At this point many of you may now wonder "What the hell is this and why would I read it?". Since this is the first post, there's really no reason you would know, so let me break it down for you!
Retro Strikes Back will consist of two parts. The first, hereafter termed 'Articles', are posts of a more serious tone that are my view of gaming's evolution over the past 25+ years. Nostalgia is a powerful factor in the minds of many young adult to adult gamers these days, but how much of it is really valid? I'll be looking at games I remember from my childhood, whether or not they're any good, and more modern games as well... and whether or not they can compete with the old ones. Some of it will be exposition on the nature of gaming, whilst some will be more specific, almost review-like material on individual games.
The second, less serious, part of Retro Strikes Back will from now on be called 'Rants'. These are posts in which I empty my current thoughts on games I'm playing now and what's going on in the gaming community in general. Despite being much less formal, if you want a solid opinion on a new release I'm playing, I'll probably mention it in a Rant before an Article.
Without further ado, let's take a look at my opinions on gaming in general! I'll start with some thoughts on what works and what doesn't from old and new games, and end with examples of old and new games that do a lot of things right.
THE THINGS OLD GAMES DO, or WHY MY CHILDHOOD WASN'T TOTALLY BORING
Why do so many of us have so much nostalgia? Well, because old games did a lot of things right. Even going back and playing older games today, many of the ones we remember from our younger years are still pretty good. Not all of them, mind you--YO! Noid wasn't actually a good game. Trust me, I checked.
There are some things characteristic of old games that work well--things that newer games ought to do more often. Not all of them are good all the time--they're only good if they're done right. Like, for example, simplicity. Most older games were forced to be simpler than newer games because of technological restrictions. But there's really something to be said for that; if a game is simple, easy to pick up, and easy to play, it's that much less time from opening the box to being hard at work trying to beat the challenges the game has for you.
Two buttons and a d-pad and this game is still the baseline by which every single platformer is judged.
Image source: http://gry.wp.pl/
Unfortunately, these same technical limitations caused older games to have problems as well. Bugs in most older games were permanent things; there wouldn't be a quick hotfix patch you could download to fix them. Games also tended to deal with length in one of two ways--being much shorter, to the point where it would be criminally short in today's market, or having endlessly repeating levels. The latter turns the single-player experience into a long grind, which will eventually get boring for even the most die-hard fan. The former, however, was compensated for in a different way: challenge.
There's a reason that really challenging games are called Nintendo Hard. Old school games managed to find that perfect balance of significantly challenging gameplay with enough leeway to avoid frustration. This is the main thing that stopped us all from pitching our controllers through our TVs at a young age--well, that and the lack of alcohol-induced rage at difficult games. Very few, if any, new games have perfected this balance yet; they've all got difficulty settings ranging from 'complete wuss' to 'kinda challenging unless you do it on a new game+, which is all anyone ever does anyway'. Except Demon's Souls, I guess. That game tries to make a challenging experience like old times, but takes it way too far.
Don't screw this up or you're going back a ways. Also, you can only fly in a straight line.
Image source: www.gamefaqs.com
Another thing that made the challenge such a key component was that the idea of saving your game didn't exist in the early days. If a game had any way to continue old play, it was often through an overly complicated password system that wasted a lot of paper and time. I can't count the number of times I forgot which password I had scribbled on my note sheet was the latest one and lost my place in Demon's Crest. (It didn't occur to me at the time to cross the old ones out, because I thought I might want to go back.) Even when saving made its debut, most of the time you could only save at predetermined points, which made it difficult to play for short segments of time or estimate how long you'd be playing until you'd have a chance to put the game down for, say, dinner or school. Some people say being able to save anywhere you want makes games too easy, but I'm pretty sure it's not the deciding factor in modern games. It's a trade I'm willing to make for the ability to pick up and put down any game I'm playing at the drop of a hat to accomodate real world situations.
A last common characteristic of old games that's seen most in FPS games and RPGs is freedom of movement. Try playing a new FPS, for example: chances are extremely high that you'll spend the single-player experience following some guy from point to point or going through a set of checkpoints yourself. Not so in an older shooter! You get dropped(sometimes literally--I'm looking at you, Marathon 2) into the middle of a horde of ravening aliens/demons/nazis/demon alien nazis/et cetera, told there's an exit somewhere in the level, and sent on your way. Sometimes in-game text will point you towards the end of the level, or at least where you have to go next, but you actually have to READ it--no fancy voice acting or blip on your minimap or HUD telling you 'GO THIS WAY, GENIUS'. Some modern games do have this much or more freedom, but those games are called 'sandbox games' or 'MMORPGs'--genres that were more or less invented for the specific purpose of bringing this quality back.
THE TRICKS NEW GAMES PULL, or WHY I SPEND SO MUCH MONEY AT GAMESTOP
New games still have a lot going for them as well--indeed, most of us still spend the vast majority of our time playing newer titles. After all, why not? They're capable of so much more than old games were! That doesn't mean they're all better, though. Developers these days actually recognize that, and more and more throwbacks and remakes and reboots of old series are coming down the line, specifically meant to prey on our nostalgia.
An easily noticeable difference in new and old games is storytelling. Old games often had a very minimal plot, often a one-page blurb in the instruction manual and that was it. These days, games can tell epic stories worthy of Lord of the Rings-length movie trilogies. Improved graphics and sound convey the tale in a much more pleasing manner, and improved system specs allows for longer and more involving games. Also, the fact that the average gamer is older nowadays than they were back then means developers can explore more mature and thought-provoking subjects, leading to more interesting and deep storylines.
Final Fantasy plotlines have come a long way since "You're a hero, beat the bad guys!"
Image source: www.gamefaqs.com
The improvements to the gaming medium have led to an unfortunate trend, however. Too many gamers(and developers, even) focus way too much on graphics and appearance these days. Sure, it's good for a game to look nice--but when the gameplay suffers because you spent too much time adding in slow-motion explosions, busty women that jiggle just so, and absurdly detailed gore for every kill, it's not a worthwhile trade-off. These games are the equivalent of the dumb action movie: something where you turn off your brain to sit back and enjoy the spectacle, probably laughing at the ridiculousness of it all along the way. Dumb action movies don't have the problems of poor controls, frustrating fight scenes, and pretentious game-of-the-year claims, though.
Though there's too much of a focus on graphics nowadays, an element of new technology that is probably underappreciated goes right hand in hand with it: sound. While old games had some incredible music that still sticks in your head to this day, old sound effects(particularly the laughable attempts at computer generated voices) leave a lot to be desired. Immersion is helped that much more by satisfying your aural as well as visual senses. Voice acting in particular is a major improvement from the old days; actual trained human beings rehearsing lines and acting out the key parts of a story with emotion and feeling is way better than no voice at all, not to mention the old scratchy 8-bit warblings of yesteryear.
Not every new game takes advantage of the boons available to them with modern science, though. As gaming has become a part of pop culture, game developers have become much more common than they were. With the increase in volume comes a diversification in quality; while we now have some shining examples of great developers out there, there are also a lot of really lazy ones. People who never make new game ideas of their own, just making shoddy knockoffs of whatever the 'next big thing' is. Or worse, those who try to combine ideas from several great games without taking the time to make sure they actually work together. Gamers these days have to be careful to seperate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to buying new games; even games that look good in development can sour before their arrival. A good example of this is a game called Damnation; it was billed as a desert punk 3rd-person shooter with vertically based levels(think less acrobatic parkour-type navigation), greater freedom of movement, and some spiritual elements, with a classic storyline. I wasn't aware, however, that 'vertically based levels' meant 'flat levels with buildings of varying size that you can leap to the top of in a single bound if you jump at the right spot'. Seriously, that game has more bugs than the first Men in Black movie.
Also, this isn't a zipline. You have to go hand-over-hand the whole way. Action-based, it's not.
Image source(for the blind and visually impaired, who can't read this anyway): www.ign.com
There's another factor new games have going for them that older games have no claim to at all, since it was barely even present even at the turn of the millenium: online content. The ubiquity of internet access these days means that it's becoming the rule, rather than the exception, for even console games to include some form of online content. Not just limited to online multiplayer, this includes downloadable add-ons, patches to fix the game or update content, community support, and even digital distribution--who needs a store and a physical box when you can just buy and download the entire game electronically? Some games do online content in even more unique ways, such as Demon's Souls--despite being too hard, the game did have some brilliant ideas, and this is one of them. You're essentially playing an MMO game with everyone else playing right now, though you can't physically interact with them; you leave messages made of combinations of preset words and phrases that they can see, and if people vote your message as helpful, you get in-game benefits. You can also invade other player's worlds to help them... or harm them, for a variety of benefits to yourself. When it works, it's an incredibly cool mechanic that adds a lot of fun to the game. Too bad you spend most of your time fearing for your life to use it.
GREAT GAMES NEW AND OLD
Some games just do a lot of things right and are classics that everyone should at least try out, though of course not every type of game works for everyone. Here's a listing of six games, three new and three old, that I think are excellent games that should be played by all. These aren't my favorite games of all time(though one of them is my #2--I'll get into my top 5 at a later date), but they are games that do such a good job at what they do that they deserve recognition.
Game cover images from Wikipedia.
LEFT 4 DEAD 2
Valve has always been an excellent company, and they've really outdone themselves with this one. Left 4 Dead 2 is a game that plays like a zombie movie, far more so than any zombie game before it. The 'AI Director' makes every game different--even when you're playing through the same levels--by changing where zombies, special boss zombies, and items spawn; you can learn the path you've got to take and the best way to take on certain situations, but the exact same thing never happens twice. It's also got an extremely robust multiplayer mode with both competitive and co-op elements that plays exactly like the single-player. One particularly excellent thing is how Valve forced teamwork to come into play: when in the grip of a special zombie, it's not possible to free yourself; only a teammate can do that. This makes teamwork essential to survival, preventing (some) of the usual problems with online co-op games where everyone runs off and does their own thing.
ASSASSIN'S CREED: BROTHERHOOD
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series started off decent, but not great. The key, however, is that Ubisoft has actively listened to their fanbase and improved the things they've heard were wrong. Developers that do that please a great deal of people, and they do it by making games with exactly what people want--which leads to great games like this one. The single-player is a continuation of Assassin's Creed 2 with not all that much changed mechanically, so it's more of an 'Assassin's Creed 2.5' than 'Assassin's Creed 3'. What really makes this game stand out is the multiplayer, though. Many people wondered how the stealth-based, 'staking out your target and quietly killing them' gameplay of this series could possibly go multiplayer, myself included. Well, Ubisoft not only pulled it off, but it's absolutely incredible and must be played to be believed. There's nothing more satisfying than getting a kill after a long, carefully-planned out setup that outscores the top player who has twice as many kills as you do. Even getting killed by someone flying off a rooftop when you're two feet from your target has a bittersweet quality to it that makes you look back on it fondly later even if you curse his name now. The multiplayer is so unique and, despite being a pretty much brand new idea, well done that everyone should try it at least once.
HEAVY RAIN
When I said one of these six games was my #2 favorite game of all time, this is the one I meant. Heavy Rain absolutely blew me away when I played it. It's billed as an 'interactive drama', and short of replacing 'drama' with 'movie', I can't think of any better way to describe it. This is so well done that I've had people walk into the room and ask me what movie I was watching, to which I answered by correcting them with "playing, not watching". Another thing it does well is actually changing what happens based on what the player does--something many games claim to do nowadays, and few games actually pull off. I could blather on about this game until I type my fingers into stumps, but suffice to say it's a brilliantly done dramatic murder mystery thriller game with a clever control system that's hampered only by some minor plot holes, largely pretty easy to explain away.
OGRE BATTLE: MARCH OF THE BLACK QUEEN
Ogre Battle is an old game that actually averts one of the qualities I listed earlier: it is by no means a simple game. It's actually complex enough that while I highly recommend playing it, I also recommend finding a guide for it if you haven't played before. It's a strategy game where combat between units is resolved in a unique way: each soldier in a unit attacks a certain way, a certain number of times, based on class and position in the formation, and then whichever side did more damage wins. The loser retreats. This adds a surprising amount of strategy to building your units of soldiers, placing certain units certain places, and then using the best unit for a given job. There's also an insane variety of unit classes in the game--over 75 of them in varying trees of class changes based on level, alignment(measure of good or evil, which you can affect by your behavior in game) and even items. Especially if you like strategy games, it's something you need to try if you get the chance--just don't expect to pick it up right away. There are a ton of different endings and ways to play through, too, so it's got a lot of longevity for an old game. In a lot of ways, it's almost more exemplary of new game qualities than old--it was really ahead of its time.
DARK CASTLE
One of the very first games I ever played. You may not be able to find Dark Castle at all these days, as it was a very old, black and white Macintosh game, but if you know any old-school Mac users, chances are pretty good that they played this at some point, so ask them about it. It's a game with a classic, simple story--the Black Knight rules with an iron fist from the Dark Castle, and you, Prince Duncan, must stop him. Along the way you navigate the castle's many chambers, seeking out powerful items to help you in your quest and trying to avoid getting into 'Trouble', that is to say, falling into the dungeon. The gameplay is simple and effective, with a lot of little nuances that modern gamers would take for granted. An example: in the dungeon, there are prisoners being whipped by the dungeon keeper. On the other side are two key rings hanging on the wall. If you beat up the dungeon keeper, jump over his body(don't try to run over it, you'll trip and dizzy yourself from falling on your face) and run over to grab the keys, you'll almost certainly make the mistake all first-time players do--grabbing the first set of keys. If you watch the prisoners instead, you'll notice that they'll shake their heads at one set of keys, while not reacting to the other. If you ignore their warning, you're crushed to death by a massive metal block falling from above. What really makes this game stand out is the sound--not typical of an old game, Dark Castle had hilariously catchy sound effects that stick in your head for years to come. Sadly, most people probably won't ever get to hear them.
DONKEY KONG COUNTRY
In an era where Mario was still the king of platform games, Donkey Kong Country managed to not only be just as good, but do it without being a Mario clone. Pushing the limits of the Super Nintendo's graphics capabilities with Rare's 'Advanced Computer Modeling', this game had everything a great, classic platform game should. Tough platforming sections, hidden items to test the skills of advanced players, a variety of enemies, levels, and settings to keep you on your toes, and some elements to mix it up for you to keep it interesting, like the water levels or animal companions. The game's biggest weakness is probably the bosses--every one except the last one is laughably easy, and even the final boss isn't that big of a deal. The number of hidden bonus rooms in this game is impressive to say the least, and even those of us who've gotten them all before have trouble remembering where they all are--although most everyone will remember the most cleverly hidden one; a bonus room hidden INSIDE another bonus room.
WRAP-UP or SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY
Yes, it's a Cowboy Bebop reference. I like Cowboy Bebop. Deal with it.
This article, while it may seem a bit long-winded to some, should give you a good idea of my general thoughts on the state of gaming these days. I'll hopefully be adding more articles about once a week, and they'll probably be a bit shorter than this one in the future--for the most part. For those of you who've stuck it out until the end and read this whole thing, you have my thanks! Please comment if you've got any thoughts of your own, and let any gaming-savvy friends of yours know so we can make a real discussion out of this.
See you next time!
