Toying with a Retro Rating System

[+Gemintronic]

I've been co hosting a retro gaming stream. Basically, we showcase new homebrew from various platforms. I kind of want to refine our impressions with a retro specific rating system. Would appreciate any feedback on this rating concept:

 

Availability

How obtainable is the game? What is its projected future availability? Free ROM downloads (for example) are highly available now and should be in the future. Limited runs or one shot titles are obviously not so much.

Uniqueness

How much does the game adhere to a specific genre? How many other games are like it?

Joy

Does playing the game give you joy? Does the combination of sound, graphics and gameplay appeal? It doesn't matter if the graphics are amazing or sound spectacular: did it make you smile?

System Representation

How identifiable is the title to the system it was meant for? Some late PlayStation 2 games looked like early PS3 games. Some DPC (Pitfall 2) 2600 games look like 7800 games to me. I can easily recognize Haunted house as an Atari 2600 title. Same deal with Coleco Smurfs. Some games live and breath the style of their platform.

 

 

I dunno. These are my thoughts on how to rate retro and retro styled games. Thoughts?

[Opry99er]

A question and a suggestion:

 

Suggestion: User interface is a big one for me... There are some games that have an awesome user interface that I do not enjoy playing and which don't make me smile. Control responsiveness and in-game interface is, to me, an important gauge of quality. I don't like PAC Man, but the UI of 2600 4K Pac Man is insanely good.

 

Question: Are you dinging a game for seemingly surpassing the historical norms of a system? The TI-99 computer historically had simple graphics with bright colors and simple sounds, and most TI-released games are easily recognizable as distinctively "TI." I posted a video below of a new Homebrew for the system called Flying Shark. It looks nothing like a vintage TI game, but it was coded in 100% assembly language and plays on a standard 32k TI setup with no co-processing of any kind. Does it look or sound like an identifiable TI game? No... but it is brilliant and coded in native machine language. Would be tough for me to use this as a criterion.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Opry99er

[Flojomojo]

Uniqueness

How much does the game adhere to a specific genre? How many other games are like it?

 

Maybe you should call this Originality. There are a lot of copycat games, and when you're spending valuable time on playing old games, it's nice to know if you're putting it into something special, not a completely generic thing that works better elsewhere.

 

When I see "Uniqueness" I think of system exclusives, or its opposite, multi-system ports. Popular arcade games got ported to every home computer and console of the day, but they're not nearly as interesting now that we have MAME emulating the originals.

[+Gemintronic]

@Opry99er

Yeah, a UI can make or break the "joy" in playing a game. One of the main reasons I preferred playing Ultima III on the NES over PC.

I guess that's the problem with 0-10 rating systems. You expect them to be better as the number goes up. I'd say a game can be so technically impressive it doesn't "feel" like a game on the system it's running on.

@Flojomojo

Originality it is!

[BassGuitari]

 

Maybe you should call this Originality. There are a lot of copycat games, and when you're spending valuable time on playing old games, it's nice to know if you're putting it into something special, not a completely generic thing that works better elsewhere.

 

When I see "Uniqueness" I think of system exclusives, or its opposite, multi-system ports. Popular arcade games got ported to every home computer and console of the day, but they're not nearly as interesting now that we have MAME emulating the originals.

 

Some copycat games are really good, though, and occasionally even better than the real thing. Take Alien vs. Pac-Man on the, 2600 for example. I think "generic" only becomes a problem if the game as a whole is bland and unin spired and derivative; simply stealing a concept alone doesn't necessarily qualify, especially if the end result is well-produced, polished, or innovative in some way. Spectron for Colecovision is basically just Space Invaders...but it's still pretty damn fun, and well-done. Arkanoid is Super Breakout on steroids and objectively superior in almost every way.

 

Even, like, 347% of homebrew games are ports or updates of old games--"copycats" in the most literal sense. Most of them are excellent.

[Keatah]

I see this becoming rather complex because of the huge variety of material. You can't really rate the Flight Simulator genre in the same manner as you would RPGs, or FPS, or Platformers.

[+wongojack]

Sometimes I appreciate a homebrew for adding something new to the library of an older system. In that way, a top down RPG for the 7800 or Lynx might not feel like it was at home on the system, but it would be really awesome to finally have a game like that in the library.

[Tanooki]

Will this apply to old PC games too? There's a good cross section of both DOS and WIndows 95(ish) era stuff that isn't on GoG, probably never will be, and natively will not run in a 64bit environment, and in some cases so badly (wonky?) put together even 32bit WinXP/7 has fits over it.

 

Recently I've picked up a few old PC games stuff in purgatory from the DOS/Win3.X era that have no shot short of a miracle ever showing up legit for sale and you need to toy around using DOS Box, sometimes with odd configuration at that to get them to go, and in cases of a Win version would require figuring out how to load Win3.X or 95 in DOSBox to get that going.

[Flojomojo]

How about

 

Accessibility

A lot of old games are products of their time, or just plain obtuse and boring, not something that a modern player would enjoy. Blind bottomless pits, one-hit deaths, limited lives then you're back to the start, labyrinths that require pen and paper and a lot of reloading. Some "features" of old games are charming, but not everyone wants to drive a hand-cranked car that requires you manage gears and chokes and throttles and unpowered steering.

 

I like Joy as it's a lot more subjective and interesting than the usual "graphics, sound, gameplay" categories.

 

One other factor for me: I often check HowLongToBeat to see if a game has Respect For My Time or if it's going to be 100 hours of grinding for XP.

[Opry99er]

Mmmmm...... grinding......

 

Off topic here, but....

 

I never looked st grinding as an inconvenience, really. Whether it was grinding for gold in Faxanadu or grinding for XP in FFIV (FF2) it always just felt natural.

 

I know I'm in the minority here, just wanted to throw that in.

 

**end off-topic response**

[Tanooki]

I'd agree with the JOY comment. Some games are a 100 hours of hell. Some can be 100 hours of fun, and some yet can be 100 hours of hell unless patched up with a nice tool (like the SII Gold Box Companion.) I mentioned games I picked up that are old. This year I have snapped up Heretic Shadows of the Serpent Riders, Maxis Collection 2 (Sim City+Sim Isle), Silverball Plus 2, and The Explorer: Civilization & Colonization bundle most recently.

 

They can all be made to run in DOS Box. Heretic has Doom WADS so any nice modern loader has it covered. Maxis Collection is unfriendly all WIndows 3.X stuff BUT in a true hidden directory a 32BIT version (only ever legit made) of Sim City Classic exists and it likes Win 8/10 64bit so YAY. Silverball just isn't happening from Epic Games, may never, but runs perfectly nice on DOS Box as is. The Explorer has both DOS and Win3.X releases and both look/run the same either way and have aged very well and while Colonization is on GoG, CIV1 is stuck in some weird hell so it never gets a re-release and it plays great. Each are uniquely different and other than the FPS can easily rack up 100 hours of play going at it due to design and be a lot of fun even with so much age involved.

[+wongojack]

Dude said he focuses on homebrews . . .

[Tanooki]

Well good point, but while I used licensed retail example I can think of stuff that wasn't from the same era I played quite a lot. Pac PC, Ms Pac PC, Qbert PC(or whatever it was called, same maker), Flyswatter, TREK VGA, Skyroads, and some other DOS homebrew level stuff that was phenomenal, still hold up too.

[Keatah]

The JROK stuff?

[Tanooki]

Yup that would be it JROK, sounds very familiar that it would have to be.

http://www.jrok.com/games_orig.html

Edited May 10, 2018 by Tanooki