Retro Gaming Roundtable #1

Welcome to Retro Gaming Roundtable, where we take a whole bunch of retro gaming experts and enthusiasts, ask them a question, and see how they respond. Hopefully the result is a rather thorough treatment of the prompt with some entertaining quips along the way.

This is our first article ever, so share the news with your old-school friends and please feel free to leave comments on the topic, since we want to know your thoughts too. Check out the contributors, as they all have their own projects going on, and most can be found on Twitter, where they probably would not mind some gaming-related banter.

Prompt #1: Why are old video games worth discussing?

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Mason Cramer, Youtube: “Why are old video games still worth discussing? Why are old movies and books still worth discussing? Why is history itself worth discussing? Modern culture is just the curl of a wave. All things from the “past” are relevant and worth discussing. Old video games are still worth discussing if for no other reason than looking back to see things from a fresh perspective and learn some lessons. If people weren’t discussing old video games there wouldn’t be any new ones! Not that we really need any new ones – in fact I’d like to see new stuff come out for SNES but that’s another story. Point is – there actually is no such thing as “time” as people understand it in terms of hours, days, and years – so all “old” things are worthy topics of discussion and contain valuable undiscovered secrets.”

Peisinoe, Twitter: “The need to discuss old video games is three-pronged. Each affect us in different ways, but they all are equally important. At least, that’s the way I see it.

Firstly, there always is a need for nostalgia. No matter what happened during a time period, there always is some sort of pleasantness. Old games provide that pleasantness for just about everyone. It provides common-ground for others around one’s age. It also creates a community for those who truly love them.

Secondly, they are the foundation for all other video games. There are shades of Pong in WiiSports Tennis. Shadow Complex wouldn’t exist without Metroid. I’m sure the creators of each of the modern games would disagree with me, but they might not realize how much the old games influenced their game developments.

Thirdly, less obviously, and a little in line with the previous reason, old games are a lesson to programmers and developers. It might not be apparent how intricate coding in a seemingly simple game is, but they are simple enough to teach an aspiring game coder. They can learn from the old games on how to implement graphics, loops, and variables and actual game concepts.”

Septicor, Septicor.com: “Because older video games have stood the test of time the same way car buffs would love to talk about vintage cars, and the same way classic movies are still revered and discussed for their greatness.  You talk to a movie fan, and they’ll still talk about classics like Citizen Kane and Gone with the Wind and Ben-Hur.  They’ll even tell you when they saw it for the first time, where they went to, whom they brought with to see it, and so on.

Older gamers like myself grew up with the games that are now deemed classics, like Super Mario Brothers, Mega Man and Legend of Zelda, and we have our own stories to share about our experiences.  Especially around a time where the retro is more popular, more games are getting remaked and re-released to the newer consoles for the newer crowds, and side-scrollers are coming back strong with games like Little Big Planet, Rayman Origins, and even Super Mario Brothers Wii, it’s great to have a look back at the games that set the standard for these.”

TheRetroCritic, RetroCriticBlog.blogspot.com: “Gaming isn’t without its history. The early games we grew up with all carry their triumphs, their disappointments. They represent hours of joy and frustration, hours of “continues” and “game overs”. For most, there’s a strong nostalgia factor to these and their primitive, often simplistic graphics and gameplay (compared to today’s new releases anyway) just contribute to their overall charm.

Besides, a lot of those old games are still impressive and challenging to this day. They are worth discussing because new gamers can then understand the history behind their swanky new 3D Zelda and Mario games, a new generation can be introduced to some quality classics and retro gamers can indulge in the old days and perhaps even finally complete some of the toughest challenges SEGA, Nintendo or Atari had to offer. However you look at it: it’s a history worth sharing.”

Mr. Retro Sports, RetroSportsGamer.com: “As gamers grow older, everyone searches for the youthful feeling of being care-free with the only thing important being if you could stay over at your best friend’s house to play Super Mario Bros 3 all night.  Today we sit with our legs crossed in front of a television with a two(!) button controller in our hands and remember when life was easier.  This can be a metaphor for gaming as well.  I don’t have a problem with the controls for any recent Madden game, but games worked with two or three buttons just fine.  It’s not that retro games are always better per se, but they were bigger when your impression of the world was still being shaped.  The New Super Mario Bros is great, but at age 32, it didn’t mean nearly as much as Super Mario Bros 2 did at age 12.  With the growing video game industry, and the continued evolution of the Internet and social media, nostalgia is a booming commodity.  It’s fun to relive the games we grew up with while revisiting how we got to where we are today.  Thanks to the interactive world we live in, its easy to do so with others as well.

Christopher Earls, GameFira.com: “This topic is one that I could discuss and elaborate on indefinitely (or at least until something shiny distracts me) but for the sake of brevity I’ll only get into one major reason…History.

The history of video games is a complex and amazingly entertaining subject laden with enough intrigue, backstabbing, complex moral issues, and sex (ok, so maybe the sex was mostly in my head) to captivate the curiosity of any gamer no matter how jaded and FPSified they may be. Whether you’re looking into the corporate debauchery and video game crash of the 1970′s, the bloody battles of the infamous Console Wars of the 1980′s, or the heated debates on violence in gaming of the 1990′s you’re sure to find gaming’s history ripe for the intellectual picking.

The evolution of the gaming industry, while short, is nothing if not eventful and has not only prospered because of, but has been a lot of the inspiration for the meteoric rise of technology in today’s society. The way we interact, interpret, and think of the real world has been forever influenced (for better or worse depending on your standpoint) by video games and having at least a cursory knowledge of it’s roots is a must for any serious gamer worth his salt.

Gaming has become one of the top entertainment industries in the modern world along side the titans of Film and Television for a reason. While it may have started out as something to occupy the kids while the adults did important things like starting wars and sending unprepared humans hurtling through space to explore our own stellar backyard it’s now a springboard for our generation to do more important things like stopping wars and safely exploring planets that no man can possibly reach in a lifetime.

To fully appreciate the amazing virtual worlds we have found ourselves occupying we must first understand how those worlds came to be. As stated by Martin Luther King Jr. “We are not the makers of History. We are made by History.”

Plus, if we don’t teach the next generation about their gaming roots then what will happen to such amazing memes as “All your base are belong to us.” or “Do a barrel roll!”!? I for one cannot stand idly by while such socially significant statements of a generation are lost to time and internet obscurity!

Sean Ewington, UpUp-DownDown.com: “The other day I asked my friend to watch a clip of the new Thundercats cartoon. “Does this HHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO sound loud enough to you?” I asked.

“No way,” he replied. I too, remembered Lion-O’s roar being much louder. I was sure Lion-O’s bellow was as loud as the screams on Dragonball Z. That kind of cry gets everyone’s attention. But it isn’t just about hearing the roar, it’s about feeling a magic so primal it still grips us today. The same is true of retro gaming.

There’s this theory of pop culture/entertainment I heard in the RedLetterMedia Star Trek (2009) review (Part 1, @ 6:39). The idea is that the further back you go the more clearly we recognize titles, because as time goes we get saturated with too many forms of entertainment and too many mediums to present them. Just look at that movie Battleship. Why name a movie “Battleship” and use the same board game branding in the posters, but not have anyone in the trailers say “You sunk my battleship”? To get our attention.

Blogging about any topic on the internet (but video games in particular) is like getting into the mud with the elephants; making strides isn’t going to be easy. And while there are plenty of long-standing pioneers in retro game criticism and discussion, capitalizing on that added recognition from an audience can’t hurt.

And it’s not like old games can’t have valuable insights. Retro games might seem simple, but that simplicity provides a clarity modern games cannot. Take Extra Credits’s discussion of narrative mechanics in the 80′s arcade game Missile Command. You should really watch the episode for yourself (and all of the Extra Credits videos for that matter) but essentially they explain that Missile Command forces the player into a position of defense instead of power, then asks them to make real time battle decisions that effect the lives of the people the player is trying to protect. No game of Missile Command can be won – every game ends in nuclear annihilation. Extra Credits explains that Missile Command structures its gameplay purposefully to convey the game creator’s message: there are no victors in war.

The simplicity of retro gameplay also makes their underlaying concepts more accessible. I recently caught myself looking through the lens of retro video games to understand how I feel about modern ones. The game I was trying to understand was Dark Souls. Dark Souls is so brutally punishing and repetitive I was having trouble understanding why I enjoyed it. Parts of it reminded of that ice stage in Super Mario Bros. 2 where you have to duck and jump the oncoming wave of bees with spears. I remembered how good it felt to memorize the pattern and to run into those oncoming bees confidently. It helped me see that part of what I enjoy is learning a pattern, then mastering it.

I heard several people say Dark Souls reminds them of old games like NES Metroid. They’re referring to the unforgiving nature of the gameplay, but perhaps there’s more to it than that. Perhaps retro games provide the brightest, clearest light for us to direct onto games to better understand them, and better understand ourselves.”

RetroGamerVE, Pixenario.com: “La Historia no se puede cambiar, y es gracias a ella que las cosas son como son hoy en día. Hay personas que admiran y hallan inspiración en personajes históricos como Mahatma Ghandi, Leonardo Da Vinci o Simon Bolívar. Yo como Gamer, he conseguido en los videojuegos personajes dignos de admiración, incluso en los juegos mas simplistas como Bomberman, Sí BOMBERMAN, el pequeño robot, en realidad es un Robot que se cansa de la vida a la que está condenado a vivir, Preso en una fábrica de bombas, y decide cambiarla cuando se entera que si logra escapar, se convertirá en humano, ¡y lo logra!, y se convierte en DIG DUG.

Y no solo personajes ficticios, el hecho de que personas como Hironobu Sakaguchi, a punto de retirarse con su empresa al borde de la quiebra, decide no rendirse y echar el resto en su ultimo juego, es admirable. Por cierto, por ser su “último” juego, decidió llamarlo: FINAL FANTASY.

Con esto quiero decir que la historia es importante, aún para los videojuegos. Hoy no habría un Skyward Sword, sin TLoZ original, no habría Nintendo 3DS, sin el GameBoy Original. Éxitos y fracasos representan una base, así que si te gustan los videojuegos, es un deber para ti conocer su pasado y mantenerlo vivo.”

Tyler Altrup, Twitter: “Better question: why not? Seriously though, retro games are still worth discussing for two reasons: history and foresight.

History

I’ll try to avoid that line about “doomed to repeat” and just say that appreciating old video games is no different than appreciating any other piece of culture. As a guy with a Latin degree, I may be biased, but I will say that studying past cultures is immensely valuable. Even more importantly, “studying” the history of games means you’re playing video games. One thing we can all agree on: playing old games is still freaking awesome. Plus, discussing old games allows us to connect the dots on how games evolved over time. Last year, Ubisoft released a fantastic side-scrolling beat-em-up for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. On its own, this is a great game. With historical perspective, though, it rises to excellence. I argue that it never would have been so great without the legacy of Adventure Island, Double Dragon II, or Streets of Rage 2. The first reason to discuss old games: so that we appreciate past culture and its effect on our current culture.

Foresight

Beyond just appreciating the past, discussing old games gives us a critical eye as we look the future of gaming. I LOVE my retro collection but I also play every current-gen console too (tag: TyBlues95) and I cannot wait for Vita, Wii U…Xbox 1080, and PS 52. Discussing old games reminds me of the potential for some of the emerging developers–when I hear about the latest Suda 51 game (sidenote: please, please make another No More Heroes), I am reminded of the old quirk of Fester’s Quest and Deja Vu.When I look ahead to Journey, I think of the first time I had full access to the world map in Final Fantasy 1. Old games allow us to appreciate the fundamental emotions that all new games will be built upon.

History and future, nostalgia and foresight–these are the reasons to discuss old games. If we do both, maybe we can avoid being “doomed to repeat” some pieces of gaming history, I’m looking at you E.T. on Atari.

Tigmo55, Tigmo55.com: “So why exactly are old video games still worth discussing today? What can we learn from retro gaming that holds merit even today in an era of movie-quality graphics and sound along with more controller buttons than months in a year?

Well, there are two aspects of old-school gaming that jump out right away. The first one is the amazing simplicity found in some of the biggest hits of the 80s and 90s (70s too!). You didn’t need to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy a classic such as Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. You obviously didn’t need complicated controllers with tons of buttons either. Heck, Pac-Man simply utilized a control stick/D-pad and throw out buttons altogether! And yet with its primitive controls and lack of button usage, Pac-Man is still an incredibly fun, rich gameplay experience. The game is tough-as-nails in the later levels and is very challenging despite its simplicity. I think when you have a thirty-year old video game that is both fun and challenging yet contains simple gameplay that anyone off the street can enjoy, you have something timeless and special that never truly becomes obsolete.

Secondly, I think that discussing retro games is important because, well…we have many “new” old-school styled games being created even today! It’s not like the NES or Super NES consoles truly died in the 90s. Just look at newer hits such as Mega Man 9 & 10 for the Wiiware or old-school inspired games such as Donkey Kong Country Returns or Kirby’s Return to Dream Land or a whole plethora of downloadable games on the Nintendo Wii and 3DS. Retro gaming is alive and well and I do think that the simplicity of the gameplay along with a worthy challenge really is something that all games should contain…old or not. Technology is important and there are a lot of great games on the market today for sure. It’s funny how many of them are actually retro games just updated a little bit. That has to mean something!”

Josh Miller, Lameazoid.com: “It’s pretty simple.  Video Games, are just as important of a media or art form as say, television, movies, books, or music.  Like these other popular media, it’s good to keep track of the history and the past.  Look at Star Wars.  The first film is over 30 years old, yet it still has a ridiculous cult following behind it.  It’s inspired spin offs and spoofs and a new cartoon series and an innumerable number of action figures.  Video Games, of course have their own big names, the obvious being Mario and Sonic.  Both still get new titles still today and are extremely popular despite being nearly as old as Star Wars.

Yet, Video games have not been around nearly as long as movies.

Or even take music, how many popular songs on the radio today are remakes of classics.  Go ahead and look into it, you’ll find that a fair number of them are remakes and you didn’t even realize it.  The ones that aren’t remakes often use samples of hits from the past.  Video games are plenty guilty of this too, especially the remakes.  Yar’s Revenge?    The recently released Choplifter 3D?   That Asteroids Online Facebook game?  All are remakes of some of the earliest retro titles.

Retro titles don’t always look the prettiest by today’s standards, but many of them invented the core concepts that would become today’s hits.”

NintendoLegend, NintendoLegend.com: “Because I enjoy discussing them.”

Michael Chambers, Twitter: “There are many reasons old games are still worth discussing, but two are key in my mind: sentimentalism and capitalism.  The most cynical approach, capitalism, is easy to explain.  As technology evolves, the number of ways to experience games continues to expand.  What starts as a proof of concept –video games on cell phones — quickly becomes a new venue for companies to monetize aging software.  What’s old is new again, and suddenly games like Mega Man 2 are Doom are relevant on fresh hardware.  I’m looking forward to playing augmented reality Tetris using optical implants someday.

The less tangible reason that old games continue to be discussed is our collective sentimentalism or nostalgia for these games.  According to the Entertainment Software Association (http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp), the average age of gamers is now 37.  As gamers have grown up, they’ve taken with them their childhood memories of games gone by.  We can’t go back in time, but for many, playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii Virtual Console comes close.  Our desire to share our experiences means that as time passes, new generations are encouraged to learn where gaming came from, back before the Kinect was even a gleam in Sony’s EyeToy.”

Rob Clay, Flailthroughs.blogspot.com: “Because good things never stop being good and the past is full of good things!

It’d be easy to say that it’s worth it to learn from the past, but that makes it sound like a chore, and it shouldn’t be. There’s not just knowledge and enlightenment to be gained from old games but fun to be had. I’ve always looked to the past for entertainment- there’s a wealth of stories sitting out there for us from before even our parents were born. Styles change, and presentation does improve, but there’s so many things to read, watch and listen to that shouldn’t be ignored just because they’re old. Video Games are younger, but no different.

…I guess that’s more why old games are still worth playing, huh? Well, if they’re still worth playing they’re still worth talking about! I love hearing new perspectives on games I’ve played- especially on those occasions where a fresh voice can take a game I dislike and change my mind about it, or make me see something good I had overlooked before. Or even better, talking about one game may lead you to another title you’ve never heard of or played. New glitches are still being found, new secrets and tricks… new information about old games comes to light all the time. If people can get degrees to discuss pieces of literature centuries old, than video games, at the ripe old age of 65*, have a long way to go before they’re talked out.

*Wikipedia informs me that the first patent for a “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device” was filed in 1947, making video games 65, practically speaking. See? Always something new to learn.”

Beta Wizard, Twitter: “I am going to talk to you about why old video games are worth discussing. You know how your parents are always talking about the good old days? Well maybe my grandparents do that more, but when I hear stories of what it was like to grow up in the the 30′s, 50′s, 60′s I get anxiety as if I was born in the wrong decade. Don’t get me wrong, the 80′s are cool and so futuristic, but to wear a 3 piece suit and fedora to work everyday even in the summer time… man, that would have been great. My piano teacher even talked about how her Aunt’s job growing up was to play the soundtrack on a player piano for SILENT MOVIES!!!! Seriously, how awesome is that? We have read about this stuff in history textbooks, but to actually know people who lived it, that’s what’s really special.

We ARE this to future generations. I am sure that in the future we can play Megaman 3712 in our eyeballs while driving our flying cars, but I don’t care who you are and what time you come from, NO ONE can beat Mike Tyson on their first try. That game is so simple with only like 4 moves and yet I can play it for hours and days. I did a commercial and saved up all my allowance to be able to pay for my first NES in 3rd grade. I rush home from school on my bike, pretending to be Paperboy, just to get in front of my NES before my mom calls me for dinner. We have sleep overs just so that we don’t get in trouble for staying up till sunrise playing Contra. We know what the inside of the console smells like because we have gotten on our hands and knees and blown into it.

No matter how realistic games become, they can’t replicate these memories. They ARE our 3 piece suits in summer, our silent movie soundtrack Aunts, our sleepovers. This is why Nintendo Entertainment System will never be outdated.

This is why we are here.”

MAULERGWR, NintendoLegend.com: “Old video games are worth discussing because our past must be preserved. We wouldn’t be around today if it weren’t for the ancient Romans, Greeks, Mesopotamians, and other ancient empires. Ezio Auditore wouldn’t be anything without Altiar and the past Assassins. Nintendo wouldn’t exist without Atari going downhill. Simply put: we wouldn’t have the great games we have today without the forefathers of NES games: the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Retro King Simon, RedParsley.blogspot.com: “For many people, the obvious answer to this question would be that videogames are still discussed for nostalgic or historical reasons, but for any true retro gamer these points merely comprise at most part of the reason. I recently visited a friend for the first time in a while and he now has a PS3. He was eager to show me his new game, Skyrim, in an attempt to ‘convert’ me to modern gaming. It took him around five minutes to install the game and about another five minutes to download an ‘update’. This is compared to the three minutes or so it used to take me to load a Spectrum game on tape, a process often ridiculed by modern gamers. Even when he could finally show me something, it was goodness knows how many menu and option screens. It must’ve ended up being more then fifteen minutes before I saw anything that you might actually call gameplay. We then sat there for around another two hours while he showed me the opening to the game and explained that he often spends in excess of six hours at a time playing these games. This game may be a rather extreme example, and I accept that ‘old’ games don’t generally offer as immersive an experience as games like this, but I simply don’t have this sort of time to spend on gaming. What I look for in retro games, amongst other things, is an ‘instant fix’ that fits in with the timetable of other things in my life, including a videogame-hating wife! Old videogames are therefore definitely still worth discussing for me and others like me, simply because they’re an active, not to mention pasionately pursued interest!”

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There you have it, the reasons why old video games are worth discussing! Thanks to all the contributors for submitting this round. Readers can feel free to visit their websites, follow them on Twitter (or the roundtable as a whole, @RetroRoundtable), etc. Feel free to interact with us about retro gaming, whether hitting us with a tweet or a comment on this entry.

And look out for our next installment, where we will dig deeper into a more specific question and seek to close the book on one subject at a time. See ya then!

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