This is just heart breaking!

Dude111

Todays generation kids playing Atari,etc games!!

http://web.archive.org/web/20031108234529/http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,4364,1338767,00.asp

THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT GOOD IS........ Very,very sad


I LOVE ATARI 2600!! (All games listed there i like)

Zillah

These games are all bad games and they only seem good to you because of nostalgia. Let's all go play cup-and-ball. Hey, don't be such a cup-and-ball hog!

Back in my day we'd dig a hole with a stick and be grateful for what we had.

ShadowHearth

Not really shocking for me. Kids these days are surrounded by so many gadgets that back in the day we could only dream about.
I am not that old and I was not in Atari times. My first console was Nes. I would not be surprised kids trying to play it now and say how **** it is by today's standarts. A lot of old games I can't play myself.
We are spoiled this generation with games.

Dude111

Zillah wrote:

These games are all bad games......

Oh my..........



I love most of them!!

Mr E

That article is 9 years old.

What's more heartbreaking is that the kids interviewed were morons.

Zillah

Dude111 wrote: »

I love most of them!!

Because you played them back in the day when they were brand new, novel and exciting. But honestly, Pong is literally a white square bouncing left to right with no variation or interaction of any sort, Donkey Kong is an ugly little platformer by modern standards it wouldn't even get played were it released as a web game now. The only reasons they are cool are historical and nostalgic.

I no more appreciate playing these games having played modern games than I would using a dial-up modem having gotten used to modern fibre broadband. It would be very naive and unreasonable to expect kids that gew up with Halo, Half-Life and Neverwinter Nights to play pixellated platformers and enjoy them.

Retr0gamer

I think Tetris was really the only really great game there. Space Invaders is alright on the 2600 but won't be impressing anyone these days and the 2600 version of Donkey Kong is appalling, the arcade version is a true classic though.

Sit them down with 4 player Warlords or Yar's Revenge and if any of them tell you it's crap neuter them.

deathrider

I grew up in the Snes/Megadrive days, and had little or no love for the age that came before it. I can only imagine how underwhelming those games seem to kids now.

Overheal

Handheld Football
Mattel • 1977
Everyone who grew up in the '70s owned one of these portable two-player pigskin sims, which used red LED lights to represent players.

Brian: What's this supposed to be?

EGM: Football. It's one of the first great portable games.

Brian: I thought it was Run Away From the Dots.

John: I don't see how this has anything remotely to do with football.

EGM: Which team are you playing?

Kirk: The red lines.

Tim: They could've just as easily called this game anything—Baseball, Bowling, Escape From the Monsters.

EGM: Did you score?

Kirk: I bumped into a dot.

Dozen Wicked Words

I have over 100 atari 2600 cartridges and they are almost all crap. Not to say the ones we had when we were young didn't give us hours of entertainment but they don't stand the test of time at all.
I still love playing some of them, entirely for the nostalgia. Activision decathlon is still a laugh after a few beers if there is a couple of you playing, but my kids eyes glaze over after about 30 seconds.

Mr.Saturn

Suppose this would've been a better compromise.




There's also a free playable version here:

http://members.shaw.ca/jeffv/halo2600.html

Dude111

Mr E wrote:

What's more heartbreaking is that the kids interviewed were morons.

Yes as most seem to be nowadays due to the crap they are exposed to daily

Retr0gamer

You kids don't know what you want. That's why you're still kids, 'cause you're stupid

CiDeRmAn

Those braindead numptys played some stonecold classics,
Space Invaders,
Tetris,
Pong,
Donkey Kong,
Super Mario Bros.
I have them all and they are great.
Pong, in particular is made for multiplayer, good fun and the craic is in seeing your opponent going for the FAIL and succeeding!

Sound of Silence

Retro Classics deserve their due reverence for laying the foundation.

You can't deny, however, that Video Games have become infinitely more innovative in the last ten or so years, especially on the PC.

Retr0gamer

You can't deny either that while some games have aged horribly some games are still as good as they ever were and I'd argue stuff like Mega Man 2, Super Metroid or Warlords haven't really ever been topped by today's games.

Magill

Haven't been topped by a 2D Platformer would be a more realistic agrument and i'd probably agree (Although I would rate Super Mario World/ MB3 over S.Metroid :P... but i haven't been a fan of 2D platform games since i was 8 or 9).

And in fairness, they're from the golden age of 2D Platformers, so its not really surprising.

Retr0gamer

Well I'd take System Shock 2 and Deus Ex over any FPS game released in the last decade.

As fro saying they have only not been topped by a 2D platformer? I'm sorry but you are talking about Super Metroid.

Seriously though a good game will stay as good as the day it came out. Graphics don't matter anything and really there hasn't been anything in the last 15 years truly new or that automatically makes games so much better than games before, just iterating on past ideas.

Grimebox

I thought that article was quite funny

Magill

Really its all subjective, and you being Retr0gamer its obvious that you'd still rate these games as highly or higher than anything released recently. The fact is something as recent as borderlands 2 is a far superior game to Dues Ex or System Shock in almost every department. Graphics are better, gameplay is better, sound is better, dialog is better, multiplayer is better,the gameworld is bigger and the environments more diverse... its just an superior game technically and if it was released back in 1999 you'd probably be saying "System what 2 ?". Dues Ex:HR is a technically superior game to the original in almost every way aswel.

However... will you enjoy them as much as you enjoyed those games when you first played them tho ? Probably not.. because the standard of games these days is much higher than it was in the late 80's/90's,so we aren't as easily wow'd anymore.

At least thats how i feel when people compare old games to new.

CiDeRmAn

Magill wrote: »

Really its all subjective, and you being Retr0gamer its obvious that you'd still rate these games as highly or higher than anything released recently. The fact is something as recent as borderlands 2 is a far superior game to Dues Ex or System Shock in almost every department. Graphics are better, gameplay is better, sound is better, dialog is better, multiplayer is better,the gameworld is bigger and the environments more diverse... its just an superior game technically and if it was released back in 1999 you'd probably be saying "System what 2 ?". Dues Ex:HR is a technically superior game to the original in almost every way aswel.

However... will you enjoy them as much as you enjoyed those games when you first played them tho ? Probably not.. because the standard of games these days is much higher than it was in the late 80's/90's,so we aren't as easily wow'd anymore.

At least thats how i feel when people compare old games to new.

I'm sorry, but what a load of old cobblers!

Since when did a specs sheet make a difference on whether a game was worthwhile or not?
The first games that date are the polygon based ones.
No arguments accepted.
It's a fact.

So, naturally, Deus Ex is going to look a little dated compared to it's modern equivalent, but Deus Ex told an excellent story, gave you enormous flexibility in how to complete a mission, more than the newer title does.
If you play the recent Deus Ex release you can feel the dev closing walls around the available areas to be played in, very similar to the original in that respect.

You can't compare System Shock 2 to much these days because there isn't anything in it's league, perhaps the story told in Bioshock comes close, but even that excellent game hamstrings the player in ways that System Shock 2 does not.

And, you neatly skirt around all the non-polygon games that have been released over the years, from Super Mario Bros 3 to FFVI, from Sonic 2 to Chronotrigger.
Have you played a modern Sonic game?
They stink, or make massive compromises in the interests of being "modern" and catering to brainless morons who reckon that unless it has 60fps fully loaded 3D blurring by it isn't worth playing.
Here's a news flash, there hasn't been an essential Sonic game since the Megadrive, some would argue more like since Sonic 2!

Polygons date, even good polygon based games date.
Remember when Gran Turismo was state of the art?
No?
Well it was, and now it's a mess of lo-res textures and tearing polygons.
Try something more recent?
The PS2?
Okay, did you play Need for Speed Underground?
Love it then?
Play it recently?
Looks and sounds dreadful.
The 360 maybe?
Have you played PGR3?
Again, looks lousy now, so many compromises all over the place.

So, the message is, no matter how amazing you think the modern game is, games based on polygons will date and date fast.

Forza 4 will seem like a dogs dinner in 5 years, especially to people who measure the worth of a game based on frame rates and the size it takes up on a disk.

But, return for a moment to retrogames, sure, there was a lot of muck released then.
Lousy film and tv licences abounded.
But, just as now, gems were here and there to be found, and that's what more open minded gamers can appreciate.

You see, truth is, a retrogamer, a fan of games of the past, is really a fan of all games, from every time.

We have more systems than you can shake a stick at, certainly more than the average person reading these posts.
We own current as well as older machines.
We buy new releases when they are good, same with older games.
We are... agnostics when it comes to videogames, all a game needs to be to warrant purchase is be a good game,

So, I buy Mass Effect 3 for my 360 and I buy Gigawing for my Dreamcast.
I buy Super Mario 3D Land for my 3DS and I get Gradius Gaiden for my PS.

So, to recap, your argument of why modern games are better than old games is, pardon me, rubbish.
You are entitled to your opinion but you are wrong.
By your argument, Transformers recent cinema outings are better than 2001, the recent movie Brave is better than The Jungle Book, all by virtue of better tech now.
And, I am sorry to say, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

At least thats how i feel when people compare new games to old.

Retr0gamer

Magill wrote: »

Really its all subjective, and you being Retr0gamer its obvious that you'd still rate these games as highly or higher than anything released recently. The fact is something as recent as borderlands 2 is a far superior game to Dues Ex or System Shock in almost every department. Graphics are better, gameplay is better, sound is better, dialog is better, multiplayer is better,the gameworld is bigger and the environments more diverse... its just an superior game technically and if it was released back in 1999 you'd probably be saying "System what 2 ?". Dues Ex:HR is a technically superior game to the original in almost every way aswel.

However... will you enjoy them as much as you enjoyed those games when you first played them tho ? Probably not.. because the standard of games these days is much higher than it was in the late 80's/90's,so we aren't as easily wow'd anymore.

At least thats how i feel when people compare old games to new.

No I'm sorry but that's just a load of rubbish right there. It doesn't matter how technically superior a game is, all that matters is gameplay and if a game is good then it's good. A good game will work within the limitations of the machine so even if there's no voiced dialogue, polygon shaders or the world is smaller who really cares as long as the game is good fun? Basically what you are saying is the same as saying black and white films or silent films are crap compared to todays films because they have colour, sound and CGI.

What ciderman says about polygon graphics dating is true although games with good art like Okami will never date. However games with good pixel art will always look great. Try and find me a better looking game than Metal Slug or one that looks and sound better than Chrono Trigger. Actually don't bother because you won't.

Grimebox

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

....

Forza 4 will seem like a dogs dinner in 5 years, especially to people who measure the worth of a game based on frame rates and the size it takes up on a disk.

Just want to chime in here. Frame rate is huge to me. I will reduce the graphics every time to get a more stable frame rate. I do not enjoy bells and whistles if the game grinds along at "busy" moments.

By your argument, Transformers recent cinema outings are better than 2001, the recent movie Brave is better than The Jungle Book, all by virtue of better tech now.
And, I am sorry to say, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

I don't think your metaphor works here. Transformers is a pile of **** that looks good and 2001 actually still looks fantastic. Deus Ex looks like **** so it can't really be compared to 2001. Borderlands looks good and has other worth, unlike Transformers

CiDeRmAn

Grimebox wrote: »

Just want to chime in here. Frame rate is huge to me. I will reduce the graphics every time to get a more stable frame rate. I do not enjoy bells and whistles if the game grinds along at "busy" moments.

I don't think your metaphor works here. Transformers is a pile of **** that looks good and 2001 actually still looks fantastic. Deus Ex looks like **** so it can't really be compared to 2001. Borderlands looks good and has other worth, unlike Transformers

Borderlands and Deus Ex can't be compared anyway.
The only thing they share is a first person perspective.
And my comparison is perfectly valid.
No one will care about Borderlands in 3 years time, it will be dated and no one will play it outside of a handful of fans.
Doom on the other hand will still be played by many, and held up as a classic.
Deus Ex broke the rules, made much of the story telling rules that we see in the best of FPS today.

Frame rate drops have always been a problem and modern releases can be just as susceptible, this is why many visually busy games look the rate to 30 fps, to avoid the inevitable drops from 60.

In an older game the frame rate may be lower but could still be consistent.
Besides, this issue is non-existent in most of the non polygon games, outside of Shmups.

There is no problem with appreciating good games from every era on my part, but there seems to be a shallow dismissal of older games from others.
And these people are typically misguided and it's unfortunate that they restrict their experiences like that.

I'm sure EA, Sony and MS Studios have plenty to keep you folk happy.

We get to enjoy all of that, plus all the great games from the past 30 years of gaming as well.

Grumpypants

I was at a recent tech show and they had a ton of old machines everything from the first electronic typewriter up to PS3 and where did you find all the kids crowded around the mega drive playing Sonic.

Mario on my SNES still is first on the list of visiting small relations. Good games just last.

Magill

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I'm sorry, but what a load of old cobblers!

Since when did a specs sheet make a difference on whether a game was worthwhile or not?
The first games that date are the polygon based ones.
No arguments accepted.
It's a fact.

So, naturally, Deus Ex is going to look a little dated compared to it's modern equivalent, but Deus Ex told an excellent story, gave you enormous flexibility in how to complete a mission, more than the newer title does.
If you play the recent Deus Ex release you can feel the dev closing walls around the available areas to be played in, very similar to the original in that respect.

You can't compare System Shock 2 to much these days because there isn't anything in it's league, perhaps the story told in Bioshock comes close, but even that excellent game hamstrings the player in ways that System Shock 2 does not.

And, you neatly skirt around all the non-polygon games that have been released over the years, from Super Mario Bros 3 to FFVI, from Sonic 2 to Chronotrigger.
Have you played a modern Sonic game?
They stink, or make massive compromises in the interests of being "modern" and catering to brainless morons who reckon that unless it has 60fps fully loaded 3D blurring by it isn't worth playing.
Here's a news flash, there hasn't been an essential Sonic game since the Megadrive, some would argue more like since Sonic 2!

Polygons date, even good polygon based games date.
Remember when Gran Turismo was state of the art?
No?
Well it was, and now it's a mess of lo-res textures and tearing polygons.
Try something more recent?
The PS2?
Okay, did you play Need for Speed Underground?
Love it then?
Play it recently?
Looks and sounds dreadful.
The 360 maybe?
Have you played PGR3?
Again, looks lousy now, so many compromises all over the place.

So, the message is, no matter how amazing you think the modern game is, games based on polygons will date and date fast.

Forza 4 will seem like a dogs dinner in 5 years, especially to people who measure the worth of a game based on frame rates and the size it takes up on a disk.

But, return for a moment to retrogames, sure, there was a lot of muck released then.
Lousy film and tv licences abounded.
But, just as now, gems were here and there to be found, and that's what more open minded gamers can appreciate.

You see, truth is, a retrogamer, a fan of games of the past, is really a fan of all games, from every time.

We have more systems than you can shake a stick at, certainly more than the average person reading these posts.
We own current as well as older machines.
We buy new releases when they are good, same with older games.
We are... agnostics when it comes to videogames, all a game needs to be to warrant purchase is be a good game,

So, I buy Mass Effect 3 for my 360 and I buy Gigawing for my Dreamcast.
I buy Super Mario 3D Land for my 3DS and I get Gradius Gaiden for my PS.

So, to recap, your argument of why modern games are better than old games is, pardon me, rubbish.
You are entitled to your opinion but you are wrong.
By your argument, Transformers recent cinema outings are better than 2001, the recent movie Brave is better than The Jungle Book, all by virtue of better tech now.
And, I am sorry to say, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

At least thats how i feel when people compare new games to old.

Jesus.. calm down. I don't care if your game collection is bigger than mine. Next time try to reply to all of the points in someones argument instead of cherrypicking one thing and rambling on about how you think your argument is more solid because your a "retrogamer". I've still got my nes.. and pretty much every console from then to now, i've played most of the classics, i loved most of the classics, i've moved on.

No I'm sorry but that's just a load of rubbish right there. It doesn't matter how technically superior a game is, all that matters is gameplay and if a game is good then it's good. A good game will work within the limitations of the machine so even if there's no voiced dialogue, polygon shaders or the world is smaller who really cares as long as the game is good fun? Basically what you are saying is the same as saying black and white films or silent films are crap compared to todays films because they have colour, sound and CGI.

If you read my post you'd see that gameplay was one of the area's that i said borderlands 2 is superior in.. its not even so much of an opinion as it is fact.. the game plays better than pretty much any pre 00's shooter, half life 2 plays better than anything from the 90's.. RTCW plays better than wolfenstein 3D.

The black and white/ silent film is a good analogy tho... because for the most part that is also true, generally the acting/fx/writing is much better in today's films compared to films from the 50's/60's. Progression is part of human nature.

Grimebox

Well I think I'm playing devils advocate here to a degree since I ultimately agree with. I just think you are being a little short sighted to think the graphics of a game have as little of an impact as your leading us to believe. A friend of mine who's a hardcore gamer will always push his old PC's gfx to the max because he gets far more enjoyment out of games when they look good (drives me insane when I see him struggling with >10 fps). To use a comparison to film, Avatar was a cliched over hyped blockbuster yet I enjoyed the spectacle. Pretty games aren't without charm, better graphics/technology can give a more wholesome experience.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

...
I'm sure EA, Sony and MS Studios have plenty to keep you folk happy.
....

This made my blood boil to be honest I don't consider myself "one of those". I don't know why I continue to argue with you guys since you seem to have your mind made up a lot of time.

CiDeRmAn

Look, it's not "retro gamers", as Magill attempts to use in a derogatory fashion, who have the closed world view, we welcome all games, it's those that shut them out with the blinkers on.

Regarding acting now being better than the, 1960's, that is wrong, not my opinion it is wrong just empirically wrong, as any critics Best Movie list will attest.

Borderlands 2 is just out and yet we have here people who hold it up as proof positive that modern gaming is superior to all gaming that went before.
Now that is short sighted, knee jerk opinion.
And when Black Ops 2 comes out that'll be the new "best game ever".

I'm am sorry for people with this point of view, I pity them.
Such a wealth of great games that go disregarded.

When players have long forgotten Borderlands 2, Assassins Creed 2 and Fifa 13 they'll still be playing Metal Slug, Super Mario World, Super Metroid and Gradius V.

And, by the way, those games look and play spectacularly, haven't aged a bit either.

At this stage I have over 50 consoles and have been gaming since the 70's, I figure I might know what I am talking about.
Sure, sure you have every console you've owned since the NES.
If that is so, then, why?
I mean haven't you "Moved on" from all those old games?
Why keep them around?
If you are indeed an owner of such a collection, and I've no reason to doubt you, it's incredible that you could take the position you have iterated here.

To recap, some modern games are great and will be played for years to come as classics, Dark Souls for example.
But modern gaming is only the current bleeding edge of gaming.
Some is amazing, more are derivative and many are junk.
The past of gaming is the same but, by virtue of the time span involved, there are so many, hundreds if not thousands, games worth playing.

You should get along to an Arcade & Retro night out and see for yourselves what we are talking about.
We have had Steel Batallion on the Xbox with the massive controller, Boulder Dash and modern Beat'em Ups sharing time, projected onto the ceiling.
We've had Super Ghouls & Ghosts and G-Darius play through.
Metal Slug X and Dino Rex have been featured.
We had SSFIV tournaments and played indie pc horror as well as classic PS2 j-horror titles.
It's a blast!

Potential-Monke

Just want to get my word in here.

First off @CiDeRmAn: silent films may have been good in their day, but saying that because the best critics say they're great doesnt mean they're great. The same critics say that Donnie Darko and Drive are 2 of the best films ever made, when to most people they're complete and utter art house ****e!

As we all know, opinions are like arseholes: everybody has one. And they will differ. Some people prefer older games for the fact that a great game was made within limitations, had a great story, etc. More of the younger people prefer graphics, frame rate, etc. Each to their own.

Yes its a shame that the youth of today dont recognise classic games, but what are we to expect? They're growing up in a world where the media is telling them that COD and Halo are the best games out there, that graphics are the be all and end all of games. Those with a bit of sense will see passed all this and may give the older classics a whirl. But to say they're wrong because they dont like the classics is also wrong.

I'll always have a place in my heart for pong, centipede, smb, donkey kong, etc. I also have love for Soul Reaver, GT, Timesplitters, Rollcage. As I will for COD4, Uncharted, Assassins Creed, inFamous and more.

marshbaboon

Magill wrote: »

The fact is something as recent as borderlands 2 is a far superior game to Dues Ex or System Shock in almost every department. Graphics are better, gameplay is better, sound is better, dialog is better, multiplayer is better,the gameworld is bigger and the environments more diverse...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

no.

CiDeRmAn

marshbaboon wrote: »

Magill wrote: »

The fact is something as recent as borderlands 2 is a far superior game to Dues Ex or System Shock in almost every department. Graphics are better, gameplay is better, sound is better, dialog is better, multiplayer is better,the gameworld is bigger and the environments more diverse...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

no.

Post of the week.

And to think I wasted 3 or 4 paragraphs to say the same!
Well done that man!