Topic: Who here is old enough to remember...

[Centurus]

...the original NES and Sega Genesis game systems.

Is it just me, or were video games alot more fun back in those days, even with the crappy graphics and computer generated sound.

I look back to the days when I used to play the old NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games and remember that I had so much more fun playing those games than I have playing even some of the PS1 games and PS2.

Hell, some of the old Atari games my brother had seemed to be alot more fun than most games these days.

I personally think that most video games these days focus too much on graphics and sound quality and less on whether or not the game is actually fun to play.

Or maybe it's just my age showing.

What do you guys think?

[FPF-Paladin]

I'm old enough.  And I agree... or at least it seems that way, doesn't it?

[Tulwar]

I remember the old Commadore 64!  Those had a lot of really good games.  Way back then, there were a lot of fun games.  Now that I can buy whatever machine I need or want, there's nothing remotely interesting.

[knightstorm]

Super Mario Bros. Rocked.  At least they are still alive through the glory of emulation.  You can even play the games on your cellphone now.  What's also cool is looking at some of the celebrity licensing.  In addition to Mike Tyson being the final boss in punchout, you had Michael Jackson  staring in this bizarre title, that in my view rivals Shaq Fu for the "greatest console game of all time" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson%27s_Moonwalker

[marstone]

I will agree most games now adays seem to be the bleeding edge of graphics and sound, but the game lacks alot for depth.  The idea of making a game longer is making players run back and forth to fllip switches and stuff.  Puzzles in new games are way to easy over all.

New game designers need to dig out an old Atari system and do some research.

[Lieutenant_Q]

Agreed.  One of my favorite Console Games was Super Mario Bros 3.  But let us not forget The Legend of Zelda.  Anyone remember Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary for the NES?  A Piece of the Action part deux.

[Darth Sidious]

They were more fun back then.  But part of that is nostalgia more than anything.

I still fire up my Sega Mastersystem (20 years old) from time to time; still works. 

[Beeblebrox]

I remember both of those old systems.  For me though, nothing beats the old original Atari.  I'd give a lot to  play a round of Defender or Yar's Revenge again. 

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Agreed.  One of my favorite Console Games was Super Mario Bros 3.  But let us not forget The Legend of Zelda.  Anyone remember Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary for the NES?  A Piece of the Action part deux.

I never had an NES, but have played 25th Anniversary on PC. It was killer!
Kirby Superstar for SNES is incredibly fun also.

[NuclearWessels]

OK, confession time - we STILL have an SNES set up in our basement, and both my wife and I still play it at least once a week.

dave

[Lieutenant_Q]

The thing is, the PC version and the NES version are two DIFFERENT games.

[Akira_Commander567]

Aaaaaaa, the NES is great for oldschool games. I still have Jurassic Park for the NES, it kicks @$$!

[knightstorm]

Yeah, the 25th anniversary star trek was a really cool game, although I thought the controls were too sluggish in the space combat  level.  Dr. Mario was one of my favorite all time games. I also liked TMNT 2.  Did anyone here ever play NARC?  I was seven when I got that game, and didn't understand all of the drug and sex references in it until years later.

[Bonk]

Is it just me, or were video games alot more fun back in those days, even with the crappy graphics and computer generated sound.

...

I personally think that most video games these days focus too much on graphics and sound quality and less on whether or not the game is actually fun to play.

Or maybe it's just my age showing.

What do you guys think?

Mostly age - but there was a certain magic for us because we were the first generation exposed to the machine in this fashion.

[kmelew]

I remember the old Commadore 64!  Those had a lot of really good games.  Way back then, there were a lot of fun games.  Now that I can buy whatever machine I need or want, there's nothing remotely interesting.

I still have my Atari 800.  I still enjoy games of Imperium Galacticum, Colonial Conquest, and Star Raiders  from time to time...

[knightstorm]

Did anyone here have the nintendo robot?  I didn't get my NES until after they had already stopped making it.  Even though, it apparently sucked, it still looked really cool.

[Vipre]

It isn't just you Centurus. Games today are all about the graphics and not the gameplay. There are still gems out there it's just with so many choices it's hard to sort through the crap. I find it funny though that most of the best games now, in my opinion of course, started as PnP or board games way back when.

[Commander La'ra]

We also tend to remember the good games while forgetting the bad, which is predictable.

It's like how oldies stations never play the songs from 1966 that really sucked.

[Vipre]

We also tend to remember the good games while forgetting the bad, which is predictable.

It's like how oldies stations never play the songs from 1966 that really sucked.

  Nobody who has ever played ET on the Atari 2600 could possibly forget how much it sucked.

[knightstorm]

We also tend to remember the good games while forgetting the bad, which is predictable.

It's like how oldies stations never play the songs from 1966 that really sucked.

  Nobody who has ever played ET on the Atari 2600 could possibly forget how much it sucked.

What's wrong with levitating out of wells?  Seriously, while the 2600 is before my time, I have read about some of the games.  E.T. isn't too bad an effort considering it was only made in 6 weeks.  Of the games I've read about, Custer's Revenge is probably the worst one.  Then again, quaker oats supposedly made some awful games.

[Vipre]

E.T. is legendary.

E.T. is seen as marking the beginning of Atari's downfall and is often viewed as one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history, as well as the worst video game ever made. E.T. was a contributing factor to Atari's massive financial losses during 1983 and 1984, and a glut of unsold copies of the game helped contribute to the video game crash of 1983. As a result of overproduction, hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges were reportedly buried in a New Mexican landfill.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Platform: Atari 2600
Year: 1982
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

Landmarks:

One of the most disastrous games ever
Marked beginning of the so-called video game crash and the end of the Atari era
First of countless genuinely wretched licensed games

*shrugs* I could be wrong of course, but it's rare to hear anything good about it.

[knightstorm]

E.T. is legendary.

E.T. is seen as marking the beginning of Atari's downfall and is often viewed as one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history, as well as the worst video game ever made. E.T. was a contributing factor to Atari's massive financial losses during 1983 and 1984, and a glut of unsold copies of the game helped contribute to the video game crash of 1983. As a result of overproduction, hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges were reportedly buried in a New Mexican landfill.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Platform: Atari 2600
Year: 1982
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

Landmarks:

One of the most disastrous games ever
Marked beginning of the so-called video game crash and the end of the Atari era
First of countless genuinely wretched licensed games

One of the reasons ET was such a failure was because they wanted to rush the game out by Christmas, and gave the programmer 6 weeks instead of 6 months like he would have needed.  While the game was awful, it was probably the best that could have been done in that timeframe.  Also, Atari acutally produce more cartridges than there were 2600s at the time.  I personally think Custer's revenge which was made by the pornographic company Mystique is probably worse.  While a depiction of crude 8 bit characters which look like legos having sex might be somewhat comical, having the female be a tied up Native American woman is not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer%27s_Revenge
While Custer's revenge is definitely the most vile, the flood of poor quality games from 3rd party startups like a subsidiary of Quaker Oats helped to erode the 2600's reputation, a job that was completed when Atari itself rushed a number of potentially killer aps like pac man and et through development producing a poor quality product that destroyed what was left of its repuation.

[Vipre]

You have a fair point..er...to a point. Put it in perspective though, what do you expect from "3rd party startups like a subsidiary of Quaker Oats" except junk? It's a bit like comparing a game made by Sony or Microsoft with something that comes as the prize in a box of cereal or some little freeware thing made by a random guy on the net. You expect crap from a fly by night upstart but Atari was king. It isn't referred to as the "Mystique era" after all.

I've played many a 2600 game, still have a box of them and a 2600 system around here somewhere, and compared to other titles ET is bottom shelf all the way. Giving them a pass because they chose to do a crappy rush job and saying it's good for something that only had six weeks development is beyond my generosity level.

[knightstorm]

But the average mom and pop in 1982, would not have realized that there was a difference between the $20 releases, and the $5 bargain releases.  They would have gotten their kids those really bad games which is what tainted the system's reputation.  Also, me saying that ET isn't bad considering it was a rush job is not me giving it a pass.  Its me saying the game could have been a lot worse.

[Greenvalv]

...the original NES and Sega Genesis game systems.

Is it just me, or were video games alot more fun back in those days, even with the crappy graphics and computer generated sound.

I look back to the days when I used to play the old NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games and remember that I had so much more fun playing those games than I have playing even some of the PS1 games and PS2.

Hell, some of the old Atari games my brother had seemed to be alot more fun than most games these days.

I personally think that most video games these days focus too much on graphics and sound quality and less on whether or not the game is actually fun to play.

Or maybe it's just my age showing.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I remember playing a Star Wars fighter game on the Genesis. Good God, am I that old? 
 
And yes, today's games, and even today's operating systems, concentrate too much on graphics and how to make a turd of a program look pretty.  Buying software today is like buying a shiny new car with an engine that hiccups and stalls.  Meh...

[Ravok]

We also tend to remember the good games while forgetting the bad, which is predictable.

It's like how oldies stations never play the songs from 1966 that really sucked.

  Nobody who has ever played ET on the Atari 2600 could possibly forget how much it sucked.

 I think game informer, ranked it with some of the all time, worst games ever.

[knightstorm]

We also tend to remember the good games while forgetting the bad, which is predictable.

It's like how oldies stations never play the songs from 1966 that really sucked.

  Nobody who has ever played ET on the Atari 2600 could possibly forget how much it sucked.

 I think game informer, ranked it with some of the all time, worst games ever.

Most of those worst game rankings have it along the top along with Custer's Revenge, and Super Columbine Massacre RPG.  Then again, maybe the fact that it is a contender for worst game among the likes of a sick rape fantasy, and a game about one of the worst school shootings in history says something.

[Panzergranate]

I can remember the original Britsih designed cartridge games system (the one Atari copied the concept from) back in the late 1970's.

I'm refering to the Radofin 1296 home computer system.

6.5 K.Bytes of user programable E2PROM (Signetics 2650 assembly language) or 2 K.Byte to 4 K.Byte third party software cartridges.

Activision started out providing software for this machine and a handful of other makes that ran the 2650 processor and adpoted the same cartride system.

Graphics were 40 x 40 and 16 colour. There was sound as well.

Wait for it.... the joysticks had 12 button keypads and were analogue, something that didn't come around again until the PCs and Macintoshes of the late 1980's and 1990's.

A few years later the Atari game system appeared. It had poorer graphics and used a different processor. It did not have user programmable cartridges either.

Nintendo??

That's "modern" by comparison!!

[Centurus]

...the original NES and Sega Genesis game systems.

Is it just me, or were video games alot more fun back in those days, even with the crappy graphics and computer generated sound.

I look back to the days when I used to play the old NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games and remember that I had so much more fun playing those games than I have playing even some of the PS1 games and PS2.

Hell, some of the old Atari games my brother had seemed to be alot more fun than most games these days.

I personally think that most video games these days focus too much on graphics and sound quality and less on whether or not the game is actually fun to play.

Or maybe it's just my age showing.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I remember playing a Star Wars fighter game on the Genesis. Good God, am I that old? 
 
And yes, today's games, and even today's operating systems, concentrate too much on graphics and how to make a turd of a program look pretty.  Buying software today is like buying a shiny new car with an engine that hiccups and stalls.  Meh...

A.K.A. Daewoo.   

[Panzergranate]

There are some on here who's first computer was made by Charles Babage.

[Akira_Commander567]

Did ya'll know that most of the remaining ET games are buried in two semi truck trailers in a landfill in Nevada or New Mexico, most people didn't try to buy the game because it was so bad. I've played it and I hated it with more hate than how much hate I have for my brothers, and that's alot of hate.

[Centurus]

Did ya'll know that most of the remaining ET games are buried in two semi truck trailers in a landfill in Nevada or New Mexico, most people didn't try to buy the game because it was so bad. I've played it and I hated it with more hate than how much hate I have for my brothers, and that's alot of hate.

Is the hate equal to those that have seen the movie Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, and hated every minute of it?

[Panzergranate]

Why didn't they unload the semis rather than bury them??

Why waste two perfectly good semis.

[Vipre]

The carts were so toxicly bad they were required to be buried in steel containers to prevent future leakage of horrid ideas. 

Watch this if you want to know what it was like playing this game. I love the running commentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DTjLG3usQo

(warning: watching ET game footage is like walking in on your parents in bed, once you've seen it there's no erasing the memory. you've been warned.)

[Panzergranate]

That was awful, but "The Great Space Race" on the Sinclair Spectrum (Timex 2068 inthe US and Canada) outsucks ET by a long chalk.

Anyone who had the misfortune to aquire that game will be nodding theor heads about now.

[knightstorm]

That was awful, but "The Great Space Race" on the Sinclair Spectrum (Timex 2068 inthe US and Canada) outsucks ET by a long chalk.

Anyone who had the misfortune to aquire that game will be nodding theor heads about now.

I looked it up on wikipedia.  Truthfully, it sound pretty cool.  Shipping the ultimate brew which gets you drunk, but with no hangover, and is nutritious.

[Akira_Commander567]

Hey, those copies of ET ARE buried in Semi trucks, I looked it up on Google, I also have a friend who's father helped to bury those copies, beshides, I prefer shoot-em up games anyway like Halo and Star Trek games.

[Star Dragon]

We should go recycle them!

Otherwise when we are long gone and the aliens come (From the movie AI) they'll go:
"Holy crap look at this! Oh hell no, we ain't gonna clone any of these guys. Better to leave them dead and protect the universe from horrors like this!!!" 

I do remember one of my favorite NES/SuperNES  games, it was a Trek game where the final battle was against a "mystery ship" in a nebula. The aggressor was TNG Galaxy class. I took it on in either a Connie or Excelsior. Hell of a dogfight! You had to out fly it and nickle/dime it cause it's weaponry was like WHOA!!! 

One of my favorites on the Gensis was the Might and Magic series...

[Akira_Commander567]

WHAT ALIENS? We are the only sentiet life in the galaxy, otherwise we'd probably would know that they're there. I would definantly know if there was.

[knightstorm]

I do remember one of my favorite NES/SuperNES  games, it was a Trek game where the final battle was against a "mystery ship" in a nebula. The aggressor was TNG Galaxy class. I took it on in either a Connie or Excelsior. Hell of a dogfight! You had to out fly it and nickle/dime it cause it's weaponry was like WHOA!!! 

Which game was this?  I thought I had played every trek game for those consoles except Star Trek TNG for the NES.

[AcePylut]

PacMan for Atari... that was probably the first major disappointment I had in a video game.  I waited and waited for that thing, expecting to play the arcade game.

But nope, got some pos game.

I still remember how if PacMan approached the "nugget" from the right side, pacman barely had to touch the food nugget to "eat" it, but if he approached from teh left side, he had to cover the thing completely.

I still remember my high score from teh arcade version... 165550 points.  I knew the pattern

[Capt Rouche]

Still plays Donkey Kong on 8bit deck.

I guess this is my hello to the world post

[Fedman NCC-3758]

Who here is old enough to remember...


 ....  playing Pong.


And watching Sky King.

[Capt Rouche]

Who here is old enough to remember...


 ....  playing Pong.


And watching Sky King.

Remembers Pong, not so much Sky-King, Does Star-Blazers count as old school?

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

I have E.T. for the Atari, who the heck knows why my daddy bought that in the first place, but after all the falling in wells, it is very satisfying to beat.

Star Raiders, Galaxian, and Joust on the 800 were so much fun.

[Dash Jones]

I think my first disppointing game was I believe Vagrant Story for the PS1.  I believe it came to be a classic, but I just remember thinking it was really bad.

[knightstorm]

Ever play Shaq Fu.  That was a game that was so bad that it was good.  I mean, the game sucked, but the storyline about Shaq traveling to another dimension to battle monsters, and save a prince from an evil mummy named Seth Ra was worth playing just for the laugh value.

[Lieutenant_Q]

For the Colecovision:

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator.  An uber Enterprise up against hordes of Klingon Ships, most of them could be taken out with a couple of phasers.  And don't forget the Photon Torpedo, A weapon of Mass Destruction.  It destroyed anything in its path, best when used when the Klingons were grouped up tight.  As the blast radius would destroy all of them.  Most Klingon ships took 2 hits to kill, the Enterprise took 9.  Five Shield boxes.  Warp, Photons, Phasers, Boom.  While you could spam Phaser fire to your hearts content, you had only four photon torpedoes.  Klingons came in two varieties, the ones that fired one pathetic torpedo over and over again, and the one that kamikazes after about 30 seconds in mission.  Each Torpedo hit did one damage, as did one kamikaze hit.  Also in most missions, were Starbases that were available to repair your ship.  The Klingons would attack those bases so you had to move around to not only save them, but get there to recharge.  One dock at the starbase repairs all of your internals, gives you one shield box back, and reloads one Photon Torpedo.  Some missions had multiple bases.  Points were awarded based on if the base had survived, and if had used the base to repair.  If you didn't use the base, you got more points, if you get a multiple of points, Scotty performs a miracle and repairs part of your ship.

[Akira_Commander567]

I've never heard of that, but have ya'll ever heard of the Starship Creator a long time ago, I used to make custom ships for my games with that thing. I always thought my ships looked awesome, but sadley my computer sucumbed to the deep with death by lightning strike, a direct hit as well.

[Nemesis]

There are some on here who's first computer was made by Charles Babage.

Custom home builds are the best.

[marstone]

anyone remember a little game by the name of Warp Factor?  It was an illigal use of SFB to make a computer game, and it also used ships from Star Wars, BSG (old series of course) came out in the very early '80's or late '70's.  I had a copy for the Apple computer not sure if it was made for others.

[Nemesis]

anyone remember a little game by the name of Warp Factor?  It was an illigal use of SFB to make a computer game, and it also used ships from Star Wars, BSG (old series of course) came out in the very early '80's or late '70's.  I had a copy for the Apple computer not sure if it was made for others.

I do.  On DOS it used a BASIC mode for the program files that could easily be reset as copy protection.  At the time I was able to analyze the ships and most of them were direct copies from SFB.

[Bonk]

How about Castle Wolfenstein, or better yet Paradroid on the C64? I loved Paradroid, still do, there are a number of remakes and the original rom runs on some C64 emulators.

[marstone]

How about Castle Wolfenstein, or better yet Paradroid on the C64? I loved Paradroid, still do, there are a number of remakes and the original rom runs on some C64 emulators.

I wasted way to many hours on Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple II.

[Panzergranate]

Way back in the mid 1980's I was an arcade engineer for a large corporation (Leisure Projects) and was based at the largest arcade in the UK on a holiday camp local to me.  I also used to vist holiday camps, night clubs, etc. all over the South of England.  I was also an acting assistant manager.

It was the best shagtastic job I've ebr had.... I've lost count of how many "up for it" girls I had back then, but that was one of the perks of the job.

One night, 'cos the staff had been good, I declared a "lock in" after midnight, clocked up 99 credits per player on Gauntlet, and we spent until past 4 AM playing.

The best moment was when it came up "Your shots now kill other players" whilst we were in a tresure room 'cos everyone just instictively turned round and blasted Elf into oblivion in unison!!

We made it past 200 levels and there are a lot of maps that you have to pass a lot of levels to see.

The Gauntlet machines wew actually an APPLE Macintosh inside and never broke down ever...... so all you die hard PC fans who claim that they'd never dirty their hands on a MAC.... if you played Gaunltlet on an arcade machine, then I'm affraid that you already have!!

[Akira_Commander567]

Thanks for that, you've just ruined my pride. I outa kill you, but I'm not because I ain't going to get myself put into jail. Also because I don't want my girlfriend to think of me as a criminal.

[Panzergranate]

I run both Macintosh and PCs here.... and I'm afraid that the Macs are better.

Pole Postion ran 4 x Signetics 2650 processors.... one for the background graphics, one for the top half animation graphics, one for the lower screen anumation graphics and one to coordinate everything. The 2650 can only address 32 K.Bytes of RAM.

Space Invaders was run by the 8080 with 16 K.Bytes of RAM and 16 K.Bytes of ROM

Most fruit machines ran (and still run) the Texas Intruments 9988 pseudo 64 bit (8 bit external bus) millitary processor normally found in air to air missiles, etc. so pretty reliable and fool proof.

[Akira_Commander567]

That was a bunch of things I didn't undestand. Could you repeat that in redneck terms, please.

[Sirgod]

Back in my day I loaded games up by typing the following.

>LOAD "WOW.BAS"<ENTER>
** Strange cassette recorder noises **
WOW.BAS loaded.
>RUN 10

Welcome to World of Warcraft!
Please enter your user name? oldfart
Please enter your password? *************

Please wait...
** Strange cassette recorder noises **

Select your character!

A> Pwnzar The Barbarian
B> Gegleg The Forum Troll
C> Bill The Destroyer of OS Competition

? c <ENTER>

** Strange cassette recorder noises **
WoW version SQRT(-1234).
Host computer: TRS-80 Coco 2

Tip of the Day: Always line up your holes for the paper on the printer to avoid jams.

You are in a well furnished room. You see a Steve staring at you!
>/hello Steve

He throws a chair at you!
>/duck

Stephen

[marstone]

ah the days of MUD's.  And heck, they are still out there to play today.

OF course you are probably refering to what would be called today an UD, just a user dungeon as there is no multi involved.  Have done many of those text adventures (even played on a computer that had no monitor, just a printer to see the output of the game.

[Sirgod]

ah the days of MUD's.  And heck, they are still out there to play today.

OF course you are probably refering to what would be called today an UD, just a user dungeon as there is no multi involved.  Have done many of those text adventures (even played on a computer that had no monitor, just a printer to see the output of the game.

Oh man same here, just read the text that came out. I still get nostalgic and play a MUD every now and then, of course those old Trek text games, Zork etc.

Good times, and the best graphics where in your head.

Stephen