Retro Gaming Week — Emerging From the Past

I didn’t post much last week because I was firmly stuck in the 1980’s and ’90’s, a time when blogs, b5media, and the Xbox 360 were unimaginable, unattainable joys. The time warp happened when, like all mothers eventually do, my mom declared that if I didn’t get all of my remaining crap out of her house (in which I haven’t lived for 8 years) that she was putting it in a garage sale. This of course led to digging through my closet and discovering, to squeals of delight, a complete and pristine set of gaming consoles.

Not only did I find an NES, and an SNES, but three boxes of games and the precursor peripherals to the Wii-mote: the NES Duck Hunt gun and the SNES SuperScope.

I’ve played through Blades of Steel, Super Mario Bros. 1-3, Double Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Duck Hunt, the SuperScope games, Super Mario Kart, Pro Am Racing II, Starfox…and others. It was nostalgia wrapped in grey plastic cases. I even had to blow into some of the games to clear years worth of dust. Ah, the memories.

I recognize the ‘classic’ status of a lot of these titles, and have very fond memories attached to many of the games, but I have an admission to make and it’s one that I’m horribly ashamed of…

The slow controller response time, HORRIBLE audio and very limited gameplay options irritated me to no end. So much so that I went and played Call of Duty 2 on my poor old PC after a few games of Blades of Steel, just to erase the horror of the smurf blue Toronto Mapleleafs from my mind’s eye. I have been spoiled by the graphics, music and sheer diversity of the games now available on the market and for me, alas, there is no going back.

One game, however, did manage to make a repeat splash, and that was Super Mario Kart on the SNES, the epitome of vindictiveness and spite, where taking out your opponents with turtle shells and banana peels can become a finely honed art. It drew cackles of glee from all participants and was as engrossing and energizing as it was when it was first released in 1992.

Another, Silent Service on the NES proved to be a surprisingly complex strategy title that I’m not sure how I mastered as a kid. There were coordinates, lots of different screens, angles, and trajectories to be considered, making it a fairly realistic portrayal of maritime warfare. It wasn’t a run and gun, one-shot-to-kill, platform scroller, it had a depth to it and a satisfaction factor that I think I could only appreciate now.

Still, other than the novelty factor of finding long lost treasures from my childhood, my attention refused to stay focused on the games at hand and rarely did I play more than one round at a time. Unlike the highly addictive and integrative games of the present day, these lacked the interaction and customization that I have, admittedly, become hooked on. Only through going back and playing these classics have I realized just how important an individualized, unique playing experience actually is to me, personally, and perhaps that sentiment can be more widely generalized based on the enormous popularity of Sims games, MMORPGs, and multiplayer FPS titles. All of which allow for the player to have a distinct identity, not only to themselves, but to a much wider gaming community as a whole.

I’m curious though, about what others think of my new-found spoiled brat status. I’m feeling guilty about not being able to fully enjoy my old favourites; traitorous even. Has anyone else had a similardissociation?