Not exactly related fully to game design but... Check this article out. If you grew up with the older consoles, and I do mean older consoles, this''ll either draw a chuckle from you or make you feel really old. Of course, the question the article attempts to answer, "Are we just blinded by nostalgia?" isn''t answered in the best of ways. These are kids who grew up playing modern games like GTA3, which was mentionned at one point. They''re used to much higher end results. But nevertheless it''s bloody fun reading this. Sigh... Space invaders... I''d play that a few hours easily. But no, Galaga''s so much better. :D

But I still prefer the 8, 16, and 32 bit Sonic the Hedgehog games to almost all games today. It's sad that kids only a bit under my age are so incredibly lacking in video game history knowledge... there are actually still pong arcades around, that people actually still play...

[edited by - coWsaRenOtevIl on October 17, 2003 2:36:15 AM]

The games did sucks but they were the best for its time due to lack game programming knowledge, system resources, and creativity. I even wanted an ending to pitfall, and the only adventure game for Atari was adventure where u had to get the key to open the gate to get the sword to take on the dragon which kicked you ass if you were not ready.

But the good side is that they did need skill. The top games they should have played was kaboom and warlords. LOL at pong hey I remember having a thread about improving that hmmmmmm.

Back then they needed creativity to make games since they lack the ability now that they have the ability they lack creativity lol. I guess the youth gets enticed with violence and sexual content with visual and sound effects.

The kids are also silly, immature and got use to too much junk. I am amazed they know the word hooker and their moms get them GTA3 sheesh. I hope they don''t want gogo13 as well and think it’s a nice cartoon. Would they be called generation Z? Z for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz good night

This got posted in the lounge already... the general feeling is that it sounds just a little too scripted to be authentic.

The kids are right. Old games are bad compared to today''s games but I only just realised why.

Sure they were great in their day. I am sure I would be a millionaire if it wasn''t for Space Invaders and Battlezone. It got so bad that after one BZ session I was walking down the road and saw green vector graphic saucers flying around Golders Green High Road (true).

If that is the case then how can I say they don''t compare? Because the medium of game is still developing and those early games had not met their full potential. Look at films as an example. A great film from 10, 20, 30 years ago can still work today because the medium of film making was (almost) fully developed. But go back even further to the earliest days of movies and what you had was a camera pointed at a train as it rolled into a station, or people walking around the park. When people first saw the early train film they ran out of the room because they actually thought the train was going to come out of the screen at them. Sure in their day they were amazing but as film making developed they became the 8bit games of film making history.

Early games were the "walk in the park" of their day. Great if you have never experienced games but far from being a fully formed example of the medium as we now know it.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

Warsong: "The games did sucks but they were the best for its time due to lack game programming knowledge, system resources, and creativity."

Well Warsong here is your chance to prove yourself the master programmer/game designer that you are. Here is what they had to work with Take special note of the CPU speed as well as the amount of memory they had and compare that to your current computer:

Specifications for the Atari 2600/7800                 2600                            7800CPU:            6507                            6502C (custom, NOT 65C02)RAM:            128 Bytes, in VLSI              4K, high speedROM:            6K max                          52K maxCpu Clock:      1.19 MHz                        1.79 MHzGraphics Clock: 3.58 MHz                        7.16 MHzSlot Config:    Rom access only                 Most CPU lines + video/audioCPU Avail:      less than 50%                   over 90% 

Now your job is to make a game that would run on this system that would be more fun than any of the other game out there.

PS: the best Atari game was joust.



[edited by - kars on October 17, 2003 11:24:59 AM]

I''ve played thousends of Atari games.
I own an Atari 800xl, and I almost cry every time i see the old good games.

There were many excelent games, like: Draconus, GhostBuster (number of account: 1111111111, password: go), Ninja, Karateka, Karate Champion, Choflipter, Cobra, Montezuma I&II, Raid over Moscu, Great American Race, River raid, Piramid Course, Frogger I&II, Elevator, Mr. Robot, Popeye, Pistop I&II, StarRider I&II, Outlaw (my first buy), F-15 strike eagle, Mr. Do Castle, Donkey Kong Junnior, Blinkys, Gyrus, BMX, Spy Hunter, Spy v/s Spy I,II,III&IV, and so many others.

I think of these games like piece of art, they were and are so fun with so little, and some of them are really breathtaking (like Draconus). We must show a lot of respect to these masterpiece, and we should all remember the finality of games, entertainment.

P.S: sorry about my english.

A tangential observation: there are a lot of series of games where much debate goes into the question of which of the series is best - for example the final fantasy games - on one Final Fantasy discussion board, there was an ad hoc survey of which FF game people played first, and which game they liked best. There was a strong correlation with most people preferring the first game they played of the series. For other series, I have casually observed much the same thing, and I suspect the same tends to be true of other closely related sets of games: in situations where there isn''t a clear difference in overall quality, most people prefer the first game they played in a given series or narrow category.

I still play Commander Keen and DOOM from time to time, I don''t insist that they are intrinsically better than modern games, but I do believe that they are of comparable overall quality. Sure there are things that classic games couldn''t do, but equally there are things that modern games don''t do (unless you include deliberately "retro" games) and the fact that old games are becoming popular again on new platforms (like Nintendo''s program to release the entire SNES back catalogue on GBA and the range of mobile phone and JAVA games) suggests that their limitations are rooted in hardware capabilities rather than inferior design skills.

quote: Original post by Kars
Warsong: "The games did sucks but they were the best for its time due to lack game programming knowledge, system resources, and creativity."

Well Warsong here is your chance to prove yourself the master programmer/game designer that you are. Here is what they had to work with Take special note of the CPU speed as well as the amount of memory they had and compare that to your current computer:
[edited by - kars on October 17, 2003 11:24:59 AM]

What’s the resolution?
Also you have to tell me what type of game you want?

To take a stab at the dark I would say lemonade stand since it can handle it and it can implement some simple marketing concepts. I find that fun but thats my tast.

quote: Original post by superpig
This got posted in the lounge already... the general feeling is that it sounds just a little too scripted to be authentic.

that was my impression. perhaps they specifically hand-selected those kids for the article or something; i don''t think a lot of those comments would come from a 12-year-old mind.