What is Your Retro Range?

[deadlysword]

I started with colecovision, then onto NES but I have a soft spot for the 16 bit era. That was the generation when I was doing little side jobs as a teenager and saving up my allowance money to buy games. It would take me weeks to save enough for one game, and I'd treat it like solid gold. Funny now in comparison to my adult years where I can pretty much buy whatever, whenever and the games don't hold any sentiment whatsoever.

So, my range starts from SNES/genesis through ps2/GC/xbox and all major consoles inbetween. I consider that period the golden age of the industry.

[dogman91]

Home consoles HAS to be NES and above. I can't really take Atari as many times as I've tried, so RIP to that. However, with arcade, I play pre-1983 games ALL the time.

[Tanooki]

I think the thing is between the atari and the arcade stuff is that just the graphics and audio weren't there. You really had to grow up with an appreciation for the simplistic style and design limits. The NES pushes the edge of that as does the Coleco in many ways against what the early arcade could pull off so it is acceptable. I find often people stop there or even more stop at the 16bit stuff since that style is still what's hot today thanks to indie stuff and tablet gaming.

[samsonlonghair]

Sup with all the "I don't play anything before NES" ppl on this site?

Yous all telling me you don't enjoy the likes of Pong, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, Motherfucking Space Invaders, Missile Command, Breakout, Centipede, River Raid, Scramble, Yars' Revenge, Combat, Defender, Dig Dug, Adventure, Berzerk, Tempest, Q*Bert, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonstomper, Pole Position, Warlords, Jungle Hunt, BurgerTime, Lock 'n' Chase, Utopia, Pitfall!, Frogger, Venture, Zaxxon, Dragonfire, Gorf, Space Fury, Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom, Kaboom!, etc etc etc.

Are you srs dudes? Are you srs?!?!

I would love to have games like BurgerTime (one of my all time favorites), Dig Dug, etc. Just not for consoles. I want the arcade cabs.

Hell, I have Donkey Kong.

See, my parents didn't allow me to get a game system until the SNES came out - and that was only because I won it in a school raffle. I don't have memories of playing classic arcade games on an Atari home system, I have memories of playing them at the actual arcades.

This aligns completely with my perspective as well. So many of the early arcade games are designed in such a way as to be practically inseparable from their hardware. The game specific hardware was intrinsic to the game itself. Remember that up until the release of the NES, a major stated goal of the console gaming market was to "replicate the arcade experience at home". And for the most part many of the arcade games ported to home systems at the time suffered by comparison.

It wasn't really until the release of the NES (IMO), that console gaming started to define itself independently of arcade gaming (and PC gaming for that matter) on its own terms. I'd be willing to guess that a lot of folks dismissing "the golden age of gaming" have either primarily played console ports of classic arcade games, or missed the age of arcades entirely (and naturally there's nothing wrong with that). Of course this can be seen as an alternate way of saying, "Of course they were good because ... nostalgia," but equally I think there's a good argument to be made that these games are/were best enjoyed on their original platform of release in the form of full sized arcade cabs.

I'm on this track. I'd rather play Pac-man at my local arcade than on the Atari 2600. Wouldn't you? Pac-man looks and sound hideous on 2600, and the poor joystick doesn't help either.

On the other hand, Games designed for the 2600 like Pitfall! are still fun on that console.

[SonicGamer74]

I'm on this track. I'd rather play Pac-man at my local arcade than on the Atari 2600. Wouldn't you? Pac-man looks and sound hideous on 2600, and the poor joystick doesn't help either.

Everyone wants to play Pac-Man on an actual arcade, over 2600. That version was terrible.

[BoneSnapDeez]

There are tons of good arcade ports on Atari 2600.

[KalessinDB]

There are tons of good arcade ports on Atari 2600.

Yeah, but almost all of them are better on the Colecovision

[the7k]

And almost all of those are better on the PCB.

[KalessinDB]

And almost all of those are better on the PCB.

Well yes but now you're just getting apples and oranges. Colecovision cart vs 2600 cart are still basically the same price point. Cart vs PCB (even without the cab) is an order of magnitude different.

[dogman91]

And almost all of those are better on the PCB.

Well yes but now you're just getting apples and oranges. Colecovision cart vs 2600 cart are still basically the same price point. Cart vs PCB (even without the cab) is an order of magnitude different.

The magnitude of difference being "free" with MAME.