Buying Games Like It's 1989

Since this is kind of a nostalgia thread, I guess this is the best place to put this, though it's a little off topic. For a trip down memory lane or to get info on stuff you missed out on, has anyone ever gone to:

http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&sql=9:

I know All Music is well known, but I've never seen anyone talk about their All Game site. Good breakdown of a ton of home and handheld systems, their histories and major achievements, their games lists with short descriptions or reviews, screenshots, boxart and cross-referenced to similar games when you click on one. It's a really nice achievement; it's been around forever so I imagine this info is really old.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me

Hardly. Actually, I think games are better now. I just can't enjoy them as much because they're so accessible.

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But isn't "accessible" a case for why games AREN'T better now?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tsubaki

But isn't "accessible" a case for why games AREN'T better now?

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He means accessible as in, "I'm an adult with a job so I can buy whatever I want." Not dumbed down easy accessible.

Exactly.

But they -are- dumbed down easy accessible :/

Some are, some aren't. The reason a lot of twenty-somethings recall 80's games as being more difficult than today's offerings is simple: we weren't very good at them.

Take Contra 1 (NES) for example. Notoriously difficult at the time of its release and dubbed The Hardest Game of All Time by IGN*† as recently as March of this year, this game, my wall, and the laws of physics joined forces to claim the life of my NES Max controller, a death that went unavenged until Thanksgiving break two years ago. I was bed ridden with the flu, and even through my fever-induced vision blur, I both embarked on and completed my quest to beat Contra without losing a single life in the same weekend. It really wasn't that hard at all.

Our cognative agility and dexterity have come a long way since elementary school. I guarantee that the fourth graders playing XB360, Wii, and PS3 this morning will be complaining about the difficulty (and quality) of games fifteen years from now, warmly reminiscing about the exact same games we're ridiculing for being "dumbed down."





* : They also credit Contra with introducing cheat codes.
† : lol

When was the original Contra hard? I'd play that and finish it with more lives than I started with.

I finished Contra in 2 or 3 days (without knowing the code) way back when. I actually felt like I got ripped off by paying $30 for the game. I also finished other Konami games in no time (like Life Force, Jackal, etc). The hardest NES game I remember finishing was Megaman, then Megaman 2 was too easy (especially with the continue system).

Megaman 1 is another game that consistantly raped me back in the day. Aside from a couple of bullshit jumps and having to wrestle with that platform gun to get it to do what I want, it's not so bad today.

There's probably no real way to prove this, so it's almost a moot point.

But do you really believe that the average game today is harder than the average game of the past?

Games like Ninja Gaiden (Black/Sigma) are very much a rarity today, whereas the more commonplace handholding (Metroid Fusion, ICO lolz) is insulting.