They Just Don’t Make Games Like They Used To

Originally Published August 24, 2010

Looking at that title, you may be wondering what I mean. Do I mean different as in graphics capabilities or CD’s being preferred over cartridges? No, I mean different in terms of quality. Now this isn’t going to be a rant on how modern games and the people who play them are stupid, because I actually enjoy a lot of current generation games. No, this is an article explaining that I enjoy classic video games more. That may seem weird considering I’m only sixteen years old and most people my age prefer more recent hits such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Modern Warfare, and Halo, but the fact is I just prefer older games.

One reason is that most old games don’t need fancy graphics to be fun. Just look at Pong, one of the oldest, simplest, and least graphically impressive games of all time. Pong has incredibly primitive graphics, but thanks to it’s simple yet fun gameplay, it’s still great and addictive as hell. Another game would be Asteroids, which actually is a newer version of Spacewar!. It’s vector graphics may have been good and unique in its day, but it’s certainly not gonna get any Most Visually Impressive awards, but again, its simple yet fun gameplay makes it really addictive and shooting asteroids is just a cool concept, especially when they turn into smaller asteroids.

Now, you may be saying “Well, they’re too simple to be as fun as more complex games of today.” Well, you would be wrong. I have two points against that. One, does simple really equate to bad? I mean, do you really need a bunch of complex shit that you never use? Do fancier menu screens and game modes that you never use really make the game more fun? I think not. All you really need are a few concepts that sound good on paper and execute it well. Also, I wouldn’t call classic Zelda games or classic Metroid games simple at all. Those are both pretty complex games, but not being too complex to the point of feeling hopeless and stupid.

And another thing, many of the gameplay features of today’s games that people take for granted have already been done before. For example, people seem to love content creation and think it’s revolutionary. Really? Excitebike had a track editor back in 1984. And people say Spore is a revolutionary game when SimEarth did the evolution sim concept back in 1990. I’m not knocking Spore, I’m just saying it’s an updated version of an older game.

Overall, I would say classic games from the 80′s to the 90′s are the best, especially the 90′s. That is all. Peace out.