Anthony1
03-27-2004, 12:42 PM
For those of you that feel that at some point you went "Retro", when was that, and what do you think was the reason that you went in that direction?
For me, I just went "retro" rather recently. It started in May of 2003 for me. So I actually haven't even been retrogaming one full year yet. A year ago today I was playing XBOX and GameCube games, and I didn't know a damn thing about "retrogaming". I had no knowledge of this website, that there were these collectors out there, the market for old games on Ebay.... I didn't know about any of this. A year ago had I been at a Garage Sale and seen a mint TurboDuo still in it's box for 10 bucks, I probably would have looked at it strangely and laughed about it, and never bought it. I would have been the type of guy that would have gone into GameStop looking for the latest XBOX or GameCube game, and after seeing a bunch of Genesis and SNES carts in the corner I would have thought to myself, "Damn, people still play that crap!". I didn't have any of my old systems in my closet or in the Garage. I never kept my old systems, I would always sell my old systems and all my games and accesories, before buying a new system. Usually it would help finance the new system purchase. So when I went "retro" I had to pretty much start from scratch.
What made me all of a sudden switch from the state of the art current consoles to the old schools? I think it was a combination of a number of factors that all played key roles. Some of these factors were even somewhat subconcious in nature. I believe that these were the key factors:
1. I started to get somewhat tired of the 3D go anywhere and do anything type games. It almost was a case of having TOO much freedom. I actually missed the old days of having constraints and limitations in the game world. A game like Mario where you go from left to right with some very specific rules and regulations to the game world just started to appeal to me more. I just got tired of all the 3D games that let you do just about anything, with no rules or guidelines. I wanted things more simplistic.
2. I think from a subconcious standpoint, I yearned to re-live the days of my glorious youth. The days of being a young buck, chasing young girls and partying with my friends and doing all that crazy stuff. Being Married with children, means that I was becoming traped in the whole family life thing. You are probably wondering how playing old games would take me back to the days of my wild youth? Well, I don't know really, but it just seems that by playing the games that I was playing back then, it almost takes me back to that time and place when I was probably the most happy. I even collect old video game magazines now too. And that helps take me back to those times as well. I've also noticed that I've kinda gone retro with my music. Listening to stuff that I used to listen to back then. Yeah, I know, kinda creepy, kinda weird. Now, I'm not saying that any of this was a concious decision on my part. But I've come to accept that in the back of my mind, this is probably a big reason why I've gone retro.
3. One of the reasons that I've gone back to the old schools is that I can play tons and tons of games that I never had the chance to play back in the days when they all cost $49.99 per game or more. Some of these games now can be had for a buck. So it's cool to me to start developing these collections of all these games that I never could afford at the time. Now I have tons of them, and I can play stuff that I somehow missed along the way. Also, during my early gaming years, I was more of a sports gamer that just liked to play Football games and stuff like that with my buddies. I didn't get into the action/adventure stuff till later. So now I get a chance to revisit the classic adventure games that I never played back then.
4. I finally came to the realization that there is no Holly Grail of the ultimate video game in terms of graphics and sounds taking me to some Nirvana. I've always been chasing the ultimate audio/visual experience. The next great thing. That is why I would always buy the latest system on the day of release. I would always go to the new systems right away and abandon my old systems. I was always chasing that technological marvel. It got to a point where I realized that great state of the art graphics and sounds are just that, great graphics and sounds. No Holly Grail. No Nirvana. So when I finally realized that, I realized that it was all about the play, and the older games tend to have better "play". You see, I'm a recovering graphics whore.
So basically, I think those were the 4 major reasons. I'm interested in hearing what your guy's reasons are for going "retro" and when you actually did go "retro".
I'm sure that there are lots of you that never actually went "retro" so to speak, that you've always had all your old systems and that you would always play your old games just as much as your new games. Well, this question isn't really geared to you.
It's geared to the guys that always played the latest and greatest gaming systems, the most up to date stuff, and then all of a sudden they had a desire to go back to the old schools.
So if you have always been old school, then this really wouldn't apply to you. Although you can explain why you have always been old school, if you like.
For me, I just went "retro" rather recently. It started in May of 2003 for me. So I actually haven't even been retrogaming one full year yet. A year ago today I was playing XBOX and GameCube games, and I didn't know a damn thing about "retrogaming". I had no knowledge of this website, that there were these collectors out there, the market for old games on Ebay.... I didn't know about any of this. A year ago had I been at a Garage Sale and seen a mint TurboDuo still in it's box for 10 bucks, I probably would have looked at it strangely and laughed about it, and never bought it. I would have been the type of guy that would have gone into GameStop looking for the latest XBOX or GameCube game, and after seeing a bunch of Genesis and SNES carts in the corner I would have thought to myself, "Damn, people still play that crap!". I didn't have any of my old systems in my closet or in the Garage. I never kept my old systems, I would always sell my old systems and all my games and accesories, before buying a new system. Usually it would help finance the new system purchase. So when I went "retro" I had to pretty much start from scratch.
What made me all of a sudden switch from the state of the art current consoles to the old schools? I think it was a combination of a number of factors that all played key roles. Some of these factors were even somewhat subconcious in nature. I believe that these were the key factors:
1. I started to get somewhat tired of the 3D go anywhere and do anything type games. It almost was a case of having TOO much freedom. I actually missed the old days of having constraints and limitations in the game world. A game like Mario where you go from left to right with some very specific rules and regulations to the game world just started to appeal to me more. I just got tired of all the 3D games that let you do just about anything, with no rules or guidelines. I wanted things more simplistic.
2. I think from a subconcious standpoint, I yearned to re-live the days of my glorious youth. The days of being a young buck, chasing young girls and partying with my friends and doing all that crazy stuff. Being Married with children, means that I was becoming traped in the whole family life thing. You are probably wondering how playing old games would take me back to the days of my wild youth? Well, I don't know really, but it just seems that by playing the games that I was playing back then, it almost takes me back to that time and place when I was probably the most happy. I even collect old video game magazines now too. And that helps take me back to those times as well. I've also noticed that I've kinda gone retro with my music. Listening to stuff that I used to listen to back then. Yeah, I know, kinda creepy, kinda weird. Now, I'm not saying that any of this was a concious decision on my part. But I've come to accept that in the back of my mind, this is probably a big reason why I've gone retro.
3. One of the reasons that I've gone back to the old schools is that I can play tons and tons of games that I never had the chance to play back in the days when they all cost $49.99 per game or more. Some of these games now can be had for a buck. So it's cool to me to start developing these collections of all these games that I never could afford at the time. Now I have tons of them, and I can play stuff that I somehow missed along the way. Also, during my early gaming years, I was more of a sports gamer that just liked to play Football games and stuff like that with my buddies. I didn't get into the action/adventure stuff till later. So now I get a chance to revisit the classic adventure games that I never played back then.
4. I finally came to the realization that there is no Holly Grail of the ultimate video game in terms of graphics and sounds taking me to some Nirvana. I've always been chasing the ultimate audio/visual experience. The next great thing. That is why I would always buy the latest system on the day of release. I would always go to the new systems right away and abandon my old systems. I was always chasing that technological marvel. It got to a point where I realized that great state of the art graphics and sounds are just that, great graphics and sounds. No Holly Grail. No Nirvana. So when I finally realized that, I realized that it was all about the play, and the older games tend to have better "play". You see, I'm a recovering graphics whore.
So basically, I think those were the 4 major reasons. I'm interested in hearing what your guy's reasons are for going "retro" and when you actually did go "retro".
I'm sure that there are lots of you that never actually went "retro" so to speak, that you've always had all your old systems and that you would always play your old games just as much as your new games. Well, this question isn't really geared to you.
It's geared to the guys that always played the latest and greatest gaming systems, the most up to date stuff, and then all of a sudden they had a desire to go back to the old schools.
So if you have always been old school, then this really wouldn't apply to you. Although you can explain why you have always been old school, if you like.