Rant: That Old 8-Bit Wasn’t That Great
by Chris
Do you really miss all of those old games? We have been talking about the old school this week here at the 8-bit Cubist and it has been quite fun. Thinking about all the old video games that we used to love, telling epic stories of how we beat this game this way or some trick we did not think people knew about. But I need to point something out, nostalgia is a helluva drug! Nostalgia lets us block out all of the crappy things about the games we used to play. But I have not forgotten them, and here are some of the things that I don’t miss about old school games.
1. Passwords
Before we could save data on a cartridge we needed someone of restoring a player’s save game. This way was long ass passwords that the player had to put in with the damn controller. Not only did you have to write down these long codes but it took time to input them with the controller, worst part is that this was not like the Game Genie where I was going to get some sweet boost to the game after all of this work. This was just going to let me pick up where I left off. I should not be to hard on the passwords, at least they let you continue your game!
2. No save game
I just got done complaining about how long the password were but I will gladly take that over having no save game at all. Granted some games did not really need a save since they were really short or just fun to play over and over again. I am looking at you Super Mario Bros 3. But at the same time there were some games that had that level that you dreaded playing and would love to never have to play it again. I could list a bunch of games that needed a save feature but I am just going to point out the biggest one of them all. Battletoads, if thinking back to this game does not make you mad about something I don’t think you played it enough.
3. Artificial Intelligence
Let’s face it, Artificial Intelligence (AI) did not even really exist in old games. It was all patterns that the enemies followed. You can call this a form of AI (it is) but that is not the AI I am talking about. What I am talking about is when games started making the move to 3d. It was so easy to get them stuck running into boxes or falling into pits. God forbid you had to escort someone. There was a good chance the mission would fail because they would go full retard and kill themselves. Remember hockey game AI? Now I am a huge hockey fan and have been playing them since NES Ice Hockey, but only recently have goalies have been able to stop the infamous wrap around shot aka “I win the game and there is nothing you can do about it because you missed one check”.
4….
Furthermore…(Item Omitted)
I am sure this list could be much longer but I don’t know if I want to think about the bad anymore. I want to go back to remembering how amazing Mega Man and River City Ransom were. If you have things that you used to hate about old school games leave a comment below.
Chris.
a particularly frustrating memory came back to me while reading #3…
in Double Dribble, there was a ‘sweet’ spot on the court that was pretty much a guaranteed 3 pointer, provided you got the timing on the shot correct (see: http://screencast.com/t/fEh0kzKE)
once you realized this, the game devolved into a game of trying to keep your opponent from shooting from that spot (i you didn’t have the ball) or trying to shoot from that spot (if you did have the ball) if you were playing against a friend.
tho not AI related, the “i win the game… nothing you can do” sentiment jarred that memory back to me… LOL!!!
great read/rant Chris!
Ikari Warriors, NES console loving – 3 hours to beat the game, get to the end, and bombs over Baghdad are dropping and all you can do is sit and die, man I remember that well the first time it happened! THe feeling of trying to get the last door to open, and just a flashing skull taunting me! Oh to be a kid and the emotions that lead people to turn into Abe Navarro and break controllers!
rant -but just on developtment side as you come to understand as you get older and work in the industry and understand that side of the coin.
i hear ya on the dev side rant JMD! sometimes its better to not know whats on the other side of the curtain and just let the ‘magic’ of it all remain behind the curtain
The curtain is gone, the curtain has been gone for a long time
.
yep… that f@cka got burnt long time ago… LOL!
Maybe I’m just remembering my 8-bit days differently than other people but I enjoyed them. It could be because I was better at video games than all my friends or because I always played all the JRPGs, but I still play ROMs to relive the glory days.
On a more serious note, screw Contra. That game can rot in hell.
I don’t know if I’m being contrarian or not, but respectfully disagree.
1. Passwords. Passwords are great. They take a long time to write down (if your attention span is short), but they are also portable. If your system dies or save gets corrupt you can go back to them. You can share them, trade them, and they are interesting. They create culture and embody hard work. They can be faked, analyzed, decoded.
They are unlimited – you can write as many as you’d like without running out of “save slots”. And they are traversable – you can go forward or backwards without limitation if you have transcribed them.
Working for something means that you appreciate it more. This has been proven in psychology. If you work for a product, you’re psychologically more prone to enjoy it. I think that this doesn’t sway the outcome of your experience completely, but it is a small and important step to making a product more enjoyable.
Laziness would dislike a password. It’s understandable. It takes time and isn’t convenient. There are allot of things that are convenient and don’t take time – I would argue that many of those things are lame. Not all things that are inconvenient are good, but passwords are. They promote a social aspect to gaming, stand as a marker to historical events, and provide gamers with cheats and a way to be lazy if only they can write down a password.
If you are arguing that a product would have been great would it have had a save instead of a password – I argue that you’re letting something petty stop you from appreciating the goodness of a product.
2. No save game is legit, sort of, games as early as Zelda had saves. If that’s true, then you could argue that many other products chose “no save” as a feature. It’s basically an added challenge. In some cases it was likely also a code problem that couldn’t be solved, but there are and are not saves. It was a design choice in an era of gaming that had more to do with challenge and points that telling a story or showing up a bunch of cinematic scenes.
You can’t typify that era by saying it had games without saves, because it also had games with saves. How is that any different from today – when there are games with saves and also games without saves. Or games with infrequent or shitty save systems.
I’ll count PWs as saves, because they are manual saves. Punchout had a save system. Zelda. Metroid. Dragon Quest. Space Quest. Kid Icarus. Hero’s Quest. Clash at Demon head. Mega Man. Maniac Mansion. Those are a bunch of products I think “Was that great”.
Despite the disagreement I’ll give you half a point for that one.
3. AI. AI still sucks. Look at the shitty AI in Resident Evil 5. Fuck that. Bitch would NOT throw her grenade. I am 2 inches from her being strangled by a fucking licker, and SHE WOULD NOT PULL THE GOD DAMNED TRIGGER.
My point is getting all twisted, let me start over:
8-Bit ai was interesting because it was predictable. If you’re talking about 3D ai – it did and does suck, but also, it’s not 8-Bit.
Also, your spell checker is a troglodyte – it’s telling me I’ve spelled contrarian wrong, which proves my point about number 3 and shitty ai.
You have a strong point with 2D sports ai though, but I haven’t played a sports game since double dribble / blades of steel, so I can’t judge the state of the art.
4. I admit that nostalgia is tainting my logical evaluation of said products, but the things I hated about Old School games are far outweighed by the things I loved. Note that I also love new games, so I’m not clinging to the past, just realizing that it was pretty great.
My personal list of 8-Bit era annoyances:
-Loading Screens (Still sucks – 80s/90s PC gaming mind you)
-Screen tearing/slow down
-Bonehead obscure design choices (see Castlevania III or Zelda II – how the fuck do you beat that without a guide?)
-Having to blow on a cart to get it to work
-Copy Protection. (Ever had one of those blue on blue sheets of code? Or read a book to get the correct answer to a password question?)
-Bart vs. Space Mutants.
-Anything Angry Video Game Nerd says. (He’s an expert in the field)
After having written my own rant (this one), which the internet inspires people to do (I am absolved), I realize that I don’t disagree with your points so much as the troll bate title “Aint so great”. Maybe the 8-Bit era wasn’t as great as you thought it was, but it’s exactly as great as I thought it was – pretty great, although just as error prone as the hubris that would cause people to think that they could do it better were they to build similar products in the same error (oops, I meant era).
To say it like the kids would these days “Haters gonna hate.” But 8-Bit is still rad.
Despite my disagreement(s), it was indeed a good read because it inspired me to delve into what I like and dislike about the old games. There were some real POSs but that hasn’t changed in the least.
&Rew.