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This is just about the challenges the old games set us and how new developers dont really give us the same addictive, tough games nowadays.
I have never been a particularly spectacular gamer. My only claim to fame is that I can beat my friends at most games. I always worked my way through games, getting average scores and having fun, even though I struggled. Back in the days of the Master system when I was but a lad I would struggle immensely trying to beat Alex the Kidd. Then when the Mega Drive and SNES came out I still had trouble finishing games at all. Being an RPG junkie I tried my hand at Chrono trigger, FF6 and the like, but never being much good.
Getting older was great. I could finally beat most of the games I played. In fact, I was so good I expected to finish 90% of any games I got my hands on. Now it’s still pretty much the same. Also, the majority of the market is sports games or some tosh like that, so there’s not much need for completion. Anyway, back to the story. My age seemed to be the key to finally being able to do decently at video games. Or so I thought.
Most of you will know this and if you haven’t realised it yet I suggest you take a good look at the market, but the video gaming industry is turning into a sham, full of licensed cash ins and shameless companies like EA making mediocre sports and licensed games, knowing full well that theirs will sell well above any competitors. But EA have been getting slightly better recently. Companies are now more intent in making big bucks by including flashy extras with consoles, and average games that get hyped up enough to top the charts with an average rating of 5/10.
When it all started, the two gods of pure gaming, Sega and Nintendo had dreams of making a world full of innovative, challenging, original games. For several years they set the world alight with difficult and awesome games. There will never be a better gaming era than that of the SNES/Megadrive in my opinion. The games constantly prodded for another go and were very hard to master. But they were so addictive, and you knew you could do it if you had one more go.
The point to this is that many companies do not care as much about making original, difficult games. I figured out that when I was younger, I wasn’t outrageously bad at games, I just grew up I a gaming era with hard games. Going back now to my old games, I find myself really challenged by the old classics. I can sit there for hours, going back for another go. Nowadays I get games that may take a long time, but are still quite basic and simple. And I don care how good the look or how many new features they give, if I’m not challenged I get bored quickly. Anyone remember Ghouls n ghosts? Revenge of Shinobi? Lufia? Star Ocean? Some of those drove me nuts, but they were so addictive that I had the incentive to go back for another go. Apart from Star Ocean, that game is impossible! :-)
Although I love the new age consoles, I’ll stick to my Mastersystem, Megadrive, SNES, NES. Who’s with me?…ah…just me then.
What about you guys? Miss the challenge of the old games? Which games do you think set the most challenge?
I have never been a particularly spectacular gamer. My only claim to fame is that I can beat my friends at most games. I always worked my way through games, getting average scores and having fun, even though I struggled. Back in the days of the Master system when I was but a lad I would struggle immensely trying to beat Alex the Kidd. Then when the Mega Drive and SNES came out I still had trouble finishing games at all. Being an RPG junkie I tried my hand at Chrono trigger, FF6 and the like, but never being much good.
Getting older was great. I could finally beat most of the games I played. In fact, I was so good I expected to finish 90% of any games I got my hands on. Now it’s still pretty much the same. Also, the majority of the market is sports games or some tosh like that, so there’s not much need for completion. Anyway, back to the story. My age seemed to be the key to finally being able to do decently at video games. Or so I thought.
Most of you will know this and if you haven’t realised it yet I suggest you take a good look at the market, but the video gaming industry is turning into a sham, full of licensed cash ins and shameless companies like EA making mediocre sports and licensed games, knowing full well that theirs will sell well above any competitors. But EA have been getting slightly better recently. Companies are now more intent in making big bucks by including flashy extras with consoles, and average games that get hyped up enough to top the charts with an average rating of 5/10.
When it all started, the two gods of pure gaming, Sega and Nintendo had dreams of making a world full of innovative, challenging, original games. For several years they set the world alight with difficult and awesome games. There will never be a better gaming era than that of the SNES/Megadrive in my opinion. The games constantly prodded for another go and were very hard to master. But they were so addictive, and you knew you could do it if you had one more go.
The point to this is that many companies do not care as much about making original, difficult games. I figured out that when I was younger, I wasn’t outrageously bad at games, I just grew up I a gaming era with hard games. Going back now to my old games, I find myself really challenged by the old classics. I can sit there for hours, going back for another go. Nowadays I get games that may take a long time, but are still quite basic and simple. And I don care how good the look or how many new features they give, if I’m not challenged I get bored quickly. Anyone remember Ghouls n ghosts? Revenge of Shinobi? Lufia? Star Ocean? Some of those drove me nuts, but they were so addictive that I had the incentive to go back for another go. Apart from Star Ocean, that game is impossible! :-)
Although I love the new age consoles, I’ll stick to my Mastersystem, Megadrive, SNES, NES. Who’s with me?…ah…just me then.
What about you guys? Miss the challenge of the old games? Which games do you think set the most challenge?
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There are rehashes of Space Invaders and Prince of Persia coming out soon- the new Space Invaders game looks nice and violent.
I mean that for the action, NOT a thirst for blood.
I mean that for the action, NOT a thirst for blood.
new games can recreate old ones - as long as they have special effects, lots of interesting guns with nice sounds, and big-ass enemies instead of tiny swirly ones...
Wow, that's a big post. I can't be bothered to re-read it now.
Some of the games were very frustrating though, and you could only get past some parts of games if you'd got to those parts before.
Take Alex Kidd in Miracle World for example. There was the Paper, Scissors, Stone section. The geezer you go up against always chose the same option each round (first stone, then stone, then paper, or whatever). If you'd played it before you'd know what he'd choose, and you could beat him. Otherwise, you die! (There's other parts too - like destroying certain blocks would release a ghost which could kill you and you had no chance of escaping). No save games, not even passwords for this game I don't think. But - I became a master at it. I could complete the whole game without losing a single piece of energy. You may clap.
There's loads of games like that though. I can't think of any right now, except perhaps Rick Dangerous that has been mentioned. There's parts in that which result in unavoidable death unless you know what's coming.
But for some reason these games would still get played to death. I think it's because the games were (by modern standards) short. When you played Golden Axe, you played it from beginning to end, not from your last save point. If there was a particular part of the game you couldn't get past, you had to play the game again from the start, but try harder to have more lives left when you reach the difficult bit again.
To be honest I think my gaming skills are slowly deteriorating by modern games being too forgiving and allowing you to save every minute. I put on Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine a little while ago. I've beaten this game on the hardest difficulty in the past, but even on normal now everything seems to happen at the speed of lightning. I'm just rubbish.
Most modern games that have tried to copy the older genres have failed in vital places. Wreckless on the Xbox could have been Chase HQ. In Otogi, they could have had a high score section to last for as long as you could - attack wave after attack wave. I don't think many new gamers would even know what an attack wave was. Modern games have too many pre-scripted enemies that have to be in a certain place or the story wont work.
Hopefully now that 3D has been licked, we should get back to the good old days of a million enemies on screen at once. There's lots of fast games (fast racing games I mean), but I want explosions that are HUGE and enemies that are easy to kill but there's just so many of them you get swarmed. Halo got close to this with the Flood - I really do think that having lots of enemies and fewer savepoints is the way forward. Graphics cards can cope with it now! We don't want to play through games as if they're movies all the time.
So I'd conclude: old games were good at getting you to replay them because you had to if you wanted to get anyway. Frustrating parts in modern games get replayed and replayed but only from the last save point. The older games without savepoints gave you time to play through easier bits until you got to the frustrating bit again hopefully with more lives.
Oh yeah, and the games were better in the good ol' days.
Take Alex Kidd in Miracle World for example. There was the Paper, Scissors, Stone section. The geezer you go up against always chose the same option each round (first stone, then stone, then paper, or whatever). If you'd played it before you'd know what he'd choose, and you could beat him. Otherwise, you die! (There's other parts too - like destroying certain blocks would release a ghost which could kill you and you had no chance of escaping). No save games, not even passwords for this game I don't think. But - I became a master at it. I could complete the whole game without losing a single piece of energy. You may clap.
There's loads of games like that though. I can't think of any right now, except perhaps Rick Dangerous that has been mentioned. There's parts in that which result in unavoidable death unless you know what's coming.
But for some reason these games would still get played to death. I think it's because the games were (by modern standards) short. When you played Golden Axe, you played it from beginning to end, not from your last save point. If there was a particular part of the game you couldn't get past, you had to play the game again from the start, but try harder to have more lives left when you reach the difficult bit again.
To be honest I think my gaming skills are slowly deteriorating by modern games being too forgiving and allowing you to save every minute. I put on Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine a little while ago. I've beaten this game on the hardest difficulty in the past, but even on normal now everything seems to happen at the speed of lightning. I'm just rubbish.
Most modern games that have tried to copy the older genres have failed in vital places. Wreckless on the Xbox could have been Chase HQ. In Otogi, they could have had a high score section to last for as long as you could - attack wave after attack wave. I don't think many new gamers would even know what an attack wave was. Modern games have too many pre-scripted enemies that have to be in a certain place or the story wont work.
Hopefully now that 3D has been licked, we should get back to the good old days of a million enemies on screen at once. There's lots of fast games (fast racing games I mean), but I want explosions that are HUGE and enemies that are easy to kill but there's just so many of them you get swarmed. Halo got close to this with the Flood - I really do think that having lots of enemies and fewer savepoints is the way forward. Graphics cards can cope with it now! We don't want to play through games as if they're movies all the time.
So I'd conclude: old games were good at getting you to replay them because you had to if you wanted to get anyway. Frustrating parts in modern games get replayed and replayed but only from the last save point. The older games without savepoints gave you time to play through easier bits until you got to the frustrating bit again hopefully with more lives.
Oh yeah, and the games were better in the good ol' days.
Streets of Rage!! *drools*
After playing F-zero GX I can reveal that its a tough game, and I love it cos of the challenge. Its very fast, needs tactics and can be frustrating.
:-)
After playing F-zero GX I can reveal that its a tough game, and I love it cos of the challenge. Its very fast, needs tactics and can be frustrating.
:-)
cookie monster wrote:
> The old games were great for a challenge.
>
> I remember Magic Pockets, Rick Dangerous and Prince of Persia.
>
> Very challenging, although i was younger when i played those.
had those, rick dangerous was great, if a little frustrating at times.
I can't decide if my reflexes are improving or slowing down as I get older.
I remember playing street fighter 2 turbo on the fastest setting daily and being unbeatable. I think if I went back to that now it'd do my head in. games don't challenge you like that anymore, they're much more slow-paced.
for example. all those shoot em up tiles like xenon 2, r-type, blood money and project X, with millions of bullets flying everywhere, and you had to dodge them all while still shooting the enemies. what happened to that genre? also, contra 3 - brilliant, same sort of gameplay, frantic action. I would like to see some uprated shoot em up titles on the xbox.
and some games like double dragon/streets of rage
> The old games were great for a challenge.
>
> I remember Magic Pockets, Rick Dangerous and Prince of Persia.
>
> Very challenging, although i was younger when i played those.
had those, rick dangerous was great, if a little frustrating at times.
I can't decide if my reflexes are improving or slowing down as I get older.
I remember playing street fighter 2 turbo on the fastest setting daily and being unbeatable. I think if I went back to that now it'd do my head in. games don't challenge you like that anymore, they're much more slow-paced.
for example. all those shoot em up tiles like xenon 2, r-type, blood money and project X, with millions of bullets flying everywhere, and you had to dodge them all while still shooting the enemies. what happened to that genre? also, contra 3 - brilliant, same sort of gameplay, frantic action. I would like to see some uprated shoot em up titles on the xbox.
and some games like double dragon/streets of rage
It's so true... Although i have got a bit better and i could finally beat sonic 2 (whihc i'm going to attempt now) games just arn't as hard and i can complete nearly most of them...
The old games were great for a challenge.
I remember Magic Pockets, Rick Dangerous and Prince of Persia.
Very challenging, although i was younger when i played those.
I remember Magic Pockets, Rick Dangerous and Prince of Persia.
Very challenging, although i was younger when i played those.
That's true. When you crack a hard level nowadays, for example on GTA3, you get less out of it than you would on Gauntlet Legends.
I know what you mean Borat. But the other day I started playing Megaman 2 on the NES and even though it frustrated the hell outta me, I had to go back and play it more and more. Even though I was progressing slowly, I had so much more fun beating the challenge than from doing it on the modern consoles.
When you beat a level you've been stuck on for ages on the old consoles, its a great feeling. But now, its not really an achievement, and I expect to beat levels with little difficulty.
When you beat a level you've been stuck on for ages on the old consoles, its a great feeling. But now, its not really an achievement, and I expect to beat levels with little difficulty.
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