Modern vs Retro (MSNBC Lays Down the Smack)

Posted by Mark Stevens on Jul 15, 2009 in Ye Olde Posts | 2 comments

MSNBC’s Tech & Gadgets blog has, gauntlet in hand, slapped retro gamers about the face with their Top 5 Reasons Modern Games Beat Retro Games article. Well, here at Retroblique we’ve picked up our Nintendo/Mattel Power Glove and slapped them right back.

Leaving aside the irony that MSNBC’s article eschews the beautiful, ‘old-fashioned’ simplicity of presenting itself on a single page, in favor of a thoroughly ‘modern’ yet terribly awkward multi-page layout (one page per paragraph!), let’s address each of their points in turn and fight the good fight for retro gaming!

Modern Games Are Cheaper

“The cost of a console game in the mid-1980s and early 1990s? Often $50 or more. The cost of a console game launched in recent years (like “Super Mario Galaxy” pictured above)? $50. In some cases, modern games are even priced between $30 and $40. Although still more expensive than movies and music, and despite a $10 “high definition” tax for select Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games, retail video games are more affordable than ever.”

Here’s how it went down the UK. A typical full price ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 game on cassette, during the mid-1980s, would set you back £7.99. Adjust for inflation via the retail price index, this gives a 2009 retail value of about £16.99. A new PS3/Xbox 360 game currently carries a retail price of £49.99.

If we turn the clock back to 1998, full price PlayStation and PC games cost £29.99. Once again, if we adjust for inflation via the retail price index, we get something which we’ll round up to £39.99.

We won’t go into the budget game price points of the late 1980s, which typically ranged from £1.99 – £4.99, suffice to say that they still work out cheaper than their modern budget counterparts.

In the United States, however, games typically had a relatively higher price point. While your average 8-bit gamer in the UK played his games on cassette, US gamers with home computers more commonly used a floppy disk drive and thus their games, on average, were a little more expensive. Also, let’s not forget that during the 80s the US, European and Japanese game markets were a lot more self-contained. You’d get imports criss-crossing the Atlantic and Pacific, but publishers pretty much stuck to their own territory and thus the price points would more accurately reflect their home country’s economy. It’s fair to say that over the last ten years or so, games have become a lot cheaper in the US than they have in the UK. (We’ll save the “rip-off Britain tax” argument for another day!)

Having said all that, the video game industry is substantially bigger now than it was during the 80s and 90s. We also now have online retailers who are able to pass the savings of their low cost operations on to consumers, which means it’s almost always cheaper to buy games from them rather than a bricks & mortar store. (And cheaper still if you’re prepared to wait about 6 months for the inevitable price drop.)

Modern Games Have Better Multiplayer Features

“Over the past five years, there has been a resurgence in party, cooperative, and massively multiplayer games. What’s more, online gaming against “live” opponents is practically standard now.”

Okay, I’ll give them this one. The 1980s definition of “multiplayer” would generally involve between 2-4 players taking it in turns to embark upon their own single player experience. We’d eventually see games offering a simultaneous multiplayer experience, such as Bubble Bobble or Gauntlet, but they’re still a far cry from today’s 32-player deathmatch brawls or substantially larger MMORPGs.

What I will say, however, is that the modern multiplayer experience does tend to physically distance players from one another, to such an extent that in some games you couldn’t necessarily tell the difference between a server full of human players and a server full of AI bots. Headsets and the ability to type at insane speeds aside, the modern multiplayer experience can feel a little cold and clinical. People are generally more interested in gameplay dynamics than they are in social interaction.

This is a far cry from the 1980s, where you and a bunch of school mates would gather to show off your gaming skills to one another, devise your own methods of competition, smack talk while games loaded, flip through the latest gaming magazines and discuss the contents therein, etc. It always made me laugh when early video game critics described the hobby as a very lonely, solitary experience. For me it was the complete opposite, where the weekends, school holidays and even the gaps between daily homework assignments were filled by three or four of us getting together to share our gaming experiences with one another. I’ll take that multiplayer experience over a game of Counterstrike any day of the week.

Modern Games Have Better Controls

“In their nascent years, video games often had only a joystick and a single button to dictate play. Fun but not ideal. In their adolescent years, games often required that a player consult the instruction manual to learn complex button presses. Fun but, again, not ideal. Today, there are more options than ever to play games.”

It would have been more accurate of MSNBC to suggest “modern games have better controllers“. True, their were hardware limitations back in the day, but it was the developer’s responsibility to work around those limitations in order to ensure you maintained optimum control over your in-game avatar. There weren’t all that many games that stepped outside the boundaries of what could be achieved with the controllers available.

Some people have argued — particularly those returning to video games after a decade or two’s hiatus — that modern games are perhaps too complex where control methods are concerned. Anyone who’s played the likes of Super Mario Sunshine or The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will certainly testify to the number of moves you’re required to learn during the course of the game. The number of ways in which the PS3′s Dual Shock controller can be used during Metal Gear Solid 4 would even scare the living crap out of anyone who last played a game with a SNES gamepad, let alone a one-button joystick.

It all boils down to that well-worn adage: it ain’t what you got, it’s what you do with it. Any controller, regardless of the number of buttons and joysticks attached to it, can become the gamer’s best friend or worst enemy, depending on how the developer implements their control system. A very fine balance has to be struck between what you want the player to be able to do and how intuitive you can make that process for them. It doesn’t matter if your controller has one or a dozen buttons, the player needs to be in the screen, not even thinking about the controls, rather than constantly staring down at the controller as if it’s a thing possessed.

There are plenty of retro games that did amazing things with just a single button joystick. Take a look at Andrew Braybrook’s Paradroid on the C64. You could pull off smooth eight-way maneuvers, eight-way firing (even fire in the opposite direction to which you were traveling without a loss of momentum) and even jump into a “capture” mode, all with a single button. Martin Walker’s Citadel, also on the C64, did all that and more within a similar game.

So yes, modern games do have better controllers, but they don’t necessarily have better controls.

Modern Games Have Better Graphics

“Video games are only fun to look at for so long. They either have it where it counts (the gameplay) or they don’t. But marry arresting gameplay with good looks, and you’re in for a lasting treat. Though blocky pixels will always have a special place in my heart, today’s games are more fluid, more artistic and more elaborate — in short, they’re downright gorgeous at times.”

Okay, this one goes without saying. No one’s trying to suggest that black & white movies are just as colorful as their technicolor counterparts either.

However, are modern games really taking advantage of the processing power available to them, or are they using it as a crutch? Back in the 8-bit and 16-bit days, consoles and home computers had a longer shelf life. To this end, developers would be challenged to squeeze as much out of these systems as possible. In many cases they’d discover various architectural oddities that could be exploited to produce results even the hardware manufacturers couldn’t have anticipated. Compare the C64 games of the early 80s with those of the late 80s and you’ll see a remarkable difference in what was possible, almost to the extent that they appear to be two different machines.

There’s no denying that today’s games look fantastic and we’re almost at the point where that holy grail of photorealism has been achieved. But what then? If every game looks photorealistic, how do we tell one from the other? This is where true visual artistry will come into play, as developers will then be required to investigate the possibilities offered by stylistic expression in order to differentiate their games from their competitors.

My point here is that 2D artists were already doing this in the 80s and 90s. With a limited number of pixels and colors available to them, artistic flair was required to grab a gamer’s attention. That’s not to say that modern games aren’t making bold, stylistic statements, but those titles tend to be the exception (see Ico, Wind Waker, Okami and Team Fortress 2) rather than the rule. Back in the day, stylistic statements were the rule. That’s why we have beautiful 2D games such as Yoshi’s Island that would lose all artistic value if translated to photorealistic 3D.

I loves me some photorealistic 3D — case in point there was a brief moment, while playing Crysis, where I actually had to stop playing because the illusion of realism was so overwhelming — but at the end of the day I’ll always prefer something that looks like it’s come from an artist’s brush rather than a photographer’s camera.

Modern Games Are More Captivating

“I played Atari 2600 and NES as much as the next guy — for entire Saturdays even. Addicting games will always have that kind of appeal. But today’s games bombard the senses on all fronts. They control better. They sound better. They look better. And they tell better stories. It’s no wonder “immersive” has become the most overused adjective in modern game reviews. I dare you to casually walk away from a game of “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.” It demands your attention.”

Okay, he wins here.

With their myriad limitations, particularly where memory and storage space were concerned, there was only so much an old game could give you. Plot, narrative, environment and ambience all had to be curtailed in the name of gameplay. As technology’s progressed over the years, we’ve been able to gradually feed those elements into our games, to the extent where we now have something like BioShock, which gives us a huge environment to explore, beautifully rendered with an art-deco style, drenched in a heady atmosphere of sounds and voices, all wrapped up with a compelling narrative that doffs its hat in Ayn Rand’s direction. Then there’s Thief: The Dark Project, Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, STALKER: The Shadow of Chernobyl, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident Evil 5.

Poor old Space Invaders doesn’t really compare.

On the other hand, there’s much to be said for a game that allows you to pick up the gamepad and enjoy a quick ten minute blast without having to invest several days/weeks/months of your life in order to unlock and fully appreciate its intricacies. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are fully aware of this need, which is why the likes of Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console and PlayStation Network are home to a large number retro games, remakes and indie titles to satisfy the ten minute gamer.

Sometimes you just want a quick snack rather than a three course meal.

Our story doesn’t end here though. MSNBC are promising a follow up article that will offer 5 reasons why retro games are better than modern games. So maybe we’ll hold back on the gauntlet slapping until we’ve heard what they’ve got to say about that.