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When the ‘good old days’ weren’t always good

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

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Nicholas: Back before The Witcher 3 was released, to a period in my life where each moment I was home on the weekend wasn’t spent following Geralt on his quest to find Ciri, I was enjoying playing through some classic Nintendo titles on the Wii U Virtual Console. Specifically, I was playing Donkey Kong Country, and there was a particular feature that I really started to appreciate (and miss) when I quickly discovered it wasn’t an option in these games when I first played them some almost 20 years ago.

I’m not talking about the ability to snap from my game to the dashboard, and nor am I talking about multiplayer or DLC. Instead, what I’m referring to is the very simple and hugely underappreciated on-demand save function. Something as seemingly easy as pressing the start button, selecting ‘Save’, waiting a few moments then continuing on with your game with the comfort of knowing that no matter what happens, you could turn the console off and pick up right where you left of wasn’t a luxury we had with early games and consoles. In Donkey Kong, I was hoping I would be able to make it through the next few levels with the lives I had to the next save location. Often I would, but there were a handful of times across the few DKC games where I couldn’t make that single (or few) jumps and ended up with a game over. There was always that risk.

Too often when we talk about the advancement of games we get hung up on graphics and world sizes, but we never talk about those other features that compliment gameplay and the gaming experience, that either evolve or get left behind as gaming moves on. So this week, let’s celebrate those unsung advancements. Like on-demand saves, what is a feature that you’ve seen either evolve or become introduced to gaming that you really appreciate when it’s missing?

Andy: I’m going to disagree with you a little to start with. One of the things that made older games more difficult and more rewarding is the fact that they didn’t have the save systems of today. It was truly a badge of honour to say you beat a certain game. With modern day save systems it’s not so much about skill as it can be about brute force. Find a difficult part of a game and you can, for some titles, just charge ahead until you hit a check point, or auto save and know if you die that’s where you’ll restart.

With older games, particularly platformers, there was a certain fear when you reached an area towards the end of a level that required a few precise moves. If you missed, and died well… time to start over. Sure, at the time it sucked and you’d get pissed, but when you made it past that part, there was a very high degree of elation. You’d jump up in the air, scream and then get yelled at by mum, but it was part of the nostalgia of beating those older games. Today, you come to a hard part of a game – something like Ori and the Blind Forrest – and save, then try what you needed to do. If you failed no huge deal because your save was right back there. This is one of the reasons why games seem so short now-a-days. Because save systems literally hold our hands. I say that, knowing full well I’m a hypocrite though because when I play an RPG like Fallout or Skyrim I save before I open damn near every door.

In terms of something that’s been introduced that I miss in older games, that’s a tough one for me to answer. Mostly because I usually don’t go that far back and play those old games. I’ve know you’ve been on an old school game binge lately though. One that immediately pops to mind though is side quests. Not in terms of the hundred (or more) we see in some games, but more so those side quests that get you to do things you normally wouldn’t, or try things you may have passed by before. With those older games it was pretty much the main story and that was it. Point A to Point B and once you reached Point B the game was over. Now for instance it’s Point A to Point B,C,D,E… oh hey look at the Point F, then the end of the game. There’s way more to do and I appreciate that, especially for games I love.

This actually brings up a topic I was talking about with a friend recently though. Like you, he likes to go back and play SNES games, PS1 games and sometimes farther back. Sometimes he raves about them, but other times he seems almost disappointed. More than once he has said “I remember this game being so much better.” That’s one of the reasons I don’t really want to go that far back, I want to have my memories stay positive. Sometimes gamers seem to get drunk on nostalgia and have unrealistic expectations of what they are going to get from a 25+ year old game. Have you ran into that at all in your quest to play those older games?

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Nicholas: Fortunately I can say that hasn’t been the case. Yes there have been times when I’ve been playing through one game and I start to get a little bored so I want to just blitz through and finish it, but I’ve never been playing and thought, “damn, this was so much better when I was younger.” I approach each of these games knowing that they aren’t as complex or in-depth as games today, but at the same time, that’s not why I’m playing them. I just enjoy the music, the nostalgia and the difference in gameplay that modern titles simply don’t provide. I’m not looking for a game to rival The Witcher when I was playing Super Mario Bros., and I think that’s probably why I’m not suffering the same disappointment that your friend is.

This has me thinking though, so your friend seems disappointed by some older titles when he plays them today – why is that? We’ve both (as I assume many of our readers are too) been gamers for quite some time, and we’ve lived through a few generations now. I never look back and say, “damn, the GameCube era was a bad period in gaming”, yes, games have certainly evolved over time, but they’ve never not been fun. Why is it though that your friend couldn’t play those older titles and enjoy them as much as he does with games today? Is there something pivotal that was missing back then that you think games have today?

Andy: So I need to clarify, it’s not all the older titles that he seems disappointed in, he was raving about how awesome the original Metal Gear was still today, but a game like Contra he was pretty disappointed in. I’ve talked to him quite a bit about it, and I think it boils down to our inner child “remembering” a game and having an idea about how awesome it was. Then going back to it 25 years later and playing it, and due to all the other games we’ve played since then, advancement in games the ‘memory’ of the game is different than what we have in front of us, and it creates some dissatisfaction/disappointment.

A game that comes to mind for me would be Road Rage. Man, I loved that game. I played the crap out of it. Yet, I’m pretty sure if I tried to play that game now I wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes before I became bored with it. Which I don’t want to do, I want to keep those happy memories about that game, and those from that era. I think a big part of it is when we play a modern game we have a list of preset expectations of what we are going to get. Playing an older game, and one we have fond memories of, only adds to those expectations. “I loved it before, so I’ll still love it.” And then we hold it up to those great games we have played since then and it just becomes unfair for the older game.

I think another part of it is more psychological too. The brain has a way of taking a good memory and making it better, then when you revisit it… it’s just not the same. Nostalgia for older games, for me anyway, is a double-edged sword. On one hand I have a lot of great memories about some older games, but I’m hesitant to go back to them for fear of my memories and love for those games not meshing with my present day expectations. I even have a hard time going back one generation of a gaming system. I kept my 360 after I got my Xbox One for about six months. After never turning it on in those six months I sold it.

For as many great memories as I have for past games, I just can’t see myself going back and replaying any of them. From Red Dead Redemption to Fallout 3, I’ve played them and enjoyed them, now I want something new. It’s for that reason why I don’t care very much about the newly announced backwards compatibility for Xbox One. It’s a nice novelty, and will probably help sales for a few of the older games, but by and large after the initial buzz it will be largely ignored. Is there any middle ground with those older games? Or are we the two opposite sides where gamers will either love to play them again, or simply not care all that much about them?

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Nicholas: There’s one additional side to it, and it’s one which kicked off me playing the Donkey Kong Country series a few months ago – to experience those older (and dare I say classic) games for the first time. I owned the second and third instalments in the DKC series, but the original was the one title I never played, so while it was about revisiting childhood memories with the sequels, it was about playing the first one for the first time. So yes, when it comes down to virtual consoles and backwards compatibility, you’re either going to use it or you won’t, but the reasons for why you will are varied for each gamer.

If we go back to where I started this article I wanted to discuss what were features we like that have either improved over the generations or been implemented, but let’s flip that around – is there something you see happening that you wish would return to how it was in the 90s or early 2000s? For me, it’s the thing you spoke about earlier – side quests. I’ve put well over 40 hours into The Witcher 3 and I won’t lie, I’m starting to get bored after all these months. With so many side questions and secondary objectives to complete, I’m beginning to find it all a little stale and I’m interested in rushing to the ending than exploring more of the world and what it has to offer. While I appreciate games today offer us more, it’s becoming almost excessive. What about you? Do you agree or is there anything else that you’re seeing this generation that you think, “we screwed up, go back?”

Andy: Oh, man the excessive part of games today is exactly what I would say. I was reading an article a couple weeks ago and there was a simple screenshot of a small section of Assassin’s Creed Unity and the sheer amount of icons was downright daunting. In the shot there had to be no fewer than 50 things, but probably more. I am running into the issue you are having with Witcher 3, but with a different game. It’s Batman Arkham Knight for me, although it’s a smaller scale than Witcher it’s still the same outcome. I bring up the mission wheel and can’t decide what I want to do. I really do miss the days of putting a game in, going forward and experiencing a story.

There’s nothing wrong with a linear story when it’s done correctly. It seems developers want to ride the buzzword bandwagon though – “open world”, “sandbox gameplay”, “go anywhere” or whatever version how they want to say it. Yet, more and more often we get these open world games and there is simply too much stuff to do. It sounds odd saying “Hey there’s too much to do in this game” but I think at times that’s appropriate. There’s nothing wrong with a point A to point B game when done well, a game like Metro Last Light is linear but man I loved every minute of that game.

There is one more thing I’d like to go back to, or at least dial it back a little bit. Controls, or rather the increasingly complex controls. Remember when a controller had only two buttons? Hell I remember the old Atari that was a joystick and one button! Now, with current controller there are some games – like fighting games – that I just don’t play anymore because the control system is too much. Could I learn it? Probably, but I don’t want to spend hours just trying to figure them out. I just want to play the damn game.

It’s ironic that you and I have often talked about innovation and wanting new stuff, but here we find ourselves reminiscing about generations past, and wanting to go back to things. We just can’t make up our minds can we? What about you though? Is there anything else from the bygone days of gaming that you’d like to see creep back into modern gaming? I say creep because we know things won’t ever revert that far back, but I think there are still things that older games did better than modern games.

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Nicholas: It’s interesting that you mentioned the controller as something that’s gotten a little more complex over the years. When I was thinking of what I like about modern game it’s actually been the controllers getting more advanced! The SNES was the first home console I owned and while it did the trick all those years ago, I like that we have multiple joysticks today, I like the different face buttons and I appreciate having triggers that have varying degrees of input/sensitivity. Racing games would be horrible if they continued to be just a single button you either pressed or didn’t, and it’s honestly so surprising to me that PlayStation only changed their rear buttons with the PS4. It seemed like such an old and dated controller until this generation.

As far as things creeping back, I think I’d like to see a little more humour in our games. I’m talking about those titles like Banjo-Kazooie that had that tongue-in-cheek humour and wasn’t super-serious like so many games these days. Seeing the videos and comments for Yooka-Laylee I’m excited not just to experience some more (hopefully) classic platforming, but that style of laid-back and jovial game writing that Rare were fantastic with over a decade ago.

As we approach the end of this week’s article I’d like to look a little further than what’s been done, and see what’s being done. We’ve seen gaming evolve a lot over the years, from controllers to gameplay, dashboards to multiplayer, but what do you think is next? What’s the next element of gaming that we’re seeing today that will either evolve or slowly disappear in the next 10 years or so? Here’s a challenge too – you can’t answer with ‘virtual reality’.

Andy: Before I answer that I think I need to clarify what I meant with my controls comment. I’m not talking about the actual physical controller, I love how those have evolved. The Xbox controller is absolutely perfect for me. The PlayStation controller is actually one of the biggest reasons I don’t play PlayStation, but that boils down to personal preference. When I mention controls I’m talking about controlling the action on the screen. Fighting games and all the different button presses, direction presses to do their moves just frustrates me. Also, Batman Akrham Knight and controlling the Batmobile. Early in the game there is a Riddler challenge that you have to drive through at top speed. RT for gas, B to open/close doors, Y to turbo and X to power slide around corners. Simply put it’s just a pain in the ass and makes the experience more frustrating than it should be.

The biggest thing I think we will start to see more of with the future of games, is the second screen experience. Developers are still in the pretty stages of using this effectively, but I think we’ll see more companion app type things that allow you to see the game map, manage inventory, set way points and a number of other things. It’s one of the things I am most excited about with Fallout 4 to see just how far they take that second screen experience. It really has a lot of potential, I know it gets a lot of hate and jokes about it, but it’s one of the things the Wii U does really well. When done right, and with the same development level as the game it can be a great tool to use.

One thing I’d like to see disappear are micro-transactions in AAA games. If I am paying full retail price for a game, don’t treat me like a free-to-play customer. I already gave you $60. Will we see those go away anytime soon? No. If/when we do it will be after we see an increase in the base cost of games which will in turn piss people off. Hey, maybe that’s the second thing I’d like to see fade away, the faux outrage over every little thing in the gaming community. The internet and social media have given us a voice to be heard, that doesn’t mean we have to hate everything.

Anytime we look at past generations, whether it be gaming, sorts, civilization or what have you we tend to focus on the ends of the spectrums. From the great to the heinous but we forget about the stuff that falls into the middle. From the original Atari and Intellivision to the Xbox One and PS4, each system has some great games. When held up and compared to something else you can always find a fault or something you would do differently. The thing we have to sit back and appreciate is, each of those games are the direct vision of the team that made it. Whether it be a several thousand person studio making the next Mass Effect game or one guy in an apartment making Dust an Elysian’s Tail each of those games means something. Going on a nostalgia run isn’t a bad thing, you get to experience again or sometimes for the first time, equally different worlds and gameplay. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about being a gamer right? Experiencing new things and most importantly, having fun while we do it.

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.


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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.

About the author

Andy Gray

From the frozen land of Minnesota, I was the weird kid that begged my parents for an Intellivision instead of an Atari. My love for gaming has only grown since. When I’m not gaming I enjoy ice hockey and training dogs. I’m still trying to get my Elkhound to add to my Gamerscore though, one day this will happen.