Surprisingly good article about classic gaming

[Raccoon Lad]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2092798/

[spoon]

Yeah it is, check it out.

I wish I had friends that lived by me, instead of peeps on an internet board, that understood videogames like this. It would make for some great conversation and gameplay.

[Charlesaway]

Good article, but a little on the short side. I'm both a cub scout leader and a volunteer with a local cadet group here in Ottawa. None of the cubs (aged 7 to 10) knew what atari was.

The points the guy makes about teenagers knowing the games were reflected in the cadets. Many of them knew about them, and I even have a couple of cadets that still played their 2600, though most seem to be enthralled with the SNES era, with games like Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy.

[leonk]

ahmen to that!

Good article.

[Lady Jaye]

Good article, but Tapper is a great game, much more addictive than he makes it sound. Now I gotta put in my Midway Arcade Treasures game in my GameCube and see how it is.

Ciao people! I'll be back in a few hours! :D

[Perkar]

yeah, that was a pretty good article... not too in depth, but the author definitely gets their point across.

and i too just picked up that midway arcade treasures on gcn... rampart has been kicking my ass hardcore.

[Flack]

Rampart suffers from controller issues, imho. Tough to emulate the precision of a trackball.

I liked the article, mainly because it's what I've been saying all along. Making Mario 3D doesn't make it a better game!!! There are good 3D games, but just converting a game to 3D doesn't improve it.

[Duncan]

That article ended at exactly the point where I wanted it to expand into a more in-depth discussion on classic games.

But it was well-written, anyway.

[zmweasel]

That article ended at exactly the point where I wanted it to expand into a more in-depth discussion on classic games.

But it was well-written, anyway.

As opposed to this *horrible* piece from the usually excellent Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2003/12/20/gameboys/index.html

At least the authors have the courtesy to alienate every avid gamer right away with their opening exchange:


"Tom: As this loads up, I have to ask: Are we ashamed, at our age, of playing video games?

"Jeff: Not completely. I liked video games when they looked terrible. Now it seems like we're living in some kind of golden age.

"Tom: Think of the other things we could be doing. Sitting in a bar. Walking outside.

"Jeff: Having meaningful relationships."


And here's their witty commentary on NASCAR Thunder 2004:

"Jeff: This is basically 3-D Frogger. You're just moving and occupying space.

"Tom: Frogger with sideburns and a Skoal sponsorship."


There's also a reference to the non-game "Street Ball" (NBA Street), among other things, but I'll stop now.

-- Z.

[Half Japanese]

They did, however, make the error of stating that the game consoles can "surf the web" (a phrase we, as a population, should have quit using by now), which, barring the Dreamcast, they certainly can not. I didn't read the whole article though, I'm a stickler, if it doesn't catch my interest by the beginning of the second paragraph or I see a glaring error early on I usually stop. But overall I'd agree with what you guys have said...simple is typically better. I'd rather not spend half an hour learning a controller setup, but would rather just play the damn game and, most importantly, have fun with it.