Why were older games cool when you were a kid?

[hamesy]

Ok, so the last couple of days I’ve been digging out really old games, and found some old abandonware (well I thought they were) classics. Out of all the games I’ve played the last couple of days, I’ve only liked Monkey Island.

For instance, I used to love the game A-Train. Played this when I was about 10 and thought it was an awesome game, that was until I just loaded it up and played it. The graphics are naff, the gameplay is naff and overall the game is naff.

I now feel cheated that my childhood games were actually poo. Anyone else feel like this after playing some old games?

 

[madmaxx]

Its the classic nostalgia thing - looking back with rose-tinted glasses and all that. I remember playing Chuckie Egg on some BBC emulator a year or so ago, and being gutted by how maddening I found it - but I wasted most of a summer holidays playing that on my Beeb, when I was 10 or 11. Ah, they were the days - Elite, Castle Quest, Boffin, Frak...I loved that computer!!

 

[Artemic]

Arg, damn you hamsey. This thread has reminded me of an old game i used to play, but cannot for the life of me remember the name of it. Ive tried google and wikipedia to no avail.

It was set in arthurian england, and you could take out a group of about 3 knights with you and go questing all around the country building up an army. and People kept coming down to attack you from scotland... there was a little a swordfigting screen i remember too. It was a lot like Pirates!. I also remember standing around the round able and choosing which of the knights to go with you.... this must have been back from about 1990

I can remember it came in a pack with several other games... Merchant colony, cohort:fighting for rome, and some more. Gah this is really annoying me now.

I also remember that one of the buildings had the description 'the old crone is in a hut' and me and my friends used to keep saying that after playing it.

Edit : Woooo! just found it it was called spirit of excalibur!

 

[lunarwolf]

Those games when they came out were great, thus why you liked them. But how can you expect them to still get you interested 20+ years down the line? Things have moved on and so have you. Simple evolution.

 

[Stellios]

I miss my Amiga and Commodore 64 The games rocked.

 

[Tombstone]

Because games back then couldnt do incredible graphics, so they had to sell themselves based on their gameplay...whereas today, pretty much all you need to generate hype and sales is some fancy screenshots with awesome looking graphics.

Hence why we have so many fantastic graphic games these days , which you end up completing in 5 or 6 hours because they are so low on content and gameplay

 

[Skeeter]

What do you mean when you were a kid? The Sonic games are still awsome in my mind, even tho i suck at them!

And yes, I fully agree with Toombstone. New games are all about looks with shallow gameplay or storyline, older games were about fun and depth, which is dissapearing at an increasing rate from modern games.

 

[smelf1]

Crappy thing is i have a huge box full of Amiga games but the amiga is broken : (

 

[Dano]

Because games back then couldnt do incredible graphics, so they had to sell themselves based on their gameplay...whereas today, pretty much all you need to generate hype and sales is some fancy screenshots with awesome looking graphics.

Hence why we have so many fantastic graphic games these days , which you end up completing in 5 or 6 hours because they are so low on content and gameplay

And yet a lot of the old games played now are awful to play as well as look at, we were no where near as demanding in regards to gameplay aspects back then, same goes for movie plots in the main too.

 

[CliffyBiro]

Alex Kidd! How cool was he!?

 

[Azagoth]

Crappy thing is i have a huge box full of Amiga games but the amiga is broken : (

Same here, but it's the Power adapter to the Amiga that's shafted. Shame really, I could do with a few hours on Cannon Fodder, Silkworm and Walker.

 

[Blackhawk47]

i used to play all sorts when i was younger. though seeing as i was 16 , it wasnt really that long ago.

i played things like codename eagle (fired it up recently - yes it has the potential but i found the gameplay so much funner back in the day.) I mean i used to play this game to death. I enjoyed it so much especially as it was one of my first games i got for pc.

read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codename_Eagle

also played another game but i cant think of the game only that you had a space ship, and it was a kinda shooter/arcade thing. i also loved that. just cant remember what it was. i think you used to fly threw planets and stuff shooting baddies in their spaceship (or something). anyone knows what it is please let me know.

s

 

[Glaucus]

I don't think it is rose tinted glasses. The games where good back then. But technology has moved on and we expect so much more from a game now.

 

[Trojan]

The truly great games you can still go back to years later and enjoy. I still go back, play through and finish Doom and Doom 2 probably once a year for example even though the graphics are absolutely crap.

 

[HangTime]

Unless they were a truly great game, most old (I'm talking 15yrs+) games don't stand the test of time simply because technology and the industry has evolved. Also most succesful games have been copied to some degree or other, and often improved due to emerging technologies. I used to love playing Elite, it was an incredible game well ahead of it's time, but judged on merit I don't think it is as good as say Freelancer.

Many people like to laud gameplay over graphics, but for me good graphics can enhance gameplay (take Bioshock for example, I thought the engine and design really aided the atmosphere and stylization they were going for) and bad graphics can also detract from it slightly. As I've said before, there is (give or take a few exceptions) a cut off point around the year 2000 for me. I don't mean a cut off as in, I dislike games prior to that date, but rather than most games built this decade at least look reasonably OK, even if the textures are a bit low res and lighting technology is primitive.

 

[Flammy]

I used to have a spectrum, it was a huge and formative part of my childhood and I was heavily into gaming at a young age. A while back i discovered the worldofspectrum.org site, with thousands of archived games, most of which are playable with a java emulator in the browser. Brilliant, gaming heaven!

...or not. 99% of the games I tried were basically unplayable. Getting past the ancient graphics and sound, I just couldn't get to grips with:

1. The fact that so many games were so unforgiving. No tutorials, no gentle learning curve, no continue points, just bang, straight in.

2. No save games, meaning that they have to be completed straight though in one sitting - usually no continues either - 3 lives to last the whole game, once they're gone, thats it! No mean feat with games like Manic Miner. Anyone who can complete that game without cheats is a TRUE hardcore gamer in my eyes...

3. Simplicity of the controls - up, down, left, right, fire, thats usually it. I kept thinking there was something else that I was missing

4. The repetitiveness of some games was difficult - endless, constant shooting against the same grainy (or just plain black) backdrops, looping levels ad inifinitum, no real goal.

...and lots of other things. I gave up playing those games coz the memories of them are far far better then the game will ever be! And that goes for anything retro like that, 80s cartoons, sitcoms, movies....all best left in the past with the rose tinted glasses!

 

[hamesy]

Alex Kidd! How cool was he!?

Cheers dude I want to play this now, but feel like it will not have the same affect as when I was a kid.

 

[Tombstone]

And that goes for anything retro like that, 80s cartoons, sitcoms, movies....all best left in the past with the rose tinted glasses!

Well...I'm not sure I can agree with that... just look at some 80s movies..how about Aliens? Terminator? Predator? Airplane? Bladerunner? Breakfast Club? Weird Science? Die Hard? Glory? Hellraiser? The Princess Bride?
Or go even further back to the 70s, and Monty Pythons Quest for the Holy Grail and Life of Brian

To name but a few, I wouldnt say those are best left in the past.

 

[.one.]

I think it's because in the early days of the spectrum & amiga e.t.c there was large step fowrad in games > coders pushing machines each game release but now not so much.

I know gfx do not make a game but when you saw new stuff pushing the hardware it was a buzz and also new kinda games was comming all the time but now you have fps e.t.c same old same old.

Dont get me wrong there is some great games out now also it was all new to us in them days a little like taking LSD for the first time great at first duff after a while.

 

[Werewolf]

I think partly it's nostalgia, and partly that as you grow up (or at least older) you expect more from the games, and become jaded, you also find that what at one point was "new" and exciting is now very much old hat as it's been repeated and improved upon so much.

For me that is part of the reason I was so happy to see the DS and then the Wii come out, they introduced something new to the games, namely new (at least as primary rather than expensive optional extras) control methods.
Another Code Trace Memory on the DS was one of the first games in ages to really get me gripped, largely as it was similar to some of my old favourites, but at the same time had a number of new twists on the point and click adventure genre.
Portal is much the same, the game itself is pretty similar to many other FPS/Adventure type games, but with that new twist of the portals.

Having said that, there are still some classic games I thoroughly enjoy when I play them.