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.