next gen or retro

marcuspheonix

im interested to see whether you guys prefer the current generation of videogames or the retro games. personally i think games have evolved so much in the last decade and games such as cod, gow, alan wake, gta 4 etc are extremely realistic and graphics have improved so much since the c64, atari, nes days. yet on the other hand i feel that the retro games are the ones that i remember the most fondly and have more of a lasting memory than todays games will. what do you guys think?

o1s1n

There are more older games and systems than in this current generation.

Therefore older games/systems win by default

Games haven't really evolved that much in the last decade. Compare a FPS on a current system to one 10 years ago. Then compare that game from 10 years ago to a game 10 years before that. You'll see where the actual fast evolution happened. It certainly was not in this generation.

Atavan-Halen

Meh, I don't really have a preference. If a game is good I'll play it, regardless of age. Doesn't specifically have to be this gen or previous. I'll agree though that really the only difference in games over the last few years is enhancing graphics and maybe adding small features to gameplay.

Retr0gamer

I've been very disappointed by this generation of consoles. Games companies have really been playing it safe and there's a severe lack of innovation. There's the odd exception like Demon's Souls, Dead Rising or Valkyria Chronicles but other than that it's really just been very stale FPS, third person shooters or sandbox games trying to emulate GTA and failing. Speaking of GTA even GTA 4 was a big step backwards from the previous games and no where near as good (although the DLC episodes are a return to form). I'm hoping as the cost of development goes down and we reach the end of the consoles lifecycle we will see more innovative games. It happened with the PS2 although much earlier in it's life. I think that some DLC practices are a joke. However I do like the advent of small downloadable games and these seem to be making up for the lack of innovation and games from smaller developers.

The Wii is a bit of a dark horse. There's quite a few excellent games on the system but you've really got to know your stuff to know that they even exist. I've actually purchased more Wii games this year than PS3 and 360 games and they have all been amazing.

What I haven't been disappointed in is this gens handhelds. The DS is arguably the best console ever made with so many good games on it it's impossible to keep up. The PSP might have horrendous controls but it's received some really good games especially with regards to RPGs.

I just can't really get excited by a lot of the games on the 360 and PS3 like I could with previous generations since they seem to be rehashes of old games. Even supposed innovations are stolen wholesale from previous generations. Gears of Wars cover system is ripped off from kill.switch and Halo 3's Forge is just a terrible map editor that was done better in Farcry instincts.

ghostchant

The DS has saved this generation in my eyes, my favourite console of all time, trying to collect as many of the games for it now as possible before I'm left resorting to eBay to find them..already too late for the US version of electroplankton it would seem, remember seeing a pre-owned version in gamestop over there..was 60 dollars as far as I remember! Still thinking I should have picked it up, would appear that it's gone up in value already

Atavan-Halen

Electroplankton (not US, unless they have more in the drawer/out the back) was €3.99 in Game in Blanchardstown today, couldn't resist it for that. They seem to have a few copies of it.

ghostchant

Can't argue with that price! Have seen a good few EU versions of it alright, and I have a vague recollection of seeing a US-box version in the preowned section of gamestop on henry st last year, before I found out it's the rarest US DS game. Not there any more anyway Was only sold from a website over there and so only preowned copies turned up in stores.

Sorry to the OP for off-topic posts, my vote goes for current gen, if only because of the DS and the availability of retro games on the download services-best of both worlds!

Atavan-Halen

I think I saw that too. Never even knew that myself! Apparantly it was sold in the Nintendo store in New York too.

ghostchant

Ah that's right yeah, remember reading that. I'll probably regret mentioning it now when one of you guys post here saying you picked it up in town somewhere!

Atavan-Halen

Hehe, if I do I'd be more than happy to sell it on to you for a mere €3451273.99

justbrian

For games alone Retro wins automatically. So many retro consoles with so many good games. The current consoles have a few stunners, but a lot of crap.

Atavan-Halen

justbrian wrote: »

For games alone Retro wins automatically. So many retro consoles with so many good games. The current consoles have a few stunners, but a lot of crap.

Well in all fairness retro has about a 35 year headstart on current gen :P

jaykhunter

To be fair you're asking this in the Arcade & Retro forum so the results are likely to be skewed!

My top favourite games of all time are all "retro"/2D but I love playing newer games this generation. So many great games I wanna play and don't have the time. Some games just wouldn't work 20 years ago, I can only imagine watch Arkham Asylum or Ghostbusters would be like then......oh.......yeah not great!!

I enjoy the greater intricacy, variety and depth that this generation brings. And I friggin' love HD. It's so beautiful.

Don't get me wrong, I love retro gaming, i just finished Broken Sword, and beat bowser in Super Mario Galaxy 2; and I can't wait to play Red Dead, Skyward Sword, Metroid, anything on the 3DS, it's gonna be magic

I dunno, a lot of the older consoles had a huge amount of crap back in the day. Since there's internet now we get to hear about every game, but there was a huge teething problem with the early days of 3D, and a lot of inferior platforming and shooter clones.

Mcjmetroid

Hmm It's a tough one but I tend to replay old titles more rather than newer ones. I suppose because the newer titles are longer and some having longer cut-scenes, makes you feel like replaying the game is more of a chore than anything else.

It's those pick-up-and-play titles that are lost today for the most part.

Mcjmetroid

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I've been very disappointed by this generation of consoles. Games companies have really been playing it safe and there's a severe lack of innovation. There's the odd exception like Demon's Souls, Dead Rising or Valkyria Chronicles but other than that it's really just been very stale FPS, third person shooters or sandbox games trying to emulate GTA and failing. Speaking of GTA even GTA 4 was a big step backwards from the previous games and no where near as good (although the DLC episodes are a return to form). I'm hoping as the cost of development goes down and we reach the end of the consoles lifecycle we will see more innovative games. It happened with the PS2 although much earlier in it's life. I think that some DLC practices are a joke. However I do like the advent of small downloadable games and these seem to be making up for the lack of innovation and games from smaller developers.

The Wii is a bit of a dark horse. There's quite a few excellent games on the system but you've really got to know your stuff to know that they even exist. I've actually purchased more Wii games this year than PS3 and 360 games and they have all been amazing.

What I haven't been disappointed in is this gens handhelds. The DS is arguably the best console ever made with so many good games on it it's impossible to keep up. The PSP might have horrendous controls but it's received some really good games especially with regards to RPGs.

I just can't really get excited by a lot of the games on the 360 and PS3 like I could with previous generations since they seem to be rehashes of old games. Even supposed innovations are stolen wholesale from previous generations. Gears of Wars cover system is ripped off from kill.switch and Halo 3's Forge is just a terrible map editor that was done better in Farcry instincts.

I very much agree, especially regarding the handheld part of your post. The ds is amazing and is probably Nintendo's best. A platform that appealed to both casuals and core gamers evenly? NO WAY!

Dr Bob

ghostchant wrote: »

The DS has saved this generation in my eyes, my favourite console of all time, trying to collect as many of the games for it now as possible before I'm left resorting to eBay to find them..already too late for the US version of electroplankton it would seem, remember seeing a pre-owned version in gamestop over there..was 60 dollars as far as I remember! Still thinking I should have picked it up, would appear that it's gone up in value already

Really?
I have one and it seems to feel like 80% of games are Jrpgs* , 10% shovelware aimed at kids 5% brain training clones and 5% decent games that I'm interested in

__________________
* and I'm sick to the back teeth of Jrpgs

o1s1n

He's right, the DS is brilliant. The above statistics are really incorrect. There's much more to it than JPRGs and shovelware.

It's also my own favourite of this generation.

o1s1n

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I hate all this nonsense that gaming innovation has died and that all modern games are tripe. Its the current bandwagen to jump on, like how people go on about how Nintendo are gaming saviours.

You're doing a bit of a straw man now. I'm fairly sure nobody said all modern games are tripe. That would be a very stupid comment to make as there are obviously great modern games.

What some were saying (Including myself) is that as far as evolution goes, the previous decade had massive leaps and bounds. We went from 8 bit 2d, up to 16 bit 2d and then into the world of 3d. All in the space of a decade. We even touched on VR along the way.

The last decade's evolution doesn't come close to that in the slightest.

/Edit - just on the topic of FPS, think about it. In a decade we progressed from more or less the birth of FPS with the likes of Wolfenstein up to Halflife. If that isn't speedy evolution of a genre I don't know what is!

Retr0gamer

luas_dublin wrote: »

Really?
I have one and it seems to feel like 80% of games are Jrpgs* , 10% shovelware aimed at kids 5% brain training clones and 5% decent games that I'm interested in

You're joking me? There's tonnes of amazing games on the DS! It's probably beaten the SNES as the best console ever.

Avoiding JRPGs we have:

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! 1 and 2
Elite Beat Agents
GTA Chinatown wars
The two zelda games
Contra 4
The advance wars games
The three castlevania games
Kirby Canvas Course
The Professor Layton games
Bangai-O Spirits
Picross
Ninja Gaiden
Dragon Quest Rocket Slime
Rhythm heaven
Lunar Knights
Fire Emblem
Pheonix Wright series
Might and Magic

That's only a few I spied off metacritic. As for RPGs there are a lot but they there's plenty that don't play like the typical FF JRPG and are really engaging dungeon crawlers like SMT: Strange Journey, Etrian Odyssey and some Strategy RPGs like Devil Survivor.

o1s1n

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I hate all this nonsense that gaming innovation has died and that all modern games are tripe

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I didnt say that somebody said all modern games are tripe.

LIGHTNING wrote: »

But in regard to the FPS advancement that was due to the rapid progress in hardware at the time. In the space of time where we went from Wolf3d to doom we went from 386sx CPU`s to 486DX66 cpus with double or triple the clock speed and math co-processor.

Then we had the jump to the pentium processors and then the big one the dedicated 3d cars (3DFX`s). So we went from software rendering to hardware rendering in Quake 2 (and GLQuake to a lesser extent). Now if you look at the advancement from the Quake 2 era it was just a matter of increasing GPU performance and thus higher poly counts. Apart from the odd cool techie thing like texture compression, enviromental bump mapping its just been a case of how many polygons your engine can push through.

So you agree, there were massive jumps in hardware. This resulted in a massive jump in how the games played. Compare Wolfenstein to Half Life. The difference is phenomenal. Then compare Half life 1 to Half life 2 or another modern FPS. Not so much of a difference.

Retr0gamer

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Again thats a load of tosh, half the games published on the current gen Nintendo consoles are either useless motion gimmicky games, games targeted for mature adults (brain training, fitness games), terrible games for children (all those dog,cat games, hannah montana etc). Nintendo do come out with some A+ games like Mario Galaxy but they are few and far between.

This is bull. There's plenty of brilliant games on the Wii, they are just not heavily promoted like red dead redemption.

o1s1n

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Are you talking from a graphical point of view?

Well, both I guess. Graphically there have been a few layers of shine added but that's about it really.

Gameplay wise I could say the same!

ghostchant

luas_dublin wrote: »

Really?
I have one and it seems to feel like 80% of games are Jrpgs* , 10% shovelware aimed at kids 5% brain training clones and 5% decent games that I'm interested in

__________________
* and I'm sick to the back teeth of Jrpgs

In fairness, considering how many DS games there are, it'd take an awful long time to play through the 5% you're interested in

I posted a list of DS games I had last year, though picked up a fair few more when working in Boston earlier this year, think I'm pushing 60 games at this stage. Anyway haven't got the time to update the list at the moment but here's how it looked last November (admittedly there are a few JRPGs there, even more since then :P ):

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055741964

Retr0gamer

Is there really much difference between CoD 1 and CoD Modern Warfare 1 and 2? I've played them recently and other than graphically there isn't much. the same goes for Halo 1 and Halo 3. Even Bioshock is a pale imitation of System Shock 2 and nothing has come close to the level of interactivity and non linearity seen in Deus Ex. System Shock 2 and Deus Ex should have been the future of FPS games but the genre just seems to be happy to stagnate in copying the CoD model. It's basically taken a step backwards. Sure the technology now can make more immersive environments and AI than in SS2 and Deus Ex but what' the point when nobody is doing it and trying to advance the genre with it.

Retr0gamer

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Are you joking? No real difference between Cod1 and Cod6! The same goes for the massive jump between Halo 1->Halo 3.

The AI in SS2 was poor and not amazing in Deus Ex (both of which are amongst my favourite games of all time)

Yeah there's no difference in gameplay between the CoD games. Graphically there is a big jump but in gameplay? Hardly. Sure it's still running on the same Quake 3 tech so it even has the same feel. The only difference is you are shooting russians instead of nazis. In fact CoD 1 is still the best in the series imo.

As for Halo 3, eh I'm not sure what game you are playing but again other than graphically there's no change in gameplay.

I also know that the AI in SS2 and Deus Ex is very poor but whyisn't anyone making a game to surpass these masterpieces by making a game with todays production values but with the improvements in AI, physics etc. that todays tech brings?

djimi

Graphics aside I actually think that CoD1 and CoD2 are a lot better than the newer ones. CoD MW1 and 2 just dont do it for me at all, but then again I am more into WWII shooters so that could be at least part of the reason! I bought both MW1 and MW2 on the day the came out, yet Im currently still playing CoD2 and I couldnt tell you when I last played either MW...

djimi

As for which is better, next gen or retro, maybe Im turning into an old fart (at 27) but I find older games to be a lot more enjoyable to play than newer ones for the most part. The old 8 and 16 bit gen games had a lovely "pick up and play" quality to them that you just dont get with most of todays overblown and frankly boring games. Some newer ones are good obviously, I love playing CoD and Im into racing sims like GTR but I still find myself going back to playing Street Fighter, Streets of Rage or Mario Kart rather than buying new games.

The most excited Ive been playing any game recently was when I downloaded the demo of Monkey Island 2 on the PS3; I sat there playing it with a big grin on my face! That probably goes a lot to telling which era my heart lies in...!

Retr0gamer

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Sorry my bad I thought you only said graphically, I take back my comment. You are right COD1 is still the best of the series from a gameplay point of view. You dont rate Bioshock which is fair enough but I think its a masterpiece and people will be talking about it in the same way System Shock is talked about.

I was wondering, we don't agree on a lot of things but I have respect for your opinion but thought you would agree with this one:) As for Bioshock, I don't hate it at all, in fact I thought it was amazing but I played system Shock 2 for the first time 6 months ago and it was so much better and made me understand why people were saying Bioshock felt like a cut down System Shock 2 because it really is. I suppose I do criticise a lot of games and people think I hate them when I don't, a bit like FFVII!

CiDeRmAn

I'm a complete gaming agnostic, I don't believe in any one true console, publisher or dev.
That said, if it's Nintendo, Rockstar, Criteron, Rare or even Treasure I'm going to take a bt of notice.
What all this means is I really don't have to draw a strict distinction between one and the other, after all the next-gen hasn't been launched yet, the current gen is fast on it's way to being one of the oldest current gens ever, with the 360 going on 6 next year and the PS3 going on 4, the DS and PSP are also getting wrinkly.
In previous generations, 4/5 years in and while we had PS2/GC/Xbox we were looking eagerly at the replacements imminent arrival, in the shape of the PS3/Wii and 360.

Not that this prevents any one of them from having being hosts to great games, and while the new consoles came out they remained so and that's my point.

There really isn't an easy yard stick, a handy line in the sand dividing new from old any more, sure Pong is old, Bayonetta is new, but then Bayonetta is playing on 5 year old hardware.

There are no new home consoles to look forward to, aside from a possible WiiHD in 2011.
On the handheld front things are slightly different with the 3DS on the way, but it's software lineup is firmly fixed in the old, classic game characters and games they featured in, so we have MGS3D, Pilotwings, MarioKart etc.

Anywho,
My point, I think I have one, is that it's all good baby.
Play Robotron and Thunderforce IV in the morning, before a spot of Radiant Silvergun in the afternoon, topping it off with a bit of Fallout 3 in the evening and perhaps a slice of Geometry Wars 2 to cool down before bed.
We gamers have never had it so good, we have tons to play, all never so affordable as they are now.
We have access to massive great game selections on formats as diverse as the Snes to the Saturn, the PS2 to the DC, and we are not slaves to the release schedules, we can cherry pick our way through the complete release list and take what we want at a fraction of their original value, unless you like to blow your fundage on rare titles, each to their own.
Thing is, it's fantastic to be a gamer now, so why worry about distinctions between retro and next gen?
As I said elsewhere, a day will come where you precious PS3 will, itself, be a retro console, although seeing the PSone's lack of progress in this respect, it could be a while!

Dr Bob

Probably should put this in perspective , the oul DS gets a fair bit of use from me , when its good its great , but theres an awful lot of dross for it out there for it.And you have to admit a lot of games for it are JRpgs or shovelware.

Other than a few atlus games there arent that many western styled rpgs for it.
some of the best stuff for it though didnt even get released here , Soma bringer for example (which is nominally a Jrpg in that its an RPG from japan , but plays more like a cross between diablo and wow).

In retrospect I probably should have bought a PSP

Retr0gamer

luas_dublin wrote: »

Probably should put this in perspective , the oul DS gets a fair bit of use from me , when its good its great , but theres an awful lot of dross for it out there for it.And you have to admit a lot of games for it are JRpgs or shovelware.

Other than a few atlus games there arent that many western styled rpgs for it.
some of the best stuff for it though didnt even get released here , Soma bringer for example (which is nominally a Jrpg in that its an RPG from japan , but plays more like a cross between diablo and wow).

In retrospect I probably should have bought a PSP

Well there's a solution, avoid the shovelware and play the good stuff :P

As for the PSP it's a good console but there's less good games on the PSP and it's also really only full of JRPGs at the moment so not sure why you'd want one! Also the controls and poor battery life really annoy me.

Never really though Atlus's stuff played like JRPGs. The stuff they release is certainly different from other JRPGs but they are distinctly japanese flavoured. However thinking about it, the stories are a lot more mature and better written and the systems are more complicated and tough like old western RPGs.