Crippled by Nostalgia: The Fraud of Retro Gaming

[Diff-chan]

Mortal Kombat 2:

Nothing, NOTHING can prepare your hard drive.

Nothing can prepare anyone for Mortal Kombat 2. That's why it is the best game ever.

[GohanX]

By the way, don't tell Mech that the CD version could run from CD, so it barely installed anything.

[MechDeus]

The demo made me install it. I remember having to clear off every other game I was playing at the time in order to get my Liu Kang vs. Reptile action on.

[Hero]

A neat little comparison:

I got the Kirby Collection and realized I never played 2/3rds of the titles in it! My first Kirby was Dream Course, Super Star, then 64 and on.

So the test is - are the Kirby games good, or are they fondly remembered purely for nostalgia? I think the first GB one, Dream Land, kinda is - there's not really a lot Kirby does (can't even absorb powers) and the stages feel claustrophobic. Dream Land 2 and on? Pretty fun! I think Adventure is my favorite, Dream Land 2 is great, and Dream Land 3 is...uh...odd? Still fun though.

It's also showed me that some stuff is nostalgia goggles - I always thought Kirby 64 was good, when considering all the ways shards are hidden. Now it just feels like the slowest of the games in the Collection. So yeah...sometimes nostalgia has reason and old games are still good. Other times...?

[GohanX]

Hero: I never played Kirby games until fairly recently, and I actually shunned them for being too kiddy back in the day. Natually, I have no nostalgia. I haven't played all of them, but I think they kick ass now, but are far too easy.

[Mzo]

Adventure is a fantastic game.

The original was a lot of fun when it first came out. Think about it on the old fat boy, it looked pretty good compared to other efforts on that piece of shit. Kirby could do a lot! He can eat stuff and fly! You unlock serious business mode after you beat the game, too.

[Fe 26]

I can actually understand the hoarding compulsion, and I think it harkens back to the article that started this discussion. Back when you were a kid, didn't you look through the racks of titles at a game store and wish you could just buy all of them? Thanks to the miracle of disposable income, it's tempting to try to realize that fantasy.

I'm not going to lie, I still want to win that nickelodeon contest where you get to run through toysrus with a cart and get as much crap as you can fit in the cart.

or that videogame gameshow they had where the winner got to run through the room wtih all the games and keep anything they grabbed


that is one thing I miss about the 80s, and early 90s. Unplayed games took on an almost mythical quality.

[Mzo]

Just played through OG Kirby, that game had some amazing music for being on the worst system ever.

[Fe 26]

silly mzo, your mother doesn't play games. She's just a woman

[Mzo]

I just tried out Kirby's Dreamland 3 for the first time ever and his fat kitty helper is soooo cute. I almost died.