Modern Gaming or Retro Gaming?

[Gikoku]

For years it has been argued over which is superior and whether the games of today truly lack gameplay creativity and diversity with the main focus on a lot of titles being immersive visuals (with bells & whistles) that drop the jaws. Many have claimed that retro games are simply old, outdated, too basic, and even boring. While it is true that 90% of the games from today are nothing like they were 20 years ago, some developers have shown that the retro style (and with a modern twist) can still be plenty of fun and sell well in this age of gaming (e.g. Street Fighter IV, N+, Castle Crashers, LittleBIGPlanet, Splosion Man, Limbo, Lara Croft: GoL, etc).

Which brings me to ask this..

1. What is your opinion on the current state of modern gaming (post year 2000), do you feel it continues to get stale or do you see innovation and creativity continuously moving forward and becoming more diverse?

2. How do you feel about the retro titles from over a decade back, do you feel some titles back then still stack up well to the titles of today? Do you still enjoy playing them or have they become too old and boring for you to enjoy?

 

[L0ki]

1. What is your opinion on the current state of modern gaming (post year 2000), do you feel it continues to get stale or do you see innovation and creativity continuously moving forward and becoming more diverse?

- The only thing I look forward to these days are the graphics. This is a reason that most of the time, I play nothing but Multiplayer/Online games. Most Single-Player games don't have a refreshing feel to them anymore. Mind you, I've been gaming since I was 6 years old, so I've been gaming since the mid-80's, playing FamCom and the NES. The Retro games had great stories (To be honest, it wasn't 'till the 90's games actually started having a good story - Most of the time, back in the 80's, it was mostly "Go save the Princess" or "Rescue civilians" or "Play 'till you beat the game". There really wasn't much story behind the games in the 80's, but that didn't matter, they were fun because "Video Games" were new). So for Modern Games, I don't think there are many innovative or creative games these days, that's why A LOT of developers are allowing the Players/Users to create custom material for their games, or they try and get as much information from them to improve or get ideas from.

2. How do you feel about the retro titles from over a decade back, do you feel some titles back then still stack up well to the titles of today? Do you still enjoy playing them or have they become too old and boring for you to enjoy?

- RPG's had the best stories in Retro games; However, all the modern games with the old titles, such-as the Final Fantasy series, along with Star Ocean (Could also be that Squaresoft bought Enix and now put Square bullshit into Enix games), or even the Breath of Fire series, they were great in the beginning. From part 1 to 3 in most, but now all the sequels coming after them, are just horrible.

Then you get games that seem to remind you of every other game. Like stolen bits of a story from one game, while adding another games story, and then this other games battle system, etc, etc. It just all seems so familiar and nothing to look forward to. Probably one of the reasons I never got big into Mass Effect, etc.

It's exactly how Avatar copies Pocahontas (The Disney version):

 

[Azer249]

1. What is your opinion on the current state of modern gaming (post year 2000), do you feel it continues to get stale or do you see innovation and creativity continuously moving forward and becoming more diverse?

Its mostly FPS in my view, there's a lack of originality in a lot of games and there's not nearly as many good RPG type games as there used to be.

2. How do you feel about the retro titles from over a decade back, do you feel some titles back then still stack up well to the titles of today? Do you still enjoy playing them or have they become too old and boring for you to enjoy?

Well i still play some "retro" games, i play Tetris a lot ... Halo Ce, Super Real Darwin and i still love them all, hell i seemed to have more fun with titles when i didn't have live because single player was all the more satisfying, all as i used to do was get 100% on games. (well try to) . Tetris for one would stack up to a few titles good. It still does sell a lot and loads of variations of it have been made so i suppose you could say its already stacking up to modern games. But yeh i still enjoy retro games like that and ones that i would consider retro due to my age like "Tarzan, Bugs Life, Toy story 2, Halo CE, Mgs1 + 2" and i still play them now. Its also nice to see games like Halo Ce and MGS being remade with better graphics, Then we will see if they will stand up to modern games.

 

[Tsuyu]

I voted "Both".

There were both gems and turds back then, and they keep releasing both gems as well as turds today.

 

[Azer249]

I voted "Both".

There were both gems and turds back then, and they keep releasing both gems as well as turds today.

*cougth* MW3 *cougth* turd of today.

 

[Quistrix]

1. What is your opinion on the current state of modern gaming (post year 2000), do you feel it continues to get stale or do you see innovation and creativity continuously moving forward and becoming more diverse?

Oh yeah. I definitely think things are getting better in gaming. In comparison to older games, such things as story are becoming a lot more commonly found in FPSs and the stories are more diverse. With the exception of the Final Fantasy games, which have always had their great storylines. Of course graphics are better now, but graphics aren't everything. Games these days seem to hook me a lot easier, well LoZ did that, but y'know. There's so much more that can be done and I'm looking forward to seeing what the makers of our favourite games will be up to in the future.

2. How do you feel about the retro titles from over a decade back, do you feel some titles back then still stack up well to the titles of today? Do you still enjoy playing them or have they become too old and boring for you to enjoy?

Every so often I'll pick up the odd LoZ or Final Fantasy and have a play, they're classics that cannot not be replaced. I haven't played my PS2 in over two years, nothing on that console really stood out for me. Plus it's not really considered retro so... Sometimes when my sister is up to visit, me, her and my brother have a nostalgia fest and play the Sega. Good memories from that thing.

 

[Arseface]

I don't think games today are any less creative than they were twenty years ago. How many Super Mario or Sonic clones are there compared to how many Halo or COD clones? I feel it's about the same.

That being said, I also think it was a lot easier being innovative back then. It was a whole new world, and something as simple as moving right and jumping on things to get points was an amazing breakthrough. There are a LOT more possibilities now, but also a lot more limitations.

 

[Necromancer]

Currently, I do see innovation and progression in the world of video games, but not in relation to what games used to be like in the days of retro gaming. I was never really a part of retro gaming, so I can't really say anything about it. If we're calling all post 2000 games modern games, then I was only seven when modern gaming began. Before then, I just played Pokemon Yellow and two or three Star Wars games on my PC. As I got a little older, I got some more PC games, and my brother introduced me to Fable. My first and only console is my 360, and I didn't even get that until I heard about Fable 2. So basically, I didn't even get into gaming until modern gaming had been around for a few years.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

i'm gonna keep this post from being tl;dr. hopefully i'll be able to, since in a way i'm combining both questions into one answer.

games started with no graphics and no story, as Loki said. Then they gained character (which became story) with having identifiable characters, i.e. mario.
when the stories stopped evolving and being fresh they just made the graphics as best as they could, which is where we stand today. to me story is more important than anything, so i would point out that in this day and age the rare game with the best story tends to be the most successful. plenty of games have beautiful visuals but just bore the living **** out of me.

a retro game can hardly be compared in terms of story. certainly an old games story can be more beloved, but when it comes to intricacy and character developement...well, i think they would have run out of disc space back then.

 

[L0ki]

a retro game can hardly be compared in terms of story. certainly an old games story can be more beloved, but when it comes to intricacy and character developement...well, i think they would have run out of disc space back then.

Well, if you think about it, you could download an entire SNES game (ROM for an Emulator) and it's barely even a Megabyte... Lololol.

 

[Tsuyu]

Great things come in small packages, my friend.