I definitely like going back and playing old games in between the newest ones in my collection. "Retro" is a relative term here, as I'd argue that these days it can include anything that's over five years old, especially when we're talking about series with annual releases (such as basketball titles). There are some games I find I can always go back to, including:
- NBA Live 06
- The Donkey Kong Country series on SNES
- Fallout 3
- Fallout New Vegas
- NBA Jam Tournament Edition
- The "GTA 3 Era" Grand Theft Auto games, in particular GTA 3 itself, and Liberty City Stories
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Pretty much any of my favourite LucasArts and Sierra adventure games
- Most Mortal Kombat games (the PS2 era ones have aged somewhat better than the originals, but the originals do hold a lot of nostalgia)
- Sid Meier's Pirates, primarily the 2004 remake, or the Pirates! Gold edition
Something I kind of miss about old school gaming is the detailed manuals we used to get. With in-game tutorials, story cutscenes, and so on, there's admittedly less call for them these days, but I remember poring over the manual whenever I bought a new game, learning all I could before jumping in and playing it. Quite often, it further built up my excitement and anticipation, especially if it went into detail about the backstory and game universe. The manual for Pirates! also included a lot of interesting historical information.
When it comes to the whole "are video games better now or then?" debate, I'd say it depends. If you're talking about simulation sports games...generally not, unless you prefer not to have some of the realistic elements that continually improving technology has allowed for. Generally speaking, I do think our memories are clouded by nostalgia, as we only remember the good games. I feel that a lot of newer games that get trashed are probably mediocre at worst, and their problems are usually that they don't push the boundaries of the technology, they're a bit derivative and uninspired, or fall short of expectations in some other way. When you look at the really bad games from a couple of decades ago, there are some really bad design concepts and a severe lack of depth. I tend to think that a mediocre/average game from the past decade is a lot better than a mediocre/average game from the 8-bit era, simply because of the depth and sophistication. However disappointing Watch Dogs might be, I expect it offers a lot more than Bart vs The Space Mutants (much as I love the latter).
Full saving systems, the elimination of arcade elements such as limits on the number of continues, and better game design have made modern games a lot easier. That said, I find that when I pick up an old game like Castlevania III, I'm usually at least a little better at it now than I was when I was a kid. I'd say that on top of simply having more experience as a gamer under my belt, I'm a bit more patient and strategic. It also helps when you don't have to get all that you can out of a game before returning it to the video store by the end of the weekend.
Anyway, that's just a few thoughts and memories to get the ball rolling. If you like retro gaming and dusting off some old classics, here's a thread we can talk about all that good stuff!