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Saturday, Nov 29, 2008

Lets face it: no matter HOW much PS3, X-Box, or Wii you play, the guy playing SEGA Genesis will always be the coolest out of the group.

Now that above statement might not exactly be true, but it might have a little more truth than some believe.

I personally believe that the Grandfather generation of gaming is the best generation of gaming. we're talking about a golden age where nobody is complaining about crappy graphics, or crappy camera angles. no games with good ideas get ruined for being implemented poorly. if a game suck, it sucks for a reason. we're talking about a generation where you could pick up a random game off the shelf and not have to worry about explicit gore, gratuitous sex, or any of that. We're talking about games where you can look at the cover, determine the genre of game that you are about to purchase. and buy it soley on that.

i think that diversity in games is good, but today we have TOO much diversity... too many people play too many games in too many different ways... im sure alot of you will disagree with me here, but im sure some will understand. what happened to the fighting game? i miss my streets of rage, or golden axe, or even the spiderman games! anybody could make a good game, as long as it played like streets of rage. you didnt like it? you could try a sidescroller like mario, or sonic, or alex kidd, or kid chameleon, all of them excellent choices. 

I think that the best part of the grandfather Generation is the fact that there were NO HARDCORE GAMES! thats right, you heard me. NO HARDCORE GAMES. there were no hardcore gamers, no casuals, none of it. anybody could play any game, and alot of people did. i miss the two-player game, with no split-screen. you would have two people on screen and you would ACTUALLY HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER AND STAY TOGETHER to advance! imagine that... granted nowadays we have online... but lets be real, does that REALLY feel as good as playing with someone right next to you and having that communication factor there?

I think that everyone should kick the current gen, leave the next gen, and upgrade to the classic generations. the generation where a movie game didnt mean an instant suck, a generation where in order to beat it, you had to be IN THE ZONE, because there were dang near no saves, and you had to really focus on winning to beat the game. the sense of beating a game in one sitting is just... the bee's knees. that sense of fear you get when your on the last boss with only 2 lives left and a muti-million point score, knowing that if you mess up, you'll have to start the game all over, from scratch. THAT is gaming. and THAT is what i want to play. 

Alot of you guys can disagree and go " hey ill have my halo" or your 3d mario or your metal gear solid, and thats fine. this is just one man's opinion on what i believe was the best generation of gaming, and i just felt it should be appreciated as such.

duffman out. 

 

Category: Editorial
Posted by garrett_duffman, 8:26pm
30 Comments | Post a Comment

Comments

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Great blog and I particularly agree wtih teh point about online gamine. As much as it has revolutionized competitive multiplayer and co-op, I would much rather game with someone I am actual friends with in the same room as me. It's so much more intense that way.
But as much as it would be great to go back to a time where we all just played games because we liked playing games, that really isn't possible. There would be no new games, no games to look forward to. And although as a whole the old generations were better, individual games now have surpassed older hit games. What I mean is, although the N64 may have overall been more fun than the XBOX360, Call of Duty 4 is better than Golden Eye.
Posted Nov 29, 2008 10:02 pm PT
i sorta agree. But i am glad they made games a little easier. But some games are over simplified. They need to find to perfect balance
Posted Nov 29, 2008 10:04 pm PT
i agree with both of you. non-gaming specifically, i think that... whats the word... just the feeling of it all, i guess. maybe it was just my age at the time... but games felt so much more like an accomplishment... alex i totally agree, i think that we should have more games with less saves to complicate the games, so many of our games today have no... consequence for error. you die? oh well just fight the same guy at the same place again, no biggy.
Posted Nov 29, 2008 10:27 pm PT
I definitely miss those two-player games a la River City Ransom, where you share the same screen and all. Those were the days!
Posted Nov 30, 2008 8:40 am PT
I actually agree. There was gamer unity back then. we were all a happy family =]
Posted Nov 30, 2008 8:51 am PT
Here's my response. Okay, so it's not quite mine as it's Yahtzee's but it's a response nonetheless and viewer content warning is in effect.
Posted Dec 2, 2008 12:22 pm PT
lol that was funny. he kinda backs up my point... depth perception = a skill. swinging violently at an enemy and missing because of YOU'RE OWN FAULTY PLAYING is frustrating. you have nobody to blame but yourself. 3d just gives people a reason to think they are good at what they are doing because of a lock-on feature. (i DARE you to play ANY 3d zelda with no lock-on targeting) that whole thing was him saying "old games are harder. NOTICEABLY harder." and plus, he supports hitler so... no argument there lol
Posted Dec 2, 2008 7:56 pm PT
amen bro great blog entry. i totally agree with the communication factor in games. i could go pick up turtles in time for snes and have more fun than with a majority of the games that are out right now.
Posted Dec 9, 2008 9:34 pm PT
I agree with a lot of what you said, though I have to say that this previous generation (SDC\GCN\XBox\PS2) was still pretty decent. I do miss the days where games were made for everyone, though. Games like Altered Beast, StarFox, Secret of Mana, DinoCity, and Killer Instinct were perfect for everyone, and not just "casual" or "core" gamers.

I consider myself a "mixed" gamer, and play all styles of games as long as they're fun. I don't care how realistic something looks, or whether the cutscenes are pre-rendered or in-game. I just want a fun game that has plenty of replay value, good gameplay, and, in some cases, that I can enjoy with a friend.
Posted Dec 13, 2008 8:28 am PT
Your blog definitely raises some good points, but eventually the old school games would seem boring and repetitive. The wide diversity in games has enabled people to not get bored with a specific type of game. For example, I mainly play FPS, but I also love action adventure games like God of War and Devil May Cry. Even the occasional RPG is a nice getaway from the other games. In the older generations of games with the 2D side scroller, the characters actions, combo, etc. are very limited. It would get to the point where everything had been done before.


The old gen was probably the best though for the sole purpose that it laid the foundation down for the great games we have today. Classics like Goldeneye 007 and Doom are the games that eventually evolved into games like Halo and Call of Duty. Great blog though. I enjoy reading about people's opinions and they actually back them up with stuff that makes sense
Posted Dec 24, 2008 9:08 pm PT
I have to agree. Now everyone looks to the grapics etc, I just buy games for their storys.
Posted Dec 25, 2008 1:53 pm PT
Bpool i totally agree with what your saying, although i think that game companies, while "evolving" the game, actually stunts its playability. granted online play can be a good thing, and it is, dont get me wrong, but back in the day, games were basic, not just in the story sense, but playability. games could be played by anyone, and anyone could get good at it quickly. one of the worst things that came from the "evolution" of gaming, was the learning curve. each generation gaming gets harder, and the wii didnt really help. they game a completely new way to play games, and its got almost as many buttons at the 360 and PS3 controllers. the older consoles had very simplistic controls, and i think that these new controllers turned the old skool gamer off. granted there are more actions, but we used to have combinations of buttons to press for that, and those were luxury items. i guess what im trying to say in a nutshell, is maybe expansion isnt always the best thing across the table
Posted Dec 26, 2008 12:41 am PT
I agree with you. In fact, I believe that Sony robbed our generation when they released the PS1. 3D was introduced too early. The 32-bit generation should not have been a 3D era. It should have been the best that 2D can do era instead.
Posted Dec 26, 2008 12:14 pm PT
lol @ a time when movie games didnt suck. when was that?
anyways, i understand where you're coming from, but i think thats too far of a swing in the other direction. i do miss times when graphics werent an issue and people played games too have fun, but there really are alot of fun games to be played right now. there may be alot more bland and boring games now, but if you look hard enough, you'll find genuinely fun games like the ones you used to play.
Posted Jan 19, 2009 10:33 pm PT
I wish they would make more platformers instead of all these shooters like how they use too. I agree though I remember just looking at game boxes and deciding only on that alone and most of the time except for one or two brand name game like a bionicle game (2 out of the 3 were good, the one was unplayable though), and a rugrats game.
Posted Jan 22, 2009 6:21 pm PT
Actually Garret, I played through OoT when I was around twelve, unware of the lock-on feature. My bro saved me on that front on my second playthru. It was HARD before then, and I mean controller-snapping-tastic hard.
Posted Jan 27, 2009 2:18 pm PT
@ tkt

thats gotta be rough, but i dont really see where that fits in anywhere lol
Posted Jan 27, 2009 8:04 pm PT
I agree as far as consoles go. PC gaming is different for me. But I loved beating games in one sitting. I remember one day pausing Porky Pig's Haunted Holliday and turning the TV off because we all went ice skating. Then we came home 3 hours later and I beat the game. I had to be careful to not bump the system or it would screw up and freeze on me. I also definitely agree on the multiplayer with people right there next to you. It doesn't get much better than that.
Posted Mar 1, 2009 6:36 pm PT
I couldn't disagree more with this blog post. Still, I think that old games kick ass.
Posted Mar 8, 2009 8:25 pm PT
This reminds me of an old man complaining about how new music sounds like noise, or all new movies are full of sex and violence. Don't you realise that the current generation will find these games you complain about just as "golden" as the ones you once played?
Posted Mar 26, 2009 10:40 pm PT
I totally agree.
Posted Apr 18, 2009 8:31 pm PT
Great blog
Posted May 9, 2009 10:09 am PT
I agree. Except for the part that the guy playing SEGA Genesis will always be the coolest out of the group.
Posted May 9, 2009 10:58 pm PT
i think you're kind of barking up the wrong tree. there is still intense gaming now, but it's just the type of intense games that have changed.

i remember final fantasy IV, getting to the last area and having a whole team that were barely level 60, and realizing that i could possibly beat the last boss at this level, but i'd be scraping a win. i remember saving up all my x-potions and elixirs for the last fight and using ALL of them. great weekends.

things have changed now. game design has changed, but i had a similar intense feeling at the end of shadow of the colossus, throughout rez, and super monkey ball. then there are games like vagrant story and ikaruga that offer both depth and playability.
Posted May 17, 2009 1:28 pm PT
I am only 20 and my first consoles were gameboy and n64 so I had no clue about older systems until this last year or 2. I am going back and playing nes and snes games and love a lot of them. I think its fun having modern games and older games though. When you feel like a real challenge classic games are awesome.
Posted May 17, 2009 8:14 pm PT
Great blog indeed bro.
Posted Aug 14, 2009 7:17 pm PT
I agree with some parts of this. But there has always been a difference in Hardcore and Casual games. I don't know of any RPG or strategy game in the "Grandfather Era" that were meant for Casual play. Examples Include Final Fantasy, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dragon Quest ( I'm sure that there is plenty more) Series. There was just more of a median area. more platformers, Beat em ups(what you called fighting games) racing, and to some level Fighting games( Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat). Duffman, im sure you, like me are from the time when these systems came out so we have a soft spot for them which the younger gen don't understand. But if games didnt evolve from back then we would probably have billions of (insert game here) clones. Where would the fun be in that?
Posted Oct 11, 2009 1:36 am PT
It is like comparing cars from the 60's to cars of today. As time advances standards in all things rise.
I feel the best Gen was the PS1, N64, and Saturn Era. It's when the dawn of True 3d gaming began fresh ideas and it still had people holding on to the last gen. The best 2d fighters came from that time.
Posted Oct 11, 2009 1:40 am PT
best blog i've ever read! keep bloging!
Posted Oct 18, 2009 9:39 pm PT
while i do acknowledge the awesomeness of playing with people in the same room, i do see a significant advantage to online gaming. player count. i loved playing golden eye split screen, but it doesnt compare to playing in a game thats 8v8 or even 16v16 online. the scale is huge, and it makes you feel like part of a real team, not a solo player.
Posted Nov 9, 2009 2:41 pm PT
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