The Matrix

What do you say to those (born after the whole NES era and were too young to remember SNES or Genesis) who try to compare games like Half Life, Max Payne or Halo to games like the 2600's Adventure and Moon Patrol and then they come to the conclusion that older games suck based on nothing but graphics and sound? It annoys me to no end when people blindy assume that older games aren't worth playing. This is especially annoying when people compare Marathon with Half Life in trying to show you why Marathon sucks. I still think Marathon, Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity are fun games with a great story to go along with it. And the multiplayer sessions are totally awesome! But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy modern games as well. I love games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and Speed Punks. Is it a byproduct of today's disposable fad mentality? Are thousands of young and newbie gamers missing the point of games? Like these days I see nothing but FSP after FPS on computer platforms and it's getting boring. They're just making better mousetraps these days. Barely anything is original anymore. It's enough to make someone force himself to learn how to program (even if he's not the kind of person to do so otherwise) and make his own types of games that are actually fun to play over and over again not just because of the graphics or the sound, but because it's actually fun to play... I have several game ideas in mind and as soon as I learn to program I'm going to start making those games. Even taking it a step more towards the ironic and using the graphics and sound to the advantage of gameplay to enhance the fun factor instead of mearly developing an engine just for eye candy. Practical game esthetics. Using graphics and sound just for eye candy is like having a useless third arm growing out of your chin. It may look neat, but ultimately it's useless unless it has some muscle tissue to move it and bone to support it.

quote: Originally posted by atari70s: hey matrix so what is your goal in collecting To collect the popular games I missed out on as a kid. Unlike a lot of 3 year olds I didn't have things like an Atari or a Colecovision. I played with a few B&W LCD Tiger games and maybe I think I played with a Vectrex standalone, but mostly I wasn't into videogames until I was well into my early to mid-teens. And it's only now that I realized what all I missed as a kid. Growing up I didn't have an Atari 2600 in the back of my closet like so many other people have. Even my sister wasn't into old videogames (she mostly just remembers playing videogames at friends' houses). For me, I'll play any game that's fun. Even old Atari games.

Hello. I guess I should tell you that my interest in videogames began with the NES in 1988. Before that I was basically oblivious to any older videogame systems. I joined in on the joy long after the videogame crash. All this, but I was born in 1977. The reason was that my parents weren't that well off anyway. My first videogame experience was a Ms. Pac-Man arcade game at a place in Warsaw, MO (this was before 1988. 1985 I think) called the Family Fun Center (I'm not sure if it's still there, though). My next experience was at a cousin's house when me and my mom went to visit some relatives in South Dakota. I think it was either an Atari 5200 or the 7800 (I know the graphics were better than the 2600). The next one was at a laundromat in Minneapolis, MN when we were in the process of moving up to MN in 1986-87. It was Ms. Pac-Man again. I didn't get a NES until the second year of living in our house in Lakeland, MN (1988 I think). My parents were reluctant to buy me an NES, but like any 11 or 12 year old I bugged them constantly until my birthday when I came home from school to find that my dad was waiting in the livingroom with a big box wrapped in gift wrap (my mom was still at work at the city hall bringing home the bacon. Actually both parents worked ). At first I thought it would be something else, like a big Transformers toy (yes, I was still into Transformers). For most of my childhood I haven't really received any big ticket birthday gifts from my parents and I knew why so I usually didn't bug them about it. Usually what I'd get for my birthday was a $4.99 action figure or some art supplies (mostly stuff that more well off children would get with their weekly allowance and their grandparents). Since I didn't have any grandparents (the closest to that was a grandmother who was in the nursing home and an aunt who would send me money for Easter, Valentines Day, my birthday, Halloween and Christmas) I usually didn't expect much as toys were concerned. I thanked them for the NES over and over for the next several months, then I sat down and stared blankly in the TV screen while shouting profanities at the controller and asking why it didn't work . I next asked them for a SNES, but they drew the line there. The SNES was too expensive and if I were to get a SNES, then I'd have to pay for it myself. Which was the thing, since I wasn't given an allowance in the first place. But I was 14 and the city was hiring kids to work at the beach over the summer. So I got a job thinking I would make enough money before my best friend with his SNES collected more games than me. Too late. With him and his wealthy (and I mean wealthy) grandparents, he got all the money he needed to buy a lot of games and then some. I wasn't playing my NES anymore (the games I had were kind of weird choices to begin with and I only had 6 games) so I sold it and bought myself a SNES with the packing game Super Mario World. Before that I'd been going to Funcoland just to play the different games they had on the display SNES they had (the games my friend didn't have or wasn't willing to let me play. He was kinda mean ). Anyway, for a long time I didn't have any other game besides SMW. And with school starting again, I couldn't afford new games. But I did finally make enough money from birthdays and a second summer at the beach to buy Secret Of Mana. Sweet ass game at the time. My friend was envious . And then the games started trickling in when my dad got a good job at a lawn sculpture factory designing and sculpting clay molds. Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, and that's about it. I also bought a cheap Game Boy along the way (the original white brick one) with several cheap games that I got my dad to buy for me . At this point I figured out how to get cool things from my parents. Keep the purchase cheap and keep it within close driving range of the house (this was before we got internet or a computer). then in 1992 or 1993 we got a Macintosh IIsi ($5000). I only got a few games for that and a few desktop publishing applications (DP was the buzzword back then and my mom wanted to get into that). I kept the SNES for a while. I finally had enough money to then buy a N64, but I sold it when barely any games were coming out for it and bought a PSX. I had to sell my SNES to buy the PSX (didn't have enough money once again). And to this day I still have the PSX. I now have a G3 Power Macintosh for computer design and learning how to program on it. I want to get A+ Certified so I can get a job at a local computer repair and sales shop. I recently got the urge to collect all the 80s stuff that I missed when I was a kid. Movies, cartoons, games, toys, comics, etc. And it's been happening at a slow but progressive pace. I recently got my hands on an old Atari 2600 from a guy that just passed away. His daughter said I could have it. Just like that. And I got a few games for it, but I'm planning on collecting more. I'm not going to be a completist though. I'm going to collect the games that were popular. the ones I might like. I just went out to Goodwill to buy a few games they have in their bins (99¢ apiece). Right now I have: Asteroids Frogger Ice Hockey Ms. Pac-Man Pac-Man Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back Tennis Video Pinball They all work and are all fun. Even in today's 3D high tech, G4 Power Mac/AMD, GeForce 3/Radeon driven games industry, it's nice to know that the older 80s games can still entertain new users. In my opinion, it's about the fun factor, not the graphics. The graphics and the other extras are just frosting on that cake. [ 08-04-2001: Message edited by: The Matrix ]