Reasons I like the 8 and 16-bit eras the best

[stalepie]

stalepie,

 

I agree entirely with you and I would add that games were not dominated by their story. The story was for the manual and my imagination, the game was about playing. Every now and then story developed, but it didn't take a half hour cut scene to do it (usually you just talked to everybody in a town). Perfect example: I love Soul Reaver, the game is huge, deep and fun. But Soul Reaver 2 is all FMV and story and very little adventure. In the first two hours of game play, at least half is comprised of cut scenes advancing plot and very little to actually do. Even when there is something to do, it is laced with shorter cut scenes that start with the lead character telling me what he is doing as I watch on ("As I stepped through the door, I felt like..."). ENOUGH, let me play the game and feel it for myself. And modern games have only gotten worse since.

Very good point. It should be added to the list and is in many ways more important than some of the other stuff I listed.

stalepie is smart.

aw, shucks.

[+Cafeman]

I love the original post to this thread! I agree with pretty much all of it. There is *something* about the 8bit-16bit era that has never been recaptured, in my opinion.

[kool kitty89]

A lot of game design today makes me think of photorealism, a movement in the visual arts that dates from the 1970s (I think), in which painters attempted to create works that looked uncannily like photographs, without any apparent stylization. Could they pull it off? Yep, the results are remarkable...and totally boring. There's no "there" there, no sense of a creative mind trying to communicate something to us.

That may be what's common now, but it's hardly the only thing out there, you've got to look at the big picture and not just what's hot in the mainstream. (a fair number of orignal or more classic/non realistic styled 3D and 2D games if you really look, then downloadable/idie stuff more so, and you get to the DS and you've got a massive portion of the games tending toward 2D alone -in fact I know several prople who love that platform for such genres -I persoanlly tend toward a borader range of games but several favorites are 3D -or best in 3D, though many have declined signficantly -namely space combat sim type games, but I've got tons of classics I've yet to play so I can't really complain)

 

 

 

When I get to thinking about it, I realize it's '90s gaming in general that I enjoyed the most, even as much as I like 8 and 16-bit style games. Over that decade, there was such a wide, diverse range of technology. You had the NES wiping the floor in 1990, but by the time 1999 hit, the Dreamcast was storming the market. It was the quick improvement in technology that kept things interesting, and with it, so many different kinds of gameplay, visual and music styles were explored over this ten year stretch.

I wholeheartedly agree, if I had to pick one decade of games, it would probably be the 90s, as much as I love some of the early classics on consoles and computers and some more recent games (including some that peaked just after the end of the 90s), that decade had the most to offer all around.

 

You had the NES (SMS continuing in Europe), Genesis rising, PC games comign into their own with some of the best games on home computers coming then as well (even on the 8-bits to some extent, but a lot for the ST and Amiga -though I was never involved with those back in the day, I'd imagine it's a much different case for most from Europe though). You had PCs going from 2D games maybe on par with consoles by the early 90s, but scaling effects and software rendering going past that with raycasting, texture mapping, voxels, polygons, gouraud shading, etc with 3D really pushing in past the primitive stuff in the 80s and 90/91: 1993 was a big year for that, then you had CDs overtaking floppies and facilitating larger games practically, more samples voices and sfx and animation, plus streaming video and audio (but even so several cases keeping it minimalistic, especially those limited by doing dual floppy and CD releases -unless they opted to put it on a ton of floppies and require a full install -Return to Zork came on 12 3 1/2" HD floppies, though still cut out a fair bit of the CD version -mainly some PCM audio streams and streaming cutscenes)

 

There's plenty of cases of overly gimmicky and rather mideocre 3D games (and with high popularity comes shovelware and the PSX was no exception), but you had tons of options though out, there was tons of 2D into the mid 90s and a fair bit persisting thereafter and a lot of good 3D games, some which defined genres and arguably have never been exceeded. FMV was like that more so, especially early on and while there some charm in some of the campier ones (some are just bad and broken) they gave way to some awesome involving cinema stuff, and honestly the better live action stuff holds up better than a good amount of that CGI with some mitigating factors (but a lot looked really funky), there was animated stuff too, of course.

 

There's simply too much to name and my posts are long winded enough as it is, so I'll leave it at that.

 

 

 

I mean pre-redbook, pre-CD-quality sound. I'm including FM and SNES-style music as well.

You mean pre streaming audio entirely or just CD releated? (so not lower quality streaming PCM from carts/RAM which was done in a few cases -the Atari ST was particularly notable for doing that for title screens)

And would the N64 count for chiptunes? (much of the music was done in the same vein as the SNES and other sample based trackers/mod players)

 

What I mean is that it really gets blurred when you get down to it...

Hell, a lot of the good sounding CD audio was done with synthesized instruments, but in a combination not available on most home platforms. (Arcades had them and a few computers too -like the FM Towns, but before the likes of the Jaguar and N64's synthesis resources, you had the Sega CD with a set-up very similar to Sega's System 18 and 32 arcade boards, granted some arranged versions of realtime tracks still sound better in some ways)

Silpheed is probably the best example, it's so varied that I initially thought it was red book (or at least streaming PCM -lower quality to cacilitate the streaming animation), but no it's all real time with the PSG+FM+Ricoh PCM chip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGRHdUDnSFM (2 of my favorites, but they're all great)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ekM9taOMA

 

And even when you got extensive audio hardware, it still took skills to tap it, so in many many cases you got poor music, often decent or even good arrangements that were hindered by poor sound drivers (many SNES games have a generic sound, and many Genesis games by EA and almost all using GEMS sounded poor to mediocre -but GEMS is what you got if you wanted a flexible midi capable driver that didn't require hardware level programming by the composer), that's also why you had several cases where you got crap music on hardware and totally awesome music on CD conversions. (Sega CD, or PC ports)

 

I love chiptunes, but if developers want to take sound in a different direction, that's there deal... Besides, many downloadable games now use wavetable midi stuff too, which is similar to what the SNES/Amiga (etc) did. Hell, you want limited artistic medium, try music limited to stock general midi instruments: not even the flexibility of providing custom samples and reloading the selection of samples like on Amiga or SNES...

 

It's a double edged sword, but to be honest streaming audio is great, and many games wouldn't fit with limited chiptunes (advanced realtime synth, perhaps -some really benefit from full orchestral stuff though), and there are ones that have odd sounding arragements due to the instruments used too... (Sonic 4's music -which is midi/tracker/mod, not streaming- has some really off sounding instruments and oddly enough standard SMPS genesis instruments make for an awesome arrangement, not because of the classic sound, but simply because it sounds right -hell a good general midi arrangement could be more fitting than a lot of what they did, or orchestra stuff for that matter)

Another example would be Mortal Kombat... pretty wretched use of the YM2151 in the first game: they go to wavetable synth in the following games with FAR better results.

 

It's certianly a matter of taste, and there are mitigating factors (X-wing and tie fighter 95 totally replace the dynamic midi with a looping stock john williams compilation -Wing Commander 1/2 on 9x did it right, with redone orchestral music of the original arrangements for the game and the same dynamic quality in-game -MT-32 is still arguably better at times, but Adlib is pretty primitive -the Sega CD port totally botched it with an unrelated unfitting CD soundtrack)

 

 

To be absolutely clear: I grew up in the 90s, but with primarily old consoles and PC games, I love chiptunes from tons of stuff (some super limited chips like the SN76489 can be a bit strained -the AY/YM2149 gives a good bit more in spire of relativel similarity), main console was NES from 1990 to 1996, then and SNES, N64 in 1999, PC totally parallel and Soundblaster OPL2/OPL3 music will forever hold a place in my heart. (some neat soft MOD too, like Jazz Jackrabbit)

There are plenty of good cases of general midi too, I was introduced to Sonic 3 on the PC, and still have a bit of a soft spot for some of the GM tunes there (prefer most of the Genesis versions though)

But I really feel no contempt against streaming audio, it doesn't matter how you get the sound (including recording a synthesizer), but what you end up with.

Hell, even in the 80s there were examples of games that came with soundtrack casettes, and one that comes to mind is StarGlider 2's:

 

Hell the CD release of Monkey Island seems to use recordings of the MT-32 renditions (the MT-32 was a professional synthesizer afterall), so provided that music to the majority of users who didn't have such a pricey and uncommon accessory for their PCs.

 

 

The majority of the games, even on SNES, didn't require more than 3 or 4 buttons, iirc. Many of them debuted on both Genesis and SNES, so couldn't have.

Many need at least 4 (and often more if you count select -some games use it rather commonly for in-game action, similar actions that Sega put on the face buttons instead), and there were several cases where Genesis games were hindered by not catering to the 6-button controller (really should have been pushed as standard and pack-in from 1993 onward)m and some had to make do with combos or added menus for lack of buttons, that or drop features entirely. Earthworm Jim 2 comes to mind, awesome game, arguably better in some areas on the Genesis, but one fatal flaw is a total lack of the weapon select feature, not even as a combo or supported for 6-button control, and makes the large selection of weapons rather pointless. (Earthworm Jim 1 is best on the Sega CD or PC IMO, then Genesis, then SNES)

 

They weren't as big as today's and the budgets weren't as large. I remember reading about how Final Fantasy 7 upped the ante in size of budgets/teams at the time, but I believe their size has become standard now.

There were a few long games on the VCS (hampered by lack of saving and such), but by the late 80s you could easily have 20-40 hour games with many RPGs or adventure games. (much earlier on computers though -the earliest being text adventures)

Hmm, so FFVII topped 12 million in production? (Wing Commander VI ca 1995, following the previous record Wing Commander IV in 1994 at 4 Million, largely due to cinema -rather like FFVII- with high quality production of notable talented actors with good direction putting campy FMV to shame while backing it up with a compelling story and excellent gameplay -and ported to 3DO, Saturn, and PSX as well as having DOS and windows releases and several re-releases -including one MPEG-2 DVD release really showing the quality) Take a look for yourself:

 

The FMV games (expansing the term for any games with extensive cinema -from night trap to FFVII) where the first to really hit big budget, or any that required extensive workstation rendered graphics or actors and production of live action scenes, or cartoon animation. (that includes several classic early 90s adventure games) Sound design was there too, but outside of orchestral or bands doing compositions it wouldn't change too much. (ie high end sampler/synth stuff)

 

Most games weren't RPGs and RPGs weren't as popular then. Wasn't thinking of PC stuff because normally talk of "8 and 16-bit" is about consoles.

Well, 8-bit and 16-bit "consoles" would indeed refer to most of the most popular home computers ever made. (console in that context referring to any built-in keyboard form factor, though it varies and that's semantics), but 8 and 16-bit classics are numerous and were the staples of gaming before PCs really took over in the early 90s.

The very first video/electronic RPG was on the Apple II followed by Atari 8-bit and C64 (both of the latter were very much game consoles in terms of base hardware as much as the Colecovision, 5200, NES, SMS and such). Hell, you even got ports of the Ultima series to home consoles in the early 90s.

 

Plus you have to take Japan into account, TONS of RPGs and only a fraction made it to the west (fewer to Europe -Sega was a major souce in the early 90s when Square and Nintendo were putting out nothing to the region).

 

Not sure that text adventures are really that long, though. Take a long time to figure out, but to play once you know the answers?

Umm, speedrunning with a walkthrough is not how those games were meant to be played, it's logic, puzzel solving and trial and error, MUCH more decent things than stupid and pointless things like level grinding... (granted some western localization of JRPGs -especially by Working Designs- totally blow that out of proportion with added difficulty in odd areas)

That's the fun of adventure games along with exploration and hunting for secrets: be it text/mouse driven graphic adventures, text adventures, 3D adventure games, 3D platform/adventure games, 2D top down or sidescrolling action/adventure games, etc. (some with far more emphasis on puzzles and riddles than others)

 

I like a good turn based RPG, but the best make level grinding (if necessary) a natural thing and not a chore, to the extent that you end up with sufficient levels just by playing though the levels and fighting enemies as they come (or those you can't avoid). Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario as well as earthbound feel very much that way, random battles were only good when the hardware was too limited to really facilitate greater detail.

 

I think it's easy to spoil the experience of video games (and movies) with YouTube and other video sites today. I'm frequently tempted to look at walkthroughs, or just a video review from IGN, which tends to show a lot. Hell, even these early preview videos at E3 show a lot.

There's the difference between previews and getting the feel for a game and watching playthroughs or lets plays (some of that is meant for people who enjoy back seat gaming and/or already played the games anyway). The more informed the consumer is on a product, the better, and that includes accurate information with minimal bias. (demos being ideal)

Off topic from my point, but I've always enjoyed so-called back seat gaming a good deal, I grew up doing so with my did on games far too difficult for me, or those I could actually contribute suggestions for, and that extended to similar with several friends (though there was more potential for me to actually want a chance to play too ).

I used to totally suck at star fox (couldn't get past meteor) and it was so amazing when I watched a friend play all the way though years before I finally managed it, and it didn't take away the thrill at all either. (though there are other cases where games have lots of alternate endings or endings/boss fights on hard mode ans you might not care to go though all that but still be curious -youtube is awesome for that)

 

Uh, no, even Japanese games weren't nearly as adult back then. I've seen the censorship and it's usually things like crosses in the background or a little blood. I'm not calling for censorship today or less adult games, but because of the limited color palettes and the sense that these were toys we were playing, games were much more kid-focused. Even today's kiddie games like Jak & Dexter are, in my opinion, more teenage-focused, and have oftentimes rather realistic or moody graphics.

Even in that video you linked,

, if you go to where I've linked it at 3minutes and 13 seconds, it says "pro wrestling in the 80s was much more kid-friendly and mainstream than it is today." LOL!

What I mean anyway was just a different atmosphere of fun. It's hard to explain, but the entertainment was less dark and moody, ugly and depressing.

There were erotic and pornographic games too (far beyond the piddly 2600 stuff), Strip Fighter on the PCE comes to mind... A couple on NES, most Japan only. (far more once streaming video came around -in fact adult games is part of what kept 3DO alike in Asia, that and VCD)

 

You've got super kiddie wii games, and Spyro comes to mind in general, but it's all relative and stylistic. (Ratchet clank is more on the kiddie side graphically than Jak and Daxter IMO) There's a huge range to it. And in the late 80s most of the more "serious" stuff was less common on consoles (either not as many or just hard to find compared to more prominently distributed home computer or PC titles) but Sega broke through a lot of that without the extreme censorship of NoA, and then went a step further in establishing a system to give an actual idea of some content with a ratings standard (which Nintendo bawlked at and went to court over -with some really ridiculous evidence taken totally out of context -especially with Night Trap). Some parts of Europe were really heavy on censorship though and even Sega had to comply: they had to rename Castlevantia Bloodlines because of "blood" in the tile, regardless of the totally non-violent context of that term.

 

But I agree that the common/popular western games were more kid friendly, but I's relative: when I was 7 and my brother 3 when we got our SNES my dad hid Street Fighter 2 and Super Double Dragon, heh (finally pulled though out just a few months ago ), though it's not like he was a totally prude either, but cared much more in terms of violent influence (more so for profanity) than anything sexual or such. (not really the norm there, I know) But I'm digressing again.

Edited June 30, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Rik]

Also in the early days of PC gaming, there weren't any spoiler or walkthrough sites like we have today.Back then if you wanted a "HINT" you had to phone the company for a charge of $.99 and up per hint.Because of that you had more incentive to solve the game yourself without any help, like the games really SHOULD be played.I never owned an NES, I rented the console + games, but I very much enjoyed those games, especially the horror themed games, I'm talking about the very 1st NES.I loved games like Uncle Fester, Friday The 13th, the Mario games were a blast, Mike Tyson's Punchout was amazing I thought.Those games had a lot of charm, the cartoonish graphics made them great!!!!

Edited June 30, 2010 by Rik

[JayWI]

Friday The 13th

 

A lot of people don't like this game but it's one of my favorites. I think being a fan of the movie series and the story behind it all made the game much more interesting.

[kevincal]

great original post stalepie. i was 8 years old in 1989 and that was the year i really started to get interested in video games. My sister and I got an NES christmas 1989. God what a great time that was... You know I think if anything, it has more to do with the 80's being so awesome. everything from the 80s was just so cool and laid back and everyone seemed to be more open minded about everything. the music was pefect, games werent taken too seriously, life was much easier (atleast in america...) i really like the early to mid 90's as well, but ever since seems times get worse and worse, games are getting more and more realistic, more and more violent. how many war games do we need!? I know i know, there are a lot of 8 and 16 bit war games too, but they werent NEARLY as graphic and etc.

 

Also the great thing about the NES and Genesis days was that video games werent quite fully mainstream yet. it was more about fun and less about money. developers made games for the passion of it and had almost no limits to create their game. Now its a big money game and games are developed with making as much money as possible in mind... its more about marketing than making an actual good game these days. And ya, games these days are just way too massive, who has the time for these epic games!? not me... but these devs forget that the more massive a game isnt DOESNT mean it makes it better. A classic example i can think of is Shenmue, half thought it was great. other half in disbelief that a game could be so long, drawn out and boring. which is fitting since the DC was a stopgap system between classic and modern gaming.. Personally i feel the dc has modern graphics while a lot of the gameplay in the games is classic.

 

in the end though i appreciate all video games new and old

[Smatchmo]

Great thread, great replies!

 

Now its a big money game and games are developed with making as much money as possible in mind... its more about marketing than making an actual good game these days. And ya, games these days are just way too massive, who has the time for these epic games!? not me... but these devs forget that the more massive a game isnt DOESNT mean it makes it better.

 

Ugh.

I hate to sound Old Man here, but games these days have just gotten too long, too complex; the controllers have eleventy billion buttons and can be moderately-to-severely confusing for those of us not raised on them/those of us born before '95; the media is far, far, FAR too fragile for my liking and has had a serious and substantial impact on the used vidgame market; and imo the primary focus of developers nowadays seems to be on graphics at the expense of actual gameplay.

That and, doesn't it seem like every other game is a FPS??? Holy carp, try some other genre, please! Honestly, I loved Doom, Quake & Goldeneye 64 as much the next gamer, but it kinda got old after a few months to me. Now we've got those and Halo and Half Life and CoD and Bioshock and Fallout 3 (what a travesty that was) and Resistance: Fall of Man and its sequel and on and on and on......

 

the DC was a stopgap system between classic and modern gaming.. Personally i feel the dc has modern graphics while a lot of the gameplay in the games is classic.

 

I agree with your assessment of the DC and it's why I had such difficulty deciding if the DC had a soul.

 

The reason I like classic (pre- Playstation) games so much is that I always felt (even back in those days) that hardware restrictions actually forced game companies to be even more creative!

Absolutely. Hence the William Morris quote which appears on the back cover of Racing the Beam -- "You can't have art without resistance in the materials." That struggle is a huge part of what makes art exciting, both directly (art as a kind of high-wire act) and indirectly (forcing the artist to make choices that aren't just the path of least resistance).

 

To get even more arcane, you could say that "struggle articulates subject". In other words that tension, between the creative impulse and the limtations of a particular medium, helps us to perceive the creative mind behind the work being made.

 

Agreed.

With the older systems, developers aimed for games that were entertaining and that worked within the strict graphical/audio limitations of that particular system. This required a large amount of creativity on the part of devs (imo). Now, it's like the sky's the limit; there are virtually no graphx.sound limitations and as a result and imo, the medium has suffered, maybe irreparably.

Who cares about something as irrelevant as gameplay when it's oh so sparkly and shiny w/ Dolby surround sound!

 

Games look and sound like life in the real world now, *better* even, but good luck figuring out which of the 90 buttons you'll have the press in order to do what you wanna do. And you might wanna see about taking a few weeks of vacation from work/school if you wanna learn the controls and get one fifth thru the game.

[kool kitty89]

Ugh.

I hate to sound Old Man here, but games these days have just gotten too long, too complex; the controllers have eleventy billion buttons and can be moderately-to-severely confusing for those of us not raised on them/those of us born before '95; the media is far, far, FAR too fragile for my liking and has had a serious and substantial impact on the used vidgame market; and imo the primary focus of developers nowadays seems to be on graphics at the expense of actual gameplay.

That and, doesn't it seem like every other game is a FPS??? Holy carp, try some other genre, please! Honestly, I loved Doom, Quake & Goldeneye 64 as much the next gamer, but it kinda got old after a few months to me. Now we've got those and Halo and Half Life and CoD and Bioshock and Fallout 3 (what a travesty that was) and Resistance: Fall of Man and its sequel and on and on and on......

IDK, controllers haven't changed too much since 1990 (or 1991 for the US) with the SNES, a couple added buttons and analog sticks, but not all that much once you got to SNES games using all 6 buttons plus start and selesct and maybe some combos in there due to lack of buttons. (a fair number of games from ~1993 onward) Most controllers haven't gone beyond 1994 standard for Japan's introduction of the Saturn, PSX, and PC-FX with 8 action buttons (plus start/select/option buttons), 1995 for the US. Though the built-in buttons in SOny and MS's analog sticks add 2 more. (and there's analog triggers too) N64 has more, but in a practical sense they're not all used at once (or not intended to be by design), so that's a different case.

 

And yeah, a lot of FPSs, though I think some of the best ones have come more recently, especially ones that combine survival horror and logical aspects like Bioshock (sort of a spiritual successor to the classic System shock games) along with unique qualities. Fallout 3 has the awesome satire stuff in there (I love games that don't take themselves too seriously -and you get another level of that with Duke Nukem, Serious Sam, or Matt Hazard).

 

It's just a popular genre, really no different from 2D sidescrolling platformers/adventure/run n' gun games in the late 80s and 90s. (many people were tired of those too, as with FPSs now) Actually I can especially feel that parallel as I'm not a particular fan of those types of games (it's not my skill set really, and it's hard to have a lot of fun at games you're not good at unless they're easy or have other redeeming qualities -and indeed there are several sidescrollers/platformers I certianly enjoy). And I grew up with almost nothing but those kind of games on consoles,I was a 90s kid, but we were late in the nextgen stuff (NES, SNES in '96, N64 in '99), though PC games addressed that to a fair degree. (no FPSs at the time -Quake 2 was the first I remember my dad playing, though I know he had earlier ones- but X-Wing was the big one, classic DOS title right there and probably my favorite genre, then there's graphics adventures not far off, Return to Zork is another one I have fond memories of in the mid 90s -more so than Myst)

 

I can see PC gamers getting tired of all the space/flight sim combat type games too and that genre has shrunken quite a bit from the 90s (and very early 2000s), though as a retro gamer I can't complain as there's so many great games I missed back in the day. (the wing commander series or Freespace for example -plus there's some neat homebrew stuff with the Freespace 2 engine)

 

 

Agreed.

With the older systems, developers aimed for games that were entertaining and that worked within the strict graphical/audio limitations of that particular system. This required a large amount of creativity on the part of devs (imo). Now, it's like the sky's the limit; there are virtually no graphx.sound limitations and as a result and imo, the medium has suffered, maybe irreparably.

Who cares about something as irrelevant as gameplay when it's oh so sparkly and shiny w/ Dolby surround sound!

That's always been true to soem degree, flashy games that are defined by their audiovisual presentation. It can make mediocre games seem good, or propel good games to greatness. (Psyngnosis had a LOT of games like that, somrthing like Donkey Kong Country is also in that vein -both audio and visual making what many consider an average or even mediocre game into something touted by the industry -I think the game itself, or the sequel at least is a little better than average at least, though I also have to admit that presentation is very important, not just gameplay as many seem to claim)

 

It's games that are still great years later when the stuff is less impressive that really shows what games shined, including those which may have been overlooked the first time around.

 

People seem to think that graphics aren't going to get too much better than they are now, but I can see a time in the not so distant future (ie the next console gen) when stuff that's there now will look outdated and low-detail by comparison. (hell, high end PCs have already gone a good deal beyond the best console stuff -and were always ahead in terms of things like maximum screen resolution)

 

 

Honestly, from the longer games (especially computer games) of the 90s (or even some 80s games), it's really not that much different.

The first to really take it far were probably some of the text adventures, and as with many such games, they may not have been too long is you already knew everything to do, but that's not the point: the point was figuring things out and trial and error (lots of saves and re-dos too) and similar with the following graphic adventure games.

[carmel_andrews]

Problem with any of the psx/saturn and later machines is that they were like 'an arcade at home' which left not much to the imagination, somewhat like the modern gaming systems like wii/ds, xbox, ps3/p etc which is somewhat likened to a movie experience within a VG environment

 

Reason why people appreciate the early games more is because more energy and innovation/creativity went into their design/creation etc, that is something that is mostly lacking or missing in later generation of gaming systems/platforms

Edited July 1, 2010 by carmel_andrews