The Greatest Generation

Post Reply New Topic

Lately, I've been revisiting my roots. I've been in sort of a gaming ennui for the last few years. I've played, I've had some fun, but it's just not the same as when I was a kid. I've argued in favor of modern gaming, and still believe that it holds a great deal of potential, but as it is, the magic is gone. It's a by the numbers pastime, playing a series of interchangeable variations on the same few themes.

So, I did what anyone who is me would do. No, I didn't put down the controller, go out, and get a life. I dug out, dusted off, and plugged in my old N64. Lo and behold, the minute Mario's bizarrely appealing visage filled my screen, it came back. The magic was there again. I danced through Bob-Omb Battlefield and Cold, Cold Mountain with the same giddy pleasure as when I was ten years old. The graphics fiend in me, that looks at even the most advanced technology we've produced and says "Needs work" found no voice jumping through those 64-bit, jaggy-filled, lo-res playgrounds. My brain switched off, and I just... played.

There was something so special about the fifth generation. From the amazing narratives of the Final Fantasy games to the exploration-centric awesomeness of Symphony of the Night, and on to the pure fun of Super Mario 64, the ridiculous madness of Blast Corps and the unchecked, indescribable brilliance of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, it seemed that for that half decade, the stars aligned. Creativity, technology, and fun all united to form an unstoppable march of brilliant games. Even the Saturn, that ill-fated and much mourned (by me) little Sega gem gave us some genius works, like Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Lunar. Even thinking about it, I remember the previews in Nintendo Power and EGM of games that are now considered immortal classics, or in some case (Superman 64...) immortal turds. It was a renaissance, when games came into their own. Even at the end of the generation, the N64 still was receiving awesome games, and the Dreamcast's short run still puts me in an almost religious fervor. Shenmue, I will defend you until the day I die. Those were heady days. It's shocking to think that it's nearly twenty years since the PSX was launched...

But why was it so much better (according to me)? After all, going back, the technology seems ridiculously archaic, the 3d polygons look ridiculous, the N64 controller, objectively speaking (Personally, I loved it) was absurd, and for every halfway good game on the PSX, there were at least ten terribad monstrosities. All in all, the Nintendo had less than 100 games released in the United States (If I recall the numbers correctly), and the Saturn... It deserved so much better. We live in the age of hi-fidelity, where good games are being released with the regularity of a German train schedule. So why does it feel like a hollow shell? Why does it feel like a brilliant artist's collective has been replaced by a staid, cubicle filled office? The games are good, as I said, but so few reach for greatness, as they once did. What happened?

Of course, this is just one twenty-something geezing. I'd love to hear your takes? What was your greatest generation? What consoles do you think marked the pinnacle of gaming? Or is it yet to come?

You want geezing? I'll nominate Gunslinger for Atari.

The present generation of consoles is great IMHO.
But (with the exception of the Magic the Gathing DOTP titles), I'm not the kind of person to play the mainstream generic rehashed titles a great deal. They're good for luring fanboys and making lots of money, but there are so many better games around.

What makes all art great is its believability and how well it reaches its intended audience. The Nintendo 64 was more grounded. Playing the Xbox 360 feels like I'm playing somebody else's system, but playing the N64 feels close to home. It's not generational bias as much as the way the games are set up. I was in the middle of the action playing Mario Kart, Zelda, even wrestling games. It's more detached now, almost like I'm doing the main character a favor by winning. Older systems were far more personal, even losing (especially losing!) If I play a modern game and lose, eh, it's the game's problem. There is so much time spent on the graphics that the story kind of gets lost. I think this is because production schedules are the same while the systems are more complicated and longer. So there is more to do in a shorter period of time, which has an effect on the quality. This is kind of a lesson on economics and market equilibrium. It reached its peak about 15 years ago. If there was unlimited time to make them, the games would probably be better, although maybe not, since I can only handle so much awesomeness at once. I'm only human. Now if I had more pixels in me, this generation of games would be better.

Haha, yeah, that's definitely geezing.
Don't hit me!

Mindslave, I think that's a pretty accurate analysis. The thing is, this focus on "graphics" doesn't actually do much for the game. Aesthetics, a unique visual style, is far more important that shaders and antialiasing. I wish developers understood that.

I had the Atari when I was a kid. I used to love playing the Space Invaders on it. I can't do gaming anymore because it causes a reaction that's not favourable.

I've always been fond of the 4th-6th gens, but the 3rd an 7th gens had their moments too. If I had to choose a favorite gen, I would have a hard time choosing between the 5th and 6th gens. I think things were a lot simpler then, and the ps1 and ps2 are among my favorite systems of all time.

If you're fed up with modern RPGs such as Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma, or Dragon Age, then you could always try the first visual adventure game.

The amazing 'Adventure' (available for Atari 2600) in which you play a heroic.... square.
Traversing the giant-pixel environment, you seek the ultimate goal of a few squares stuck together.... on the way doing your best to avoid or defeat the blocky made-of-squares dragons, while ensuring that the flying collection of a few squares doesn't foil your plans.


Somehow, I remember this game being a lot better when I had it as a kid.... LOL !

Yeah, I did the same thing with Ultima I and Akalabeth. They were fun, but... lacking. I think that's why I love the 5th gen so much. The graphics were good enough, but the gameplay hadn't been sacrifice on the alter of HD Shaders and grey/brown color palettes.

(shrug) a console is only as good as the games which you play for it.
There are mediocre , generic games for every kind of console.
Just as there are interesting games with great gameplay for every console.

The main difference between console generations, is that they're less inherently restrictive to designers' creativity nowadays, due to the rapid progress of gaming technology.

And if you really want retro kicks, well... the Xbox 360 can easily run many Atari 2600 games.
Whereas, try getting an Atari 2600 (or indeed, any previous generation of console) to run an excellent Xbox 360 game like Dragon's Age or The Walking Dead, and... well.... you know how that goes.

The reason 3rd to 6th generations were better is because the games were less costly to make, thus the developpers and editors could take more risks.

If you go to the Indie section of XBL, you can see the effect of people being able to make games easily and cheaply.
The vast majority of games on there are (by all accounts) total shite.
However, a lot of them have all of the originality of a can of spam ; "Miner of Duty" being particularly pants in my opinion.

So, development cost isn't necessarily the real issue with some modern games being duff I reckon.
If you name any console, there will be a whole list of crap games for it.
And similarly, a nice long list of great games for it.

(shrug) the present generation of consoles can run a truckload of games from previous generations anyway if that's what you want, from Gamegear and Master System games on the 3DS, to Megadrive or Atari 2600 games on the Xbox 360.

I'm iffy about whether I consider easy access to retro titles a merit of the 7th gen, or just a reminder of the greatness of past gens. I agree that that is a great feature of modern systems, but when I look back at the 7th gen, I want to remember it for my favorite 7th gen games, not all the time I spent playing games from past gens. Also, no matter what, some great classic games will never be made available for digital download, for a variety of reasons, and are effectively lost to time, except to those who have the original game and the system to play it. Digital downloads are a great way for people to play some great classic games again, or maybe experience them for the first time, because the opportunity exists, but I'm not sure if that's what the 7th gen should be remembered for.

I honestly think a lot of the talk about video games being better in the past is often nostalgia.

Also after you've experienced a ton of games over several years, everything about them is certainly less novel and engrossing. It's like drugs you would continuously need to keep upping the dosage to reach the same high until you pretty much plateau. If your an adult gamer....chances are...you've plateaued in your excitement and enjoyment of them. It's not the games.

If I would have played the games I play now as a kid vs. the games I played as a kid....no contest...the games now would be way better and more appealing.

A lot of it is nostalgia, true. I also think a lot of it is psychology.

I read somewhere that statistically speaking, people are most touched by the music that they were into when they were 14 years old. They can enjoy later stuff, but that's where their heart lies. If that's true, I think that the fact that I was playing the fifth generation from when I was ten to when I was 16 or so has colored my opinion.

However, it can't just be that. After all, the kids rocking all these HD remakes and discovering the gems of our past weren't in their early teens during those years. I still maintain that the games feel fundamentally different. After all, with new developments like an insistence on nonlinearity, open world, and realistic graphics, something has to have been lost in there. Allow me to conjecture. One thing I've noticed (this is not scientific, I am my own test subject), is that the more realistic the graphics, the more I pick out issues with them. This is what allows me to become fully immersed in, say, FFVII, whereas I can barely play Skyrim without looking for a new texture pack. Skyrim looks better, from a purely technical standpoint, but I prefer looking at Final Fantasy VII, with it's barely passable polygons. This fits firmly into the Uncanny Valley. The more realistic something is, unless it is nearly perfect, we react negatively to it. There's also the fact that FFVII allows me to engage my imagination more, as less information is explicitly provided.

I don't feel like gaming is itself a linear narrative. If it were, then those games we played when we were kids would be considered crap, as we have improved on them every way. But they aren't. Final Fantasy VII is still an amazing RPG with a great story and better characters. Super Mario 64 is still a fantastic platformer. Silent Hill is still a brilliant horror game. No amount of technology can take away the brilliance of these works of genius. Just as improved technology doesn't detract from Deus Ex: Human Revolution at all. I still think there are truly amazing games coming out, but the truly great ones are coming out with less frequency.

I definitely see where you are coming from, from a graphics stand point. That realism doesn't necessarily equate with immersion. However, I like the way video games are going for the most part. There's generally more and varied things to do, and bigger worlds with more detail to explore. I also like that story telling has advanced tremendously and has become a lot more sophisticated with time. I often find the stories in a lot of games are a lot more developed and complex than your average movie. Much better AI. There are just so many improvements and things done that could not have been possible before.

If there are some elements lost, I feel there is more than enough that makes up for it.