Are people oblivious to the fact that we exist?

[Ivo]

A couple of comments I want to make here:

1. There's plenty of classics and they can keep you occupied for years - I'm also generations behind, playing games from the Gen / SNES generation and Saturn / PS1 / N64 right now, sometimes also something more recent like Dreamcast. Exception is mostly on the handhelds where I really play mostly DS games (I think I'm still in games that came out in 2005 / 2006 there, though).

2. While the kids playing Guitar Hero and the cashier are probably imbeciles, I think some posters here are unfairly railing on Guitar Hero as a "minigame" or a "casual game", and using those terms in a borderline offensive tone (if I'm catching the vibe of the comments correctly, that is. In the net it is hard to know for sure). It really isn't that much different from other rhythm classics like Space Channel 5 (which also had "casual appeal" back then), which also requires a good amount of dexterity, and I don't think people here would be calling Space Channel 5 a mini-game here. By doing that to Guitar Hero aren't the posters here acting ignorantly just like the kids and cashier did in the store?

Ivo.

[lisalover1]

I just can't take the onslaught of "army man" games as I call them. Call of Duty / Bad Company and so on. But every generation of console had their trends. 8-bit had a lot of platformers, 16-bit had even more platformers and tons of bad fighting games. 32-bit era had really crappy looking polygon games that probably shouldn't have been polygon.

And so on.

The retro price gouge is very disheartening. It really takes the fun out of collecting. I hope this recent retro trend dies off a bit. I'm tired of seeing emo kids with NES controller belt buckles that profess to be "old school."

Here's hoe I classify the eras of gaming:

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-bit: Platformers
16-bit: Fighters
32/64-bit: RPGs
128-bit: FPSs
This Gen: Still FPSs...

[noiseredux]

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-bit: Platformers
16-bit: Fighters & RPG's
32/64-bit: Sandbox games128-bit: FPSs
This Gen: Still FPSs...

...

[lisalover1]

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-bit: Platformers
16-bit: Fighters & RPG's
32/64-bit: Sandbox games128-bit: FPSs
This Gen: Still FPSs...

...

I think you made a typo. There were barely any sandbox games for the 32/64-bit era.

[alienjesus]

I just can't take the onslaught of "army man" games as I call them. Call of Duty / Bad Company and so on. But every generation of console had their trends. 8-bit had a lot of platformers, 16-bit had even more platformers and tons of bad fighting games. 32-bit era had really crappy looking polygon games that probably shouldn't have been polygon.

And so on.

The retro price gouge is very disheartening. It really takes the fun out of collecting. I hope this recent retro trend dies off a bit. I'm tired of seeing emo kids with NES controller belt buckles that profess to be "old school."

Here's hoe I classify the eras of gaming:

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-bit: Platformers
16-bit: Platformers again
32/64-bit: RPGs
128-bit: FPSs
This Gen: Still FPSs...

You underrate the importance of platformers imo. Sure fighting games were at their peak in 16 bit times in popularity, but every other game was a side scrolling platformer. And with the mario vs sonic war and lots of cutesy mascot characters everywhere, I'd say its obvious what genre defines the 16 bit eras games most XD

Also, im not sure i agree with RPGs for 32/64 bit, ESPECIALLY as 64 bit means N64, which had quest, paper mario and uh...pokemon stadium? Personally, I think platformers still had a big part in that era with the likes of mario, banjo kazooie, conker, bug, clockwork knight, crash bandicoot and spyro the dragon being popular games for their system. I also think action adventure was at the height of its popularity with the likes of Tomb Raider and Zelda being enormously popular. Of course, some might say zelda is an RPG, but thats a whole different kettle of fish that we shouldnt get into here XD

[RCBH928]

I think that the Gone with the Wind on DVD versus VHS argument is kind of misleading. Watching a remastered version of the film on DVD will be a superior experience to the blurrier and duller VHS. Playing an NES game on an emulator is usually a slightly inferior experience due to the technical issues I mentioned as well as others.

I thought emulation had filters to make the graphics look better , not to mention cut on load times , and save any where?

I am guessing that is better than original graphics with load times(for cd based games)

[noiseredux]

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-bit: Platformers
16-bit: Fighters & RPG's
32/64-bit: Sandbox games128-bit: FPSs
This Gen: Still FPSs...

...

I think you made a typo. There were barely any sandbox games for the 32/64-bit era.

I'm not good at classifying by "bits"... I guess I meant like this:

2/4-bit: Generic Arcade Games
8-Bit: platformers
16-Bit: Fighters & RPGs
32/64-bit: Ugly polygonal 3D games (what genre is Tomb Raider?)
128-bit: sandbox games
current gen: FPS

[swiftzx]

That looks about right to me, Tomb Raider to me is an action-adventure game.

[Limewater]

I thought emulation had filters to make the graphics look better , not to mention cut on load times , and save any where?

It depends on the emulator and system being emulated, as well as the game. For, say, the PSX's 3D offerings, you might be able to get a better-looking picture with an emulator. For 2-D sprite or tile-based console games, it won't look as good on an emulator. For one thing, the pixels are the wrong shape.

Also, as I mentioned specifically for the Atari VCS/2600, the quick response times and lack of persistent images in computer monitors, as well as the fact that the system does not used pixels really makes the emulated results visually inferior. There are people trying to make a stella plug-in to properly emulate a CRT television not just for nostalgia, but because the games just don't look as good emulated.

But, again, the graphics in 3-D consoles can be improved through emulation. However, I've never used an emulator for the PS1 or Saturn or N64 or anything, so I really can't speak to their quality in areas other than graphics.

Also, the ability to save anywhere arguably ruins the gameplay of a lot of older classic games.

I am guessing that is better than original graphics with load times(for cd based games)

Another problem I personally have with emulators is that I'm an engineer. I am specifically very interested in what developers were able to do with limited hardware, how they were able to do it, and what kind of results they got. Early in the history of gaming especially, making hardware do what it was not designed to do was a huge part of the art of game design. Many early games were designed based upon hardware characteristics. An example of this is Adventure on the VCS. The system could do collision detection in hardware, so the designer built the game mechanics around that feature. That is why the hero picks things up by touching them.

With the NES, they had to deal with the limitation of only allowing eight sprites horizontally on any given row. That is interesting to me. The sprite limitation also resulted in many larger enemies, such as several stage bosses in Astyanax, being primarily drawn as tiles in the background layer, while only a few sprites were used to animate the enemy and interact with the player.

This entire aspect of game design and implementation is just taken for granted when playing on an emulator.

[Octopod]

I do not think there is such a thing as a 2 or 4 bit system. The 2600 was an 8-bit console.