Are video games today just not as good as the retro games?

[Limewater]

I agree with some of the above posters that age does make a difference. When I was twelve, my brother and I would play WWF Wrestlemania together on the NES for hours at a time. Today, we'd be bored in ten minutes with that crappy title.

If you're recalling your childhood as a gamer, chances are you enjoyed the games more because you were a child and it was incredible at the time to be able to control a cartoon. Also, you probably have blocked most of the terrible games you played from your mind.

If you're playing classic games today, your opinion is going to be biased because you are only playing the classics. You get ActRaiser knowing it will be good and you know better than to waste your time with Bart's Nightmare.

Someone mentioned that the innovative titles today are the smaller ones, but it is worth noting that today's "small" games are the same size or larger (In terms of number of levels or length of an average play-through) than most NES/SMS-era games.

[Flashman85]

Nostalgia or no, they literally don't make games like they used to. Nobody makes 2-D games anymore unless there's a strongly compelling reason to do so. Plus, the genres that dominated the pre-3-D gaming scene--sidescrolling platformers and shmups and whatnot--seem to have taken a backseat to the likes of FPS games and racers and complicated RPGs with genre-crossing sidequests and minigames.

Some people like games with 2-D graphics, and some people like sidescrolling platformers, and those kinds of games are simply in shorter supply these days. And these newfangled games are inherently easier to mess up because they're held to higher graphics, gameplay, and creativity standards than most retro games were.

[Haruspex]

Really my main problem with modern games is that they are complicating things with apparently no reason whatsoever. And i am not talking about the controls only, i mean everything. .

complexity isn't a bad thing when it is done in a creative way that encourages and rewards the player. Same with simplicity. What is that expression? I think something like "the poor craftsman blames his tools" or something like that. Maybe it is a carpenter. Anyway- what i'm saying is i've played complex games that are fantastic and simple games that bored the shit out of me.

I agree, i should correct myself and say that some not all modern games have unnecessary complexity. Besides i play modern games a lot.

[shallowgamer]

I'd wager that this is just Good Old Days syndrome. Games today are much the same (in terms of good/crap ratio) as they were in every generation past. Do a little looking through old game catalogs, and you'll see that that's pretty much true.

I do agree that there's a nostalgia factor. Do you remember all the crappy platformers that emerged in the wake of Super Mario Bros?

But, I also feel that we're old enough now to look around and realize that there's more to a game's release than a group of guys wanting to put out a game. The days of David Crane are over. There's the financial side, company politics, etc.

The amount of money invested in a "modern" game prohibits companies from taking insane risks. Just take the tried and true formula and enhance it. I've complained about this many times before. And the collector side of me HATES having to download an interesting title, rather place it on my shelf. Even Quasi-popular franchises like Wipeout weren't even graced with a legitimate release this generation. Yet they'll put a glorified demo like Gran Turismo Prologue on the shelf. Money talks, I suppose.

[otaku]

alot of it is nostalgia some games (old school style) today are great. What I can't get into are these really deep involving time consuming complicated story based games. Once in awhile. I prefer arcade style games thus older stuff is prefered

[elvis]

The reason games of today are not as good as games of yesterday is because companies are much less willing to take chances that they once were.

Agreed. Once video games went from backyard coders to mainstream mega-corps, the risks companies were willing to take dropped dramatically.

These days all the risks are taken by the homebrew/indi scene, and slowly merged into mainstream titles. Innovation is sorely lacking when it comes to games pumped out by the big studios, which is painfully evident by the massive number of franchise sequels we see across all genres.

Outside of that, I am also tired of the "epic" nature of modern gaming. As someone else in this thread mentioned, sitting through 20 minute cut scenes just to get to the game pisses me off. I don't have much time for gaming, and when I do it's 10-15 minute bursts at most. For that reason I find myself playing a lot of retro games, simply because they can be easily played in that time frame. There's no hope of getting just 15 minutes worth of modern titles in, as you wouldn't make it past the title screen.

[SpaceBooger]

What is missing today is the ability to pick up a game and play it.
In the NES, Genesis, and sometimes SNES era you could buy a game put the cartridge in and start playing it, and playing it with some degree of sucess. Back in those days I didn't read the manual until after playing the game for a couple hours, and I didn't read it to help me with the game cause I already figured it out, I read it so that I could get a tip or enhance the story.
Today games come with manuals that read like a book or are so incomplete you need to purchase a second manual deviously dubbed a "Strategy Guide." I dont mind a long manual, but I dont like having to memorize the game's bible just to play it.

Retro had "pick-up and playability" and that makes them better to me... lets modify the Bud Lite slogan and say that
"Retro, The Difference is Playability"
"Playability - that just right game that doesn't take a PHD to play."

[bobbynewmarkiii]

There's still good games to be had today - it just seems harder to find them, especially as a lot of retro gamers will have developed a sense of taste that may not be well catered to by the current market. Having said that, I just thoroughly enjoyed 'Portal; Still Alive' having downloaded it on xbox - this game has literally restored my faith in the FPS genre - there may yet be a game made to rival Deus Ex and System Shock 2!!

[DCsegaDH]

I do think that older games are more fun because of the simple controls and the older games are classics.Street Fighter 2 and Sonic 2 for the Genesis are games I can play for hours and not get tired of them,but I try to play my Xbox 360 and I can't really get into the games as much. I do think that the games when you play while you are growing up stay with you unlike most newer games that don't get the same great feeling.Don't get me wrong I do own a Xbox 360 and I love playing Guitar Hero 2,Gears of War and Dead Rising and others,they are fun in their own way.