Is retro dead?

Retro gaming has had a major revival and focus in this gaming generation more than any other, you can pick up retro games from multiple sources, such as PSN, XBLA and the VC on Wii and with plenty of remakes and revivals on the way too (Goldeneye and Donkey Kong Country anyone?); its come to my mind that are these revivals and the huge back catalogue of retroness really something that is needed, or is it just a sense of nostalgia that makes us harp after the pinnacle of yesteryear gaming?

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that there is no reason to bring back these retro classics, it provides an invaluable history for those who are interested in gaming and missed the opportunity to play such games when they were originally released. What spurred these thoughts in the first place came from playing a slew of N64 classics for the first time (admittedly on an N64 not on the VC), and this is what led me to the conclusion that this retro revival is only done to allow gamers to relive classics they lost or sold not for the average Wii, Xbox or even PS3 user; but does this market need these games, the remakes allow for people to discover the brilliance of older games in a new light but for those who remember the originals are they not just disappointments that bastardise the original game?

For the casual gamers or for those gamers who only really play the newer games what reason do they have to go back and play some retro classics? So many games have aged terribly, and no just graphically but gameplay mechanics and storytelling, the genre of the 3D platformer has been entirely wiped out too with the standardisation of 3D graphics in the industry; games like Banjo-Kazooie, Sonic Adventure and Super Mario 64 all obsolete as their major gameplay selling feature has become the norm. Luckily Banjo-Kazooie and Sonic Adventure have both been the best offering of their series (ignoring the 2D Sonics) but Mario 64 has been easily beaten by both of its Galaxy brothers; even games that at the time were popular and still well remembered by fans have entirely dropped off the radar, games such as Gex and Rayman 2 have now lended their fun gameplay to terrible film tie-in games.

look at his little happy face

Its not just the 3D platformer that got hit by this change either, both the racing and Shooter genres are left in the dust. Many racers strive to create a realistic experience for their universe and as technology has increased this has become possible to do, many older racers now control horribly and are obviously visually lacking, only some racers can transcend this gap (mostly due to not changing how the core gameplay works) such as F-Zero and the Need For Speed series that continually shifts its focus, meaning the older games usually still hold up reasonably well, but even there the progressions in opponent racer AI has made newer games provide a much harder challenge. Even my favourite racing series Wipeout doesn’t hold up well when compared across the years, with Wipeout HD Fury being the must own Wipeout game for any fan of the series, only a sense of nostalgia means I go back to play earlier iterations, a newcomer wouldn’t touch these games when the latest offering is the best in the series.

This is what Wipeout has now become!

Shooters too evolved on the consoles first with fully 3D graphics but it wasn’t until the twin stick configuration came to be where they really took off, without a second stick or the popular configuration of keyboard and mouse many were used too FPS’ on consoles were never the biggest releases, up until Rare’s Goldeneye and Perfect Dark games were released. However these games are now severely outdated, the revival of Perfect Dark on XBLA in its intended high resolution, with twin stick support brought a classic into a new generation and really showed off its gameplay potential; playing this alongside the original with an N64 pad shows just how confusing and cumbersome it is for anybody playing for the first time, the same problem plagues the immortally popular Goldeneye when playing it for the firs time too, lets hope the wii remake does a good job of keeping the essence but updating the gameplay. Many retro shooters suffer mostly from poor AI but as the genre has moved on rapidly its main mechanics have also changed leaving them even further in the dust and segregating them from those who don’t have an urge to revisit old games or gaming history.

Why should any young gamer, the gamers who will eventually go on to define how gamers are perceived by the wider public, what incentive do they have to rediscover the classic games of the past when so many games that are coming out in the here and now have changed how we play games completely? Im sure in a generation or twos time, when motion control is the norm, the games of today will seem incredibly outdated as well. There are, at least, some titles that are still must play games for anybody (such as Abes Oddysee, Exodus and the original Sonic the Hedgehogs); regardless of nostalgia coming into play they are classics that even today are still blindingly brilliant, complex and immensely fun to play. In the end is it just our own nostalgia thats clouding the view of how good retro games really are, should we hold it against those gamers who are yet to experience the games of yesteryear and should be ridicule a developer or publisher if a new game doesn’t live up to the feelings and emotions we felt of its retro predecessor?

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Posted by Vaughn.H on Jul 3 2010. Filed under Editorials, Other, Playstation 3, Wii, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry