Limitation is the secret of interest in retro games

[RCBH928]

Hello,
I have been reading some video game book and this idea came to my mind. The reason we like retro games is because it was limited. The hardware was limited, so people went crazy to try and force it to do stuff it was not supposed to do. Pushing limits on graphics and being very imaginative is probably the reason we go back to playing retro games.

Think about it. Our current generation consoles can make games exactly like the ones on genesis or NES and it can do some crazy 3D Crysis graphics. So why we bring out our NES still? because it was limited.

I think it was an art on how to make the graphics better, figuring smart ways to build the game which is very interesting to experience how they did it . Now that current generation games do not have any limits, since basically they can do anything you want, imagination is pretty much dead.

I will not say that games today are not fun , but they just don't have the good feeling you had for games back then. Think about it, do you feel for RE5 the same as you did for RE1 ? Is it exciting today to play Driver as much as it was Playing Need for Speed on the 3DO? Street Fighter 4 is no where as interesting as Mortal Kombat was on the genesis.

On the opposite, we still find the kind of excitement on new systems with limitations. For examples, iPods/iphones have pretty much interesting games especially when you combine it with the camera. Searching for ghosts in your room is pretty exciting. Also we have the new input of touch controls.

I hope I communicated my idea well. I guess what I am trying to say is, limitation forced imagination. Thats why we had better quality games back then , than now, or so I think.

Can you think of any other example where there was a limitation and the developer tried to break it?

[AppleQueso]

Modern gaming is far from 'unlimited' actually. Otherwise, there'd be no need for the new consoles around the corner.

Besides, even if hardware actually was unlimited, there'd still be limitations. Time and money are big ones for example.

Plus what you're suggesting doesn't really account for the retro games released during the early-to-mid era of any given console, where games typically weren't pushing the hardware very hard.

[BRIK]

I feel as if the old Atari 2600 era games forced us to use our imagination more. Also the games were a lot more simpler, that's it- they were just games. Plain in simple.
As much as I love the story driven games of today, it's refreshing to play something that is just a game. I dunno if I'm making sense or not

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I really don't have the energy to write out all the things that I think are completely wrong with your post, 5 hours in a competitive Team Fortress 2 match took it out of me.

What I will say, is that I don't think games today are any worse than they were in years past (or less creative), and that I think you underestimate the hardware limitations of the current consoles. Do you have any idea what they do to get graphics to look like they do on consoles now? There are so many programming tricks they have to use to keep these things relevant it's insane.

Also your arguments seem to refer mostly to the advent of 3D. Of course RE5 isn't as exciting as RE1! It's not new anymore. Same goes for NFS vs Driver SF. 3D racing games have been done before, so it's not all that exciting.

Anyways what I'm basically saying is that I don't agree with the OP at all. I bring out my Genesis and NES and what have you because it's fun. It's not about it's limitations. More often than not those limitations are frustrating to day, not endearing. For example, I hate flicker. I like chiptunes but 4 channels isn't enough etc. I care about fun games. Not limitations.

I feel as if the old Atari 2600 era games forced us to use our imagination more. Also the games were a lot more simpler, that's it- they were just games. Plain in simple.
As much as I love the story driven games of today, it's refreshing to play something that is just a game. I dunno if I'm making sense or not

Now this is something I can understand completely. Many AAA titles these days shoot to be good games with great narratives. While I think gaming is a great media in which to tell a story, games tend to be a lot more complicated (i'm not sure if that's the right word, I want to say fluffed) these days. There are a lot of times where I just want to play a game. Something like Missile Command or River Raid. Something simple.

[AznKhmerBoi]

Limitation+Easy gameply mechanics= Fun times

[neilencio]

I think the OP is mistaking limitation for simplicity. A lot (not all, it's really kind of hard to generalize things that are subject to preference) of retro games are more enjoyable than modern ones because they have simple game mechanics that make you focus more on having fun instead of memorizing or managing stuff.

But don't take one to mean the other, simple game mechanics weren't always borne out of hardware limitations. Tetris did not become tetris because the NES wasn't able to run a more complex version of the game, it became tetris because that was how the game was designed.

[sabrage]

The problem with games today is that the big publishers have industrialized the game-making process. Low-risk, high-reward cookie-cutter bullshit, year-in, year-out, year after year. That's not to say that there's no creativity or risk-taking left, but the big budget first-person shooter is what sells, and that's what we're going to keep getting until the next big paradigm shift.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I feel like the great retro games were usually made with more love than they are today, but that doesn't hold true for everything. Good game design and creative ideas are more important than the hardware they're on. There's a certain brilliance to art within limitations. When the artist transcends the limitations to create something awesome, that's part of the process. Higher limits doesn't mean less creativity but more creative freedom.

Old games tend to be purer than new ones. Even complex games like RPGs tend to be more focused and intelligently-designed than their modern counterparts, in my opinion. I think it has to do with smaller teams, less structure, lower profit expectations, etc. However, there are some really good new games too! You could argue that the straightforward, simple and really refined style of A Link to the Past makes it a better game than Skyward Sword, and I could probably agree with you. If you say it's a better game because it's on SNES and not Wii, that's silly.

[kiteJargon]

I feel as if the old Atari 2600 era games forced us to use our imagination more. Also the games were a lot more simpler, that's it- they were just games. Plain in simple.
As much as I love the story driven games of today, it's refreshing to play something that is just a game. I dunno if I'm making sense or not

You're making sense. We have weed here too.

[Gamerforlife]

I do miss the simplicity, the refinement, the focus and the smallness of older games. You didn't need 30 hours to complete a game. You didn't have to deal with bad cameras and dumb targeting systems. You didn't have to put up with other genres in your game. A platformer was just a platformer and a beat'em up was just a beat'em up. Plus, a lot of older games were just quality from beginning to end. A lot of modern games have about 70% of quality game, the rest is just filler or padding or dumb mini-games or dumb quick time events or stupid backtracking or stupid item fetching. It's like they never trim off the fat in modern games. It's not common for me to play something modern and love every minute of it

I use the two Zelda games someone mentioned as an example of the merits of old versus new. Link to the Past and Skyward Sword. Link to the Past didn't have some stupid character named Fi constantly yakking at you and telling you stupid things that you know already. It didn't have gimmicky controls. It didn't have stupid, pointless, spirit world levels where you just wander around collecting pointless items as a way to just make the game longer. It didn't have a boring opening where you walk around a village talking to people and doing fetch quests as part of a drawn out tutorial. In Link to the Past, you start the game, you head to a castle, and you start kicking ass. That game knows how to just get to the point and keep your interest. It seems like there's just so much nonsense in modern games that games of old didn't have