Retrogaming is Ageless...

[Mindfield]

I found this little event rather interesting. I work for Future Shop, a large Canadian electronics chain much like Circuit City in the US, as a Software Consultant. So, I deal with every type of software and game system query from the common to the obscure. We recently launched the GBA to incredible success, and aside from stock problems for the first few days, we've kept on selling it well.

But the one event that fascinated me was the mother who came in with her little boy who couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years of age. She let the boy pick out his favourite colour of GBA as well as a game. The funny thing is that, faced with such great and kid-appealing games like Super Mario Advance, Pinobee, Chu Chu Rocket and so on, what game caught the kid's eyes straight away? Namco Classics. A kid who's too young to even remember the N64, much less the VCS, found old games more appealing than the new, colourful games on the rack.

 

It was sort of an interesting observation on the whole retrogaming scene -- that you're never too young to enjoy the classics, and that even simplistic graphics and sound despite the machine's ability for better can grab your attention if the gameplay is all there.

[Joel D. Park]

Neat Story.

 

Another side of the Ageless retrogaming is this:

 

I've been working on a Retro-Style RPG for some time now, the only thing that makes it different from the RPG's of old is the fact that it's Massively Multiplayer, it will still look fairly dated though.

 

I'm only one guy working on this so it is taking me a long time to do anything, but thanks to the retro-ness of the game I don't have to worry about the game being obsolite before it's even done.

 

I was obsolite before I even started :-)

[Ian Primus]

That's pretty suprising. Even my friends, who are my age (high school), hate old games. One of my friends absolutely refuses to watch a TV show that is more than 2 years old. (C'mon! Hogan's Heros is still funny) When asked why I am so tired one day, my reply was - I was playing Atari 'till 5 in the morning. It is totally beyond them to think that an obsolete game system could keep someone occupied for more than 5 minutes. Oh well, I managed to convince one of my friends to play "Surround" with me. He was addicted in three minutes... we played for 2 hours. I guess you just have to get them started...

 

Ian Primus

ian.primus@usa.net

[Joel D. Park]

I think alot of folks love the retro stuff but are just afraid to admit it.

 

And yes, Hogan's Heros is still funny.

[Mindfield]

I've had friends and known people who can't seem to comprehend why anyone would like a game that was even a year old, much less 20. Of course, these were the sort of people who wanted the latest of everything the day it came out, and felt that anything less was simply buying into obsolescence. But then they never really took a look at the old technology; they just see inferior graphics and sound and dismiss it out of hand. None of them had actually played any of those addictive games -- if they had, they'd probably have to grudgingly change their position on the matter.

Perhaps some are afraid to admit it for fear of ridicule, but I think it's something to laud. Recognition and admiration for modern technology's roots is a good thing. Hell, just yesterday I was talking to one of our floor managers and he mentioned that he still had an old NES system, and still played it. I told him that the whole retrogaming thing is in these days. He respects good gameplay regardless of the technology producing it. I thought that was rather cool of him.