Old games- do you have a limit?

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:34 pm

I don't have a limit as such, but not having any nostalgia for anything made before I was born I tend to only enjoy a select few early 80s games.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:35 pm

Though I must admit that there are a few exceptions,
I do have to commit to 8-bit being the general limit.

I do like having at least a small idea of what it is that I am steering.

Pac-man, Space Invaders are games that defy any limit though.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:45 pm

Can you play 2600 games with those 7800 NES style pads?

http://www.retrobrot.de/sammlung/images ... 800pad.jpg

I'm not that interested in Atari 2600. I had one, but I never liked any of the games much. My favorite 2600 game was probably Dig Dug. There was an older woman that was an acquiantance of my grandfather who had just boxes and boxes of Atari 2600 games and I remember digging through each one when I was a kid and struggling to find a good game or how to play the stuff that looked decent.

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:02 pm

I have no limit as well, I grew up on the 2600 and NES, and watched my uncle with his Oddysee II, after the awesome 8 bit era the great 16 bit era came upon us and there were more games to fall in love with.

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:04 pm

szycag wrote:Can you play 2600 games with those 7800 NES style pads?

http://www.retrobrot.de/sammlung/images ... 800pad.jpg

I'm not that interested in Atari 2600. I had one, but I never liked any of the games much. My favorite 2600 game was probably Dig Dug. There was an older woman that was an acquiantance of my grandfather who had just boxes and boxes of Atari 2600 games and I remember digging through each one when I was a kid and struggling to find a good game or how to play the stuff that looked decent.

2600 games work in 7800, so I don't see why not. I only had the default 7800 joysticks, though. Using them too long would make your hands freeze into some kind of death grip, but they were shiny!

The 2600 had tons of shovelware in its library, but there was a decent selection of good games. River Raid's already been mentioned, and some other great shooters were Solaris, Seaquest, and Yar's Revenge. I like how some arcade ports like Space Invaders and Asteroids had dozens of variations, too.

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 pm

Don't forget the frantic paced Spider Fighter, the game can get pretty hectic after a few stages.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 pm

szycag wrote:Can you play 2600 games with those 7800 NES style pads?

http://www.retrobrot.de/sammlung/images ... 800pad.jpg

I'm not that interested in Atari 2600. I had one, but I never liked any of the games much. My favorite 2600 game was probably Dig Dug. There was an older woman that was an acquiantance of my grandfather who had just boxes and boxes of Atari 2600 games and I remember digging through each one when I was a kid and struggling to find a good game or how to play the stuff that looked decent.

For szycag,

Yes, you can, indeed, play such 2600 game titles with aforementioned 7800 Proline controller gamepads.

Atari 7800 Factoid: Atari Corporation decided that it would better for USA 7800 console owners to use the 7800 Proline joystick controllers instead and I do have such a pair myself. It was with the European 7800 consoles, that those lucky fellas could get a pair of 7800 Proline gamepad controllers to play with. ^_~

What was interesting that Atari Corp. licensed their 7800 console to Sears Roebuck in 1984 under their name banner of "Sears Tele-Games III" console and had a very unique 2-in-1 digital joystick/paddle combined controller setup -- slide a switch and you had 8-way digital joystick functionality -- slide it in the opposite direction, the joystick would lock up into the center portion and become a free-wheeling paddle controller (very interesting & innovative Sears produced Atari compatible joystick that I've seen in a long time). I was lucky enough to try it out before it was recalled from the store retail shelves because of the "Great Video Game Crash of 1983-1984" fiasco.

What caused this so-called Great Video Game Crash of '83-84? It was an overglut of super bad 3rd-party video game titles flooded the market and caused the American home video game industry lose millions overnight. And thus, it was a field day for bargin video gamers since you could buy brand and boxed new 2600 games for as cheap as $2.00 USD back in the day. Nintendo didn't want a repeat of that incident to happen again and thus imposed such strigent quality checks on all 1st party and 3rd-party software titles for it's console + software devs had to pay licensing fees in order to develop for the NES in the first place. Rogue NES devs like Tengen and American Video decided to publish their own NES software without going through Nintendo's proper dev channels and the rest is history. ^_~

Fast forward to three years later down the road, Atari Corp. decided that it was best to bring out it's 7800 console again in 1987 to compete against the NES and Sega Master System consoles but was regulated to a paltry 3rd place in sales due to lack of killer-app software titles at the current time. 1989 was the very last year that new 7800 software titles came out for the 7800 console from Atari Corp. themselves.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:49 pm

NES era is my limit too. I really need graphics defined enough that I can tell how the characters look and NES is just the bare minimum for that.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:23 pm

I don't have an absolute year or technology limit. Although I don't seek out games from Asteroids' time, I can enjoy it and its contemporaries. Generally someone has to recommend or point me towards them, though, and to some extent, the lack of nostalgia stops me from seeking out more of them.

My active interest goes back as far as the NES and its very earliest games. I can love basically any well-made game from around that time onwards. It's partly reflected nostalgia, as I grew up with that era of gaming. But I can enjoy NES, SMS and MSX games that I've never even heard of very easily, and I do like rifling through the mid-80s Japanese console gaming library for stuff I've never played.

Legacy of The Wizard / Dragon Slayer IV (NES) is my archetypal bare-bones yet solid old game. Graphics are a little stubby but full of personality, gameplay is a tad clunky but not choppy, level design is building-block elementary yet vast in scale, and last but not least, the music makes truly melodic use of limited sound capabilities. I tend to gravitate towards that kind of palpably old-as-hell yet artistically and technically sound 80s game.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:34 am

KindGrind wrote:The SMS and NES are my limit. I have never owned Ataris, and honestly don't care much for them.

More or less describes me as well.

I like Lode Runner and Pitfall! though, at least the newer versions (i.e. the Mac version of Lode Runner I have, and Pitfall on the SNES - ya u herd me, it has the original on the cart as well). I might like Pitfall II, since I've heard it's pretty awesome.

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:08 am

Tho I have several consoles, SNES, DC, SS, N64, PS1 to PS2 with a butt load of games for each, I still find myself drawn to the PC Engine (emulated) games the most.

Theres just something about the style that I like.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:30 am

Damocles wrote:16-bit era looks the best to me. That being said, SNES graphics generally don't look "right" to me. Too bright, maybe?

In my experience, SNES games have less dithering; at any rate what's there is less obvious (this is not surprising, considering that it's 15-bit color vs 9-bit color). The overall aesthetic effect that I notice is that Genesis/TurboGrafx games tend to look "rougher and deeper" while SNES games tend to look "smoother and flatter". I'm no art expert, though; this is just my impression of things.

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:39 am

I don't have as much interest in the pre-NES systems. Certainly there are fun games there, but mostly they are the more simplistic ones like Centipede, Arkanoid, Missile Command, etc.

Here's a great obscure Atari game I put up on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eytck0Ot95k

320x240 · Post by **320x240** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:50 am

Most arguments voiced against older games here are the same ones used by mainstream gamers to lessen the value of shmups. I guess there is only a small degree of separation between 'hardcore' and 'mainstream' gamers afterall. Of course, we where all mainstream gamers once.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:22 am

I don't have any limit on what games I play.

Unless they control poorly, in which case I won't bother. See: Startropics.

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:20 am

Ceph wrote:Gaming is about gameplay, not graphics.

Age is not only about graphics, by far.

yojo! · Post by **yojo!** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:22 am

I like arcade games from 1985 and console games from the 16bits era.

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:40 am

An occasional credit of Gaplus is as far back as I delve these days.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:09 pm

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:43 pm

The sky's the limit.

I'll play anything. I even like those old machines at the seaside from the 1950's.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:03 pm

I think newer NES graphics look awesome as ever. Stuff like Batman and the Ninja Gaiden series, especially 3. I think you can appreciate them more if you're familiar with pixel art.

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:53 pm

I have to say no limit for me, since i grew up on the atari 2600.

The c64 had amazing stuff on it,a nd oso did the nes, genesis, snes, etc.

gems for Atari 2600 (before the late era technical marvels)

River Raid.
Spider Fighter (that one get intense)
Megamania
Pitfall
Pitfal II (beter on atari 8 bit,t ho)
Yar's Revenge
Adventure

These are probably my favorites.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:04 am

There are still NES games that hold up pretty well these days, but I have a hard time spending too much time playing pre 8-bit era stuff these days. There's an awful lot of garbage out there from that era (even Atari first-party games,) and it doesn't take much playing of that stuff to figure out where the crash of '84 came from. Some of the Activision and Imagic stuff is still pretty good, and I recall liking a few of the Intellivision games, but there was a lot of 2600 stuff that is just about as entertaining as a root canal.

boagman · Post by **boagman** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:44 am

Vexorg wrote:there was a lot of 2600 stuff that is just about as entertaining as a root canal.

'Tis true, but you could also substitute the "2600" in there with just about every (if not every) system name ever made and still have a completely accurate statement.

I think the point is that great, inspired gameplay isn't limited by graphics engines, console physics, and what-not. I, too, was pretty much of an eye-roller when it came to old school systems being able to provide a satisfying shmup experience, but when introduced to some stuff on the NES, like Summer Carnival (blew me away), a Vectrex game or two that escape my mind at the moment, and others, I was more than pleasantly surprised.

I'm more than willing to admit that the bonuses of great graphics, music, etc. are enticing, and help out *any* game, shmups included...but great gameplay isn't at *all* related to such things.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:48 am

No limits. I like 70s arcade and 2600. I also have an Intellivision.

ptoing · Post by **ptoing** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:14 am

All I can say is: A good game is a good game is a good game.

PainAmplifier · Post by **PainAmplifier** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:52 am

Bloodreign wrote:Don't forget the frantic paced Spider Fighter, the game can get pretty hectic after a few stages.

I played the hell out of that one...there was however a 'trick' to it if I remember correctly. The enemies pretty much all spawned on the left side of the playing field in one small area/spot....just park your fighter underneath and do a couple burst shots, then dodge any falling bullets and you were done with the level.

I forget how far I got like that before I finally gave up out of boredom. One of the better games at the time despite that. Laser Blast was like that too, just position yourself in the right spot and you could zap all three enemies in short order without moving much at all.

There aren't many pre-8 bit erea games that I can stand these days...but plenty of the ones from 8 bit and on that I still find very enjoyable.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:43 pm

Super Mario Bros. is my limit.

I grew up on Atari 2600 and old arcades, but I have little desire to play anything older than Super Mario Bros.

However, I must agree that Activision produced some fantastic Atari 2600 games. Pitfall II and River Raid were among my favorites.

ptoing · Post by **ptoing** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:41 pm

H.E.R.O. is also pretty awesome on the 2600, tho I like the C64 version better.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:02 pm

If you're talking graphics alone, I'd say that the 16-bit era was when, imo, I'd say games from that time were able to "still look good" today...then again, I'm inclined to say that some sprite-based 8-bit stuff is more palatable now than some of the 32-bit efforts at 3-D, but I ain't gonna bother going that deep.

As for actually playing stuff, the farther back you go the fewer games you'll find that I'm likely to still enjoy, but there are a handful that I still love (I'm sure I've mentioned my irrational love for Warlords on the 2600).