. I knew someone who left a Sonic and Knuckles cartrige by a table lamp and under the corner of a magazine once. The cartridge melted! Now it looks all gloopy and has a bit of ripped paper stuck to it, but it still works fine. Does anybody else feel my pain?
Thanks for reading,
LF.
I remember when I bought Zelda OoT and Perfect Dark home. The feeling of quality was amazing. I bought Final Fantasy 9 home and it slipped out of the PlayStation tray and onto the floor. No biggie. Cleaning the contacts was always fun. I guess I saw cartridges as a physical extension of the console rather than just a piece of code to run on it. To me this increases the feel that you have for the game. If you go into a retro shop now, it is the shelve filled with cartridges that draws you towards them. Even the rows upon rows of Boxless Atari VCS carts seem more appealing than the bin of soleless CD's. Or is it just me? I'm actually tempted to rake out any old cartidges I can find and have a smell-o-thon.
SNES was when gaming was gaming - no FMV, useless non gaming stuff, just gameplay. I used to love the burning smell of the cartridge after hours upon hours of gameplaying (remember - hardly any save options in some games) - its like you could smell what Sonic's sneakers smelt like after all that running. But on a more positive view; larger formats hold larger game ideas. Although I suppose they also hold that 'lets fill the disk with useless rubbish because we can' theory, ie, pointless FMVs, cutscenes and silly amounts of (sometimes) uneeded non-actual gameplay stuff. CD's/DVD's just don't seem tangible enough, and you could switch games much quicker, in 4 easy steps:
1. Hit the power switch off.
2. Pull out/eject cartridge and drop/throw anywhere you like, because it won't break. Ever.
3. Whip out next cartridge, blow quickly along connectors and slam it into the machine.
4. Trip the power back on.
Allotted time: 1.5 secs approx. Changing CD's takes ages...especially if you're as much of a perfectionist as I am...
Oh well...On the other side of the argument, at least CD's and DVD's don't have battery backups that expire with age. Any SNES/NES collector must be well aware of that - it gets to a point where you try to save as little as possible in the hope that the BB will last longer. Strange, though, as I've never had this problem at all. I recently bought a copy of the original Might and Magic on the Mega Drive circa 1990 I think and the battery still worked fine with all the saves. How strange.
This reminds me of a debate I once had with a friend about Vinyl .vs. CDs. And once again, surprise, surprise, CDs lose, even though they are obviously superior. I love cartridges, but have a special place in my heart for the GameCube CDs (despite the fact that I've never used one :D), I think they retain some of the magic, sort of connected. Another point - could the fact that we love cartridges be that it makes us different? Despite the constant push to make videogames mainstream and more widely used, we still want something that we can relate to as gamers, for exmaple the GameCube CDs, which are obviously very unique and different from normal CD's and hence the 'magic'. We want gaming to be noticed but if they are going to notice us, we dont want to feel like we've changed for them in any way, which is the same as being accepted in life in general. So really, its all sort of obvious.
I'm hoping for a return to cartridges one day. Perhaps a new form of solid-state media will be designed that is cheap as...er...chips. My main gripe with discs is that they scratch. The copy of Halo that is boxed and stacked on a shelf in my mate's living room will almost certainly be outlived by the copy of Mario 64 that is chucked into a corner of my untidy bedroom. I'd even be happy if they put DVDs in some sort of cassette, like they do with floppies. The fact that Nintendo were talking about casing for CDs when the Snes CD add-on came out made me believe that they would do that exact thing when they eventually did go with an optical format.
To be fair, the loading times will undoubtedly get to the point where the only ones who notice anything will be a few freaks. Hell, I haven't seen any signs of loading times on the GC (apart from the excessively long startup animation obviously). But until they do put them into some sort of cases, they would always be more susceptible to damage than carts. In my old school, they had a PC with a CD drive that accepted CDs in clear plastic cases. If Nintendo used a similar thing, then surely that would make the game virtually indestructible - you could just buy a replacement case if the old one got buggered, and these could be sold for a quid each or something.
*Large sniff* Ah...its funny how you can actually still smell that burning now, on long-time-unused cartidges. I always prefered cartridges for their loading times and durability. I knew someone who left a Sonic and Knuckles cartrige by a table lamp and under the corner of a magazine once. The cartridge melted! Now it looks all gloopy and has a bit of ripped paper stuck to it, but it still works fine. Does anybody else feel my pain?
Thanks for reading,
LF.
Page:
Since the death of cartridge based games ("You mean those GBA things you slot in the back really have tiny CDs inside them that spin around? Wow.", I hear you say), I have felt a pain deep in my heart for the industry, as there used to be something rather special about them. Even though they cost more to produce and thus to buy, you felt as though you were getting an article of substance rather than a piece of plastic with some digital 1's and 0's on it. I do not consider CDDVD based games to be collectable despite their obvious advantages.
I remember when I bought Zelda OoT and Perfect Dark home. The feeling of quality was amazing. I bought Final Fantasy 9 home and it slipped out of the PlayStation tray and onto the floor. No biggie. Cleaning the contacts was always fun. I guess I saw cartridges as a physical extension of the console rather than just a piece of code to run on it. To me this increases the feel that you have for the game. If you go into a retro shop now, it is the shelve filled with cartridges that draws you towards them. Even the rows upon rows of Boxless Atari VCS carts seem more appealing than the bin of soleless CD's. Or is it just me? I'm actually tempted to rake out any old cartidges I can find and have a smell-o-thon.
SNES was when gaming was gaming - no FMV, useless non gaming stuff, just gameplay. I used to love the burning smell of the cartridge after hours upon hours of gameplaying (remember - hardly any save options in some games) - its like you could smell what Sonic's sneakers smelt like after all that running. But on a more positive view; larger formats hold larger game ideas. Although I suppose they also hold that 'lets fill the disk with useless rubbish because we can' theory, ie, pointless FMVs, cutscenes and silly amounts of (sometimes) uneeded non-actual gameplay stuff. CD's/DVD's just don't seem tangible enough, and you could switch games much quicker, in 4 easy steps:
1. Hit the power switch off.
2. Pull out/eject cartridge and drop/throw anywhere you like, because it won't break. Ever.
3. Whip out next cartridge, blow quickly along connectors and slam it into the machine.
4. Trip the power back on.
Allotted time: 1.5 secs approx. Changing CD's takes ages...especially if you're as much of a perfectionist as I am...
Oh well...On the other side of the argument, at least CD's and DVD's don't have battery backups that expire with age. Any SNES/NES collector must be well aware of that - it gets to a point where you try to save as little as possible in the hope that the BB will last longer. Strange, though, as I've never had this problem at all. I recently bought a copy of the original Might and Magic on the Mega Drive circa 1990 I think and the battery still worked fine with all the saves. How strange.
This reminds me of a debate I once had with a friend about Vinyl .vs. CDs. And once again, surprise, surprise, CDs lose, even though they are obviously superior. I love cartridges, but have a special place in my heart for the GameCube CDs (despite the fact that I've never used one :D), I think they retain some of the magic, sort of connected. Another point - could the fact that we love cartridges be that it makes us different? Despite the constant push to make videogames mainstream and more widely used, we still want something that we can relate to as gamers, for exmaple the GameCube CDs, which are obviously very unique and different from normal CD's and hence the 'magic'. We want gaming to be noticed but if they are going to notice us, we dont want to feel like we've changed for them in any way, which is the same as being accepted in life in general. So really, its all sort of obvious.
I'm hoping for a return to cartridges one day. Perhaps a new form of solid-state media will be designed that is cheap as...er...chips. My main gripe with discs is that they scratch. The copy of Halo that is boxed and stacked on a shelf in my mate's living room will almost certainly be outlived by the copy of Mario 64 that is chucked into a corner of my untidy bedroom. I'd even be happy if they put DVDs in some sort of cassette, like they do with floppies. The fact that Nintendo were talking about casing for CDs when the Snes CD add-on came out made me believe that they would do that exact thing when they eventually did go with an optical format.
To be fair, the loading times will undoubtedly get to the point where the only ones who notice anything will be a few freaks. Hell, I haven't seen any signs of loading times on the GC (apart from the excessively long startup animation obviously). But until they do put them into some sort of cases, they would always be more susceptible to damage than carts. In my old school, they had a PC with a CD drive that accepted CDs in clear plastic cases. If Nintendo used a similar thing, then surely that would make the game virtually indestructible - you could just buy a replacement case if the old one got buggered, and these could be sold for a quid each or something.
*Large sniff* Ah...its funny how you can actually still smell that burning now, on long-time-unused cartidges. I always prefered cartridges for their loading times and durability. I knew someone who left a Sonic and Knuckles cartrige by a table lamp and under the corner of a magazine once. The cartridge melted! Now it looks all gloopy and has a bit of ripped paper stuck to it, but it still works fine. Does anybody else feel my pain?
Thanks for reading,
LF.
I remember when I bought Zelda OoT and Perfect Dark home. The feeling of quality was amazing. I bought Final Fantasy 9 home and it slipped out of the PlayStation tray and onto the floor. No biggie. Cleaning the contacts was always fun. I guess I saw cartridges as a physical extension of the console rather than just a piece of code to run on it. To me this increases the feel that you have for the game. If you go into a retro shop now, it is the shelve filled with cartridges that draws you towards them. Even the rows upon rows of Boxless Atari VCS carts seem more appealing than the bin of soleless CD's. Or is it just me? I'm actually tempted to rake out any old cartidges I can find and have a smell-o-thon.
SNES was when gaming was gaming - no FMV, useless non gaming stuff, just gameplay. I used to love the burning smell of the cartridge after hours upon hours of gameplaying (remember - hardly any save options in some games) - its like you could smell what Sonic's sneakers smelt like after all that running. But on a more positive view; larger formats hold larger game ideas. Although I suppose they also hold that 'lets fill the disk with useless rubbish because we can' theory, ie, pointless FMVs, cutscenes and silly amounts of (sometimes) uneeded non-actual gameplay stuff. CD's/DVD's just don't seem tangible enough, and you could switch games much quicker, in 4 easy steps:
1. Hit the power switch off.
2. Pull out/eject cartridge and drop/throw anywhere you like, because it won't break. Ever.
3. Whip out next cartridge, blow quickly along connectors and slam it into the machine.
4. Trip the power back on.
Allotted time: 1.5 secs approx. Changing CD's takes ages...especially if you're as much of a perfectionist as I am...
Oh well...On the other side of the argument, at least CD's and DVD's don't have battery backups that expire with age. Any SNES/NES collector must be well aware of that - it gets to a point where you try to save as little as possible in the hope that the BB will last longer. Strange, though, as I've never had this problem at all. I recently bought a copy of the original Might and Magic on the Mega Drive circa 1990 I think and the battery still worked fine with all the saves. How strange.
This reminds me of a debate I once had with a friend about Vinyl .vs. CDs. And once again, surprise, surprise, CDs lose, even though they are obviously superior. I love cartridges, but have a special place in my heart for the GameCube CDs (despite the fact that I've never used one :D), I think they retain some of the magic, sort of connected. Another point - could the fact that we love cartridges be that it makes us different? Despite the constant push to make videogames mainstream and more widely used, we still want something that we can relate to as gamers, for exmaple the GameCube CDs, which are obviously very unique and different from normal CD's and hence the 'magic'. We want gaming to be noticed but if they are going to notice us, we dont want to feel like we've changed for them in any way, which is the same as being accepted in life in general. So really, its all sort of obvious.
I'm hoping for a return to cartridges one day. Perhaps a new form of solid-state media will be designed that is cheap as...er...chips. My main gripe with discs is that they scratch. The copy of Halo that is boxed and stacked on a shelf in my mate's living room will almost certainly be outlived by the copy of Mario 64 that is chucked into a corner of my untidy bedroom. I'd even be happy if they put DVDs in some sort of cassette, like they do with floppies. The fact that Nintendo were talking about casing for CDs when the Snes CD add-on came out made me believe that they would do that exact thing when they eventually did go with an optical format.
To be fair, the loading times will undoubtedly get to the point where the only ones who notice anything will be a few freaks. Hell, I haven't seen any signs of loading times on the GC (apart from the excessively long startup animation obviously). But until they do put them into some sort of cases, they would always be more susceptible to damage than carts. In my old school, they had a PC with a CD drive that accepted CDs in clear plastic cases. If Nintendo used a similar thing, then surely that would make the game virtually indestructible - you could just buy a replacement case if the old one got buggered, and these could be sold for a quid each or something.
*Large sniff* Ah...its funny how you can actually still smell that burning now, on long-time-unused cartidges. I always prefered cartridges for their loading times and durability. I knew someone who left a Sonic and Knuckles cartrige by a table lamp and under the corner of a magazine once. The cartridge melted! Now it looks all gloopy and has a bit of ripped paper stuck to it, but it still works fine. Does anybody else feel my pain?
Thanks for reading,
LF.
Um, to be honest, I don't really see the difference.....
Bah, ignore me, good post.
Bah, ignore me, good post.
The SNES was gaming heaven, it would still have a shelf life if they kept making games for it, but sadly, this didn't happen.
Anyway, nice post, good luck.
Anyway, nice post, good luck.
Great post mate.
*He forced me too say that :|*
:-D
*He forced me too say that :|*
:-D
Well, on the topic of vinyl vs CDs, I'm undubtedly on the site fo vinyl. Not only does it have infinte possible freuencies, whereas CDs are limitted to a certain bandwidth, but their cimplicity is divine- play and stop!
Likewise, Carts are simple, which is what makes them my preferred medium. What is really needed is a hybrid of carts and DVDs in a "packages DVD" style case you mentioned!
Good post
Likewise, Carts are simple, which is what makes them my preferred medium. What is really needed is a hybrid of carts and DVDs in a "packages DVD" style case you mentioned!
Good post
The concept of cartridges...
the posts in Prime get more intresting by the day...
the posts in Prime get more intresting by the day...
Yea good post
MMMMMMM...the sweet aroma of a good post!
:P
:P
Yeah, good post.
That was actually very good.
Incredibly good.
Well, good good. I agree with the 'collectability' point you raised at the start - I remember the free cart rack I got with N64 magazine. It was great - I had all my good games slotted in, next to my N64. They really were extensions to the machine - the stuck out the top for crying out loud. I also hate CDs - especially when they stop working eventually.
That was actually very good.
Incredibly good.
Well, good good. I agree with the 'collectability' point you raised at the start - I remember the free cart rack I got with N64 magazine. It was great - I had all my good games slotted in, next to my N64. They really were extensions to the machine - the stuck out the top for crying out loud. I also hate CDs - especially when they stop working eventually.
Page: