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POV: Take Off Your Rose-Colored Glasses |
Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Sonic the Hedgehog, super mario bros, video game nostalgia
As we all know, the Internet is for bitching about things. And though we're all fans of video games, a good portion of our time is spent complaining about them. We're so passionate about our favorite hobby that we hate to see it besmirched by crud - and there's a lot of it out there nowadays.
But really, there always has been.
Many of us like to look back at video games of old and say those were the good old days. We put on our rose-colored glasses and say the games were just all around better. Sure, the graphics weren't the greatest, but the games were deep, kept you involved for weeks on end, and if and when you finished them you never forgot that moment. We're the grumpy old men of video games. "In my day, we didn't have controllers; we smashed our head into the TV screen until Mario did what we wanted!"
We also had to walk through eight feet of snow to get to school, uphill. Both ways.
This is called nostalgia. Those games hold a special place for us because of when, where, and how they entered our lives at that time. I remember the first time I played Kung Fu or Mortal Kombat or when I beat Metroid or Out of this World - and those were great times. But I'm not going to say that any of those games are better than Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, or any number of modern games.
This is not a knock on old games. I still think they're great and fun and graphics were never an all-or-nothing proposition for me. All I'm merely saying is that none of those games were able to take me the places my imagination went; they were limited by the technology of the time and I could while away far more hours creating extravagant storylines (well, for an ten-year-old, anyway) with my action figures. Nowadays, more and more games are taking me those places I wanted to go when I was ten years old, and for my dollar they're better.
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So, even not being affected by nostalgia, most of those games that you see as only being great because of nostalgia, are still great(to me at least)
Though I do think that nostalgia can make some games seem better than they were, there are few games comparable to older games in terms of quality(not graphics, but story, gameplay, overall fun) these days.
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But for me many old NES/Snes and even some sega games Are FAR better then most the games of today.
90% of all newer games base off graphics first then focus on game play. Sadly dumb kids today (for some reason) WANT THIS!!!??
My brain hurts trying to understand Why...
Even the game "Skyrim" falls short of being a good game, To me it lacks the FUN factor.. It has no good story line to keep me playing and the slow pace style game like that needs something to keep we wanting to play it, Or i'll just get bored and move on.
-ps.. And before you start saying "blah blah you need to be a RPG player blah blah, I am a BIG RPG FAN and love MANY good RPGs like FF1-9,Chrono Trigger,Chrono cross,Any "Tales of" game,Lunar,The list goes on =P
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Kids today wont remember their games 10-20 years from now like we remember ours. Mostly because there's nothing worth remembering.
Well, that and they're so completely saturated with gadgets and electronic media in general.
The same goes for all the crap TV shows that are on these days. Hell even my kids now are abandoning all that crap and they seek out all the old classics.
Sorry Brett, you have yet another miss here. A MAJOR miss. Telling anyone or even hinting at the thought of forgetting the past is true ignorance. You're so quick to dismiss nostalgia yet you fail to realize what CAUSES it. Nostalgia only affects those things that matter. If it was a matter of anything old being covered under nostalgia then it wouldn't matter. But that's not the case. Something has to click in order for nostalgia to be born. Nostalgia has to be EARNED. It's not automatic and dismissing it is again, ignorant.
Here's something else for the average person to think about. You think those old games are gone? You'd be dead wrong. They're still here and they're called casual games. All those puzzlers, all those games that made you think, all those side scrollers....I've been playing the hell out of them on my PC and iPad. There's also a ton of people on kickstarter trying to bring them back as well. They have to go out on their own because production company's wont touch them. But that will soon change as people are making MILLIONS off these deals.
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However, I do feel that games from the past hold up better than games today. Honestly, SNES graphics won't get old, even when they're 3D like Super Mario RPG, because of the cartoonish and simplistic looks. Also, since most games were on par graphically, I feel as though the developers spent more time actually trying to make a good game that was fun and easy to pick up.
While I find current games to be fun in their own way, games from my childhood have a way of always remaining relevant. Think about Pokemon, they rehash the same formula over and over and over again, with improvements to many of the other aspects. However, it is consistently a good seller because it works.
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If you finish playing a game and want to play again then that is a good game, Now games like Mass Effect and Uncharted get really good reviews but almost everyone who finishes them puts it down when they finished and never touch it again, where a huge portion of older games like Mario and Sonic have infinite Replayability value.
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Having a blast playing them all over again!
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