Yeah, "Retro" is a pretty fuzzy term. For instance, are games only retro up to the 16-bit era? If DOOM is retro, is Quake 1 retro too? What will be considered retro ten years from now?MikeB wrote:Good point
Having said that most of those latter day CPS-2 shooters are only borderline 'retro' but they still said 'OK'
From what I can tell, it roughly includes sprite based games. On the other hand, someone might be a fan of the Castlevania series, so he might enjoy Rondo of Blood for the PCE as well as the first NES game, and up to the most recent Dracula X Chronicles. So is he a retro gamer? Not really, since he´s playing a modern game on a modern console with polygon graphics, but with classic 2D gameplay.
I see what this concept appeals too, and I sure as hell would rather buy "Retro gamer" than the "Official Playstation Magazine", and the goal of bringing older games back into memory is very noble - but the term "retro" sounds a bit like "playing old games for the sake of it". I mean, nobody who buys a Beatles record or, say, Kate Bushs "Hounds Of Love" is considered a "retro music" fan (aside from those 10 CD TV-advertised collections, but in that case, it really isn´t about quality, but rather the concept of "bringing back the good old times").
I really enjoyed this old UKResistance article, it´s obviously satire with some grains of truth in it.
http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/issue10.html
And to add something, I believe this whole retro shirts and NES belts stuff has a pretty ironic taste to it. Do those people really have their NES plugged in and play Duck Hunt? I don´t know.
As whole, I feel that the term "retro" is another label that might fit to some, but includes some misleading assumptions. (But I agree that we can be glad that there are magazines that not only look at the newest bloom-drenched million budget games, unlike ten years ago. And if games like Grid Wars and Everyday Shooter enjoy remarkable success, classic gameplay seems to have a renaissance sooner or later.)
