The Ugly Truth About Classic Games. They Are Terrible.

i play all mario games on and off through the years. mario bros, mario world, mario 64. the mechanics and "feel" are impeccable, like how tactile the control is

I still replay 1 & 2 every now and then, and I enjoyed Fallout 3 reasonably well, but I'm pretty confident it won't reach the same echelon of classic games as the first two. It's mediocre as a shooter and otherwise it's just a solid iteration of the now-standard sandbox RPG a la GTA, Oblivion, etc with the advantage that it takes place in a rich and beloved gameworld.

The question is: do you still love it? Does your son love it?

I know it is all a matter of opinion, but as someone who dabbles in game development (I am an admin of the Dark Mists MUD, after all), here is my perspective:

If you look across the spectrum of oldstyle games, there are a few aspects off the top of my head that were responsible for our fun: challenge by control limits, challenge by time limits, and challenge by perfection (restarts, saves, etc).

Joust is a perfect example of challenge by control limits. You may accelerate left and right, you can bounce left and right, you can flap your wings to ascend or not flap to descend. This game is still fun for me because I understand and accept those limitations; they are almost the whole point of Joust. In many ways, Joust AI is predictable, so it is essential that you master the control. In other words, Joust is a game of skill!

The challenge of time limits is pretty obvious: You have X seconds to complete the level. In Joust, you have X seconds before eggs turn to soldiers or before the pterodactyl comes out (and he is killable if you have the skill). Time limits create stress; you want to beat the time limits. Some people rise to the challenge of completing things in the shortest time. Often, it is skill that allows you to surmount the challenge of time.

The challenge of perfection is provided by limiting restarts and save points. Some oldstyle games had plenty of restarts and saves, but they kept internal counters of your retries. They would reward you with certain kinds of endings, based on your retries. In Joust, you have X number of lives before you are forced to start all the way over from level 1.

Tetris is another great example of an oldstyle game that incorporates all three of these challenges.

One thing the game industry realized was that they could sell games to more people if the games required less skill, less challenge. Most games now practically walk you through them. What you do for fun is different now. Maybe you play to be an interactive (but aided) participant in a storyline. Maybe you play to be the first to finish the same progression everyone else can finish (WoW). Maybe you play because you want to see the latest pretty lights (aka advances in graphics) or have the stronger system, both of which are less about gaming and more about presentation.

Is it really that classic games are terrible or less fun than today's games? or is it more that the kinds of fun you can have with them are different from the kinds of fun you can have with today's games? As an oldschool gamer myself, I can tell you that I have gotten bored with some of the past approaches, but that does not make them suck. It just means that what I want has changed.

Toe Jam & Earl